The Coast Guard Cutter Bluebell sits moored on the Willamette River waterfront in Portland, Ore., June 4, 2015. The Bluebell, which celebrated her 70th anniversary this year, is one of many ships participating in the 100th year of the Portland Rose Festival. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Chief Petty Officer David Mosley.)

The Congressional Research Service has issued a two page look at the Coast Guard’s Waterways Commerce Cutter (WCC) program.

The program is expected to replace 35 small tenders, including 18 WLRs, 13, WLICs, and four WLIs, with the first vessel completed in 2025 and all delivered by 2030.

I am passing this along from the MyCG web site. 

Coast Guard Foundation’s Tribute to the United States Coast Guard from Our Nation’s Capital

Oct. 27, 2020 —

Sometimes you need to back away from the details to take a look at the larger picture. Sept. 17, the Commandant released the “Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing Strategic Outlook”. There have been a number of reports that indicate the Coast Guard is taking this seriously and in fact started working the plan even before it was published.

On Sept. 3 we had a report of USCGC Bertolf’s joint patrol with the Ecuadorian navy off Galapagos Islands, August 25-29.

Sept. 22 we had a report that USCGC Waesche had had a fire on Sept. 20, while on deployment to the Western Pacific .

Sept. 23, we got this report of cooperative fisheries enforcement with the Royal Bahamian Defence Forces, Coast Guard, RBDF seize more than 12,000 lbs. of illegal catch off Bahamas

Oct.7 we got a report that USCGC Douglas Munro had just completed a two month patrol in the North Pacific, not an ALPAT, Operation North Pacific Guard 2020.

Oct. 8 we got this report indicating that the Coast Guard would continue to do capacity building in Africa. Navy, Coast Guard Keep Up Operations in Africa.

And most recently, Oct. 24, we learned that not only would we be “strategically homeporting significantly enhanced Fast Response Cutters … in the western Pacific,” but that basing cutters in America Samoa is being considered. “US to base Coast Guard ships in western Pacific to tackle China”

Taken together, these seem to indicate that the Coast Guard is taking on Illegal, Unregulated, and Unreported (IUU) fishing, particularly Chinese IUU fishing, which is the most egregious, not only in the US EEZ, but also internationally in a cooperative manner.

The line from Jaws comes to mind, I think we are going to need a bigger Coast Guard.

CNN reports,

“British armed forces forcibly boarded and regained control of an oil tanker in the English Channel on Sunday evening following reports of a suspected hijacking, according to the UK defense ministry.”

As we learn more I will add in comments.

U.S. Coast Guard Ensign Morgan Garrett, 24 years old, from Weddington, N.C., died in an Oct. 23, 2020, crash of a Navy T-6B Texan II trainer aircraft in Foley, Ala. US Navy photo.

US Naval Institute News services has identified the two killed in the crash of a U.S. Navy T-6B Texan II training aircraft. They were U.S. Navy Lt. Rhiannon Ross, a 30-year-old instructor pilot, and U.S. Coast Guard Ensign Morgan Garrett, a 24-year-old student pilot.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.