This morning I was reminded of the loss of C-130 Rescue 1705 and her crew, having been directed to a facebook page by a Canadian friend, Ken White. You can find it here.
My analysis of the incident is here.
Tribute to “Rescue 1705”
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Category Archives: Uncategorized
USCG Adventures–CIMSEC
CIMSEC (Center for International Maritime Security) does a weekly podcast they call “Sea Control.” This week, they talk to James Daffer, a USCG Mobile Training Branch member about his experiences.
Smuggling in Large Vessels Using the Rudder Trunk
Officerofthewatch.com reports a bit different hidden compartment smuggling scheme, using the rudder trunk to smuggle contraband or even people.
A New Ship Shape–Zumwalt, DDG-1000
The design of the Zumwalt, DDG-1000, isn’t likely to influence Cutter designs much, but it is interesting and she is nearing completion. Her christening party had been scheduled for Oct 19, but has been delayed due to the government shutdown. Take a a look at Defensenews’ photos.
Crew Rotation Discussed
Sunday, 13 Oct at 1700/5pm (Eastern U.S.) the podcast “Midrats” will air Episode 197: Sea Swap & Small Unit Leadership
If you catch the live podcast, you can join in the online discussion, but if you miss it live you can still hear the archived version. It will last approximately an hour.
The topic is the Navy’s version of crew rotation. The guest speaker will be LT Hipple, a surface warfare officer and graduate of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. He is author of a July 2013 US Naval Institute Proceedings article, “Sea Swap – Its a Trap” and Director of the Center for Maritime Security’s (CIMSEC) NEXTWAR blog and hosts the Sea Control podcast.
The Navy does have even stronger motivation for crew swaps than the Coast Guard since it is desirable to avoid the long transit from homeports in the US to distant operating areas.
We’ve discussed crew swaps here before:
Basically I favor other forms of augmented crewing that will retain some sense of ownership, provide more days away from homeport for the ship, but retain the current approximate 185 days away for the individual crewmembers by a combination of leave, temporary assignment to support facilities ashore for crewmembers, and temporary relief for critical crew members by personnel with recent experience in the type, from a personnel pool, perhaps in the form of a squadron staff.
Venezuela/Guyana Maritime Border Dispute
Map of Venezuela and Guyana with the area of Guyana claimed by Venezuela shown in Gray. Venezuela’s waters and EEZ shown in darker blue. From Wikipedia, Source: Shadowxfox by Sparkve
BBC is reporting a US operated oil exploration vessel has been “detained” by Venezuela. Five Americans are reported among the crew.
The ship sails under a Panamanian flag and is owned by Singaporean marine surveying company.
“Our first concern is the safety of the crew of the MV Teknik Perdana research vessel, which was under contract to our company and conducting a seafloor survey on behalf of the government of Guyana,” said a spokesperson for Anadarko (based in Woodlands, TX–Chuck), Brian Cain.
“We are fully cooperating with the Government of Guyana, the US coast guard and embassy personnel in an effort to achieve the safe release of the crew and vessel,” Mr Cain added.
Venezuela and Guyana have a dispute with roots going back to the 17th century, over the Essequibo region that includes almost 60% of Guyana, 159,500 square km between the Cuyuni River to the west and the Essequibo River to the east.
Since the maritime boundaries are based on the land borders, the maritime borders are also in dispute. Tempers had been relatively cool over this dispute. This is probably just a “shot across the bow” by Venezuela, as a warning to its much weaker neighbor. Still, for Coast Guard units operating in the area, it might be worth keeping in mind.
US Antarctic Research Program, Victim of Shutdown
The German Navy blog Marine Forum reports,
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Ten New Canadian Cutters
MarineLog is reporting that Canada’s Ministery of Public Works and Government has awarded a contract valued at an estimated $3.3 billion (Canadian) to Seaspan’s Vancouver Shipyards to build an additional 10 non-combat vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard,
The additional ships are five Medium Endurance Multi-Tasked Vessels (MEMTVs) and five Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs).
Surprising I haven’t seen any discussion of these ships. The Canadian dollar is worth about $0.965 US so these ships average over $300M so they should be comparable to the Offshore Patrol Cutter. The OPVs might be more Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships, but that seems unlikely since they would have almost certainly referred to them as AOPS rather than OPVs.
Anyone have information on these ships?
Gibbs & Cox Designed One of the OPC Contenders
There is a small post with an interesting paragraph from gCaptain that indicate America’s premier warship design firm has provided a design for the Offshore Patrol Cutter competition.
“…Their (Gibbs & Cox’s-Chuck) fingers are crossed for the U.S. Coast Guard’s decision on the design of the next Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC). 5 firms are rumored to still be in the running including Bollinger, Eastern Shipbuilding, General Dynamics BIW, Huntington Ingalls and VT Halter Marine. Biben notes the decision is expected by the end of February in 2014.
Since we think we know the origins of the designs for Bollinger, Eastern, and VT Halter, that suggest either the Huntington Ingalls or Bath Iron Works entry is a Gibbs & Cox design. (f’m hoping for Bath, since their design has not been made public yet.)
Earlier we talked about the possibility for a Gibbs & Cox design for the OPC here. That ship might also have been an LCS replacement, but the ship discussed, at 400 foot long and 3500 tons, now sounds too large for a program that now emphasizes “affordability” over everything else, unless the Navy is also interested in using the design.
Coast Guard Performance Metrics–DHS IG
Fiercehomelandsecurity has a short report on the findings of the Department Inspector General regarding how the Coast Guard is meeting its goals for the five missions that are considered “Homeland Security missions.”
Hopefully I will be able to take a closer look at this 40 page report in the near future.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 