By
JAMES H. THACH III
On the morning of 3 September 1998, the weather forecasts
called for heavy rain, and winds up to 70 mph, in the anticipated path of Hurricane Earl.
At Coast Guard Station Charleston (S.C.), crewmembers were just sitting down to lunch when
the first alarm sounded.
A sailboat had broken free of its mooring
and hit one bridge, and was now threatening another. In the rising storm, Petty Officer
3rd Class Mark Kannan worked desperately to position his 41-foot utility boat alongside
the drifting sailboat so that Seaman Dale LaRose could jump aboard to secure a tow line.
The wind was swiftly driving the sailboat toward the bridge. With only five feet to go
before the sailboat hit the bridge, they secured the line and towed the sailboat to a
local marina, then started back to the station.
But the storm had now reached full force,
and calls for help swamped channels 16, 21, and 22. Kannan's crew was sent to recover
another sailboat, adrift and threatening the same bridge. He positioned his 41-footer
downwind of the boat to take it under tow before it could hit two large sport fishing
boats and the bridge. As members of the crew prepared to leap aboard the sailboat,
Group Charleston notified them of a man in the water nearby. The crew raced to the rescue.
They spotted the man, who was not wearing
a life jacket, in water too shallow for their boat. Unable to approach, they watched as he
grabbed the anchor line of a nearby vessel and climbed aboard. Kannan notified Group
Charleston that the man was safe and returned to the drifting sailboat, which by then had
wedged itself between the two sport fishing boats, its mast battering them. LaRose rigged
the sailboat for towing, and it was towed to a safe mooring.
The radio crackled again. The man who had
fallen into the water earlier had fallen in again, not far from his original position.
LaRose and a Charleston Marine Police officer pulled him from the water and took him to
the marina. After six hours underway in the hurricane, the crew finally returned to the
station--cold, wet, tired, and hungry.
Cost-Effective
Multimission Strategy
Almost every American knows that the
Coast Guard saves lives at sea, and most know that the Coast Guard plays a critical role
in the war against drugs. But few know that the Coast Guard is the only armed force of the
United States that also has federal police authority or know that the Coast Guard examines
and licenses all commercial U.S. mariners, inspects all commercial traffic entering U.S.
ports, and is responsible for establishing the safety standards for all American-made
vessels. In short, most Americans are unaware of the full spectrum of missions assigned to
the U.S. Coast Guard, truly the nation's multimission service.
The Coast Guard has five primary mission
areas:
Safety--Saving lives and property
associated with maritime transportation, fishing, and recreational activities.
Protection of Natural Resources--Minimizing
environmental damage and natural-resource degradation resulting from maritime
transportation, fishing, and recreational activities.
Mobility--Facilitating maritime
commerce and eliminating impediments to waterways traffic, while maximizing opportunities
for recreational enjoyment of the same waterways.
Maritime Security--Protecting U.S.
borders against the flow through maritime routes of illegal immigrants, illegal drugs, and
other contraband; also preventing illegal fishing in waters under U.S. jurisdiction, and
enforcing federal laws at sea.
National Defense--Enhancing
regional stability by using appropriate maritime capabilities in support of the national
security strategy.
To protect America's national interests
and sovereignty along its coasts, in its ports and inland waterways, in its Exclusive
Economic Zone (EEZ), and on the high seas, the Coast Guard engages in activities: (a)
close to shore; (b) more than 50 miles out to sea; and (c) around the world--in short,
wherever America's national security demands the Coast Guard's presence. It has done so
since its predecessor, the Revenue Cutter Service, came into being in 1790.
But many if not quite all of the Coast
Guard's aging fleets of ships and aircraft are beginning to reach the end of their service
lives. Reliance-class (210-foot) and Hamilton-class (378-foot) cutters, built in the
1960s, are obsolete. HC-130 Hercules aircraft, some of which are more than 25 years old,
require extensive electrical and structural upgrades and modern sensors. The service's
HU-25 Falcon jets are more than 20 years old and have major engine supportability
problems.
It might seem surprising that the
smallest of the nation's armed services has such a wide range of missions. But the
officers and enlisted personnel of the Coast Guard remain "Semper Paratus"
(always ready) to fulfill their multimission mandate. They are rigorously trained to be
prepared to respond to virtually any eventuality at sea. Their vessels and aircraft are
designed and built to carry out a variety of missions. Their command and control structure
is designed to handle a broad spectrum of maritime events. Its flexibility,
responsiveness, and multimission capabilities enable the Coast Guard to be measurably the
most cost-effective agency in the federal service today. In carrying out its
search-and-rescue mission alone, for example, the Coast Guard saves not only thousands of
lives but also property valued at four times the service's annual operational budget.
Safety at Sea
July 20, 5:38 p.m.: The 855-foot
cruise ship Ecstasy was leaving Miami with 3,514 people aboard when fire broke out
in the ship's main laundry room, on the second deck. The ship's crew began fighting the
fire, and did not request any outside assistance. Coast Guard Station Miami Beach was
notified of a fire, though, by the crew of a pleasure craft in the vicinity, and station
crewmen could see the smoke themselves, so they contacted the Ecstasy. The captain
confirmed that there was a fire, but said it was under control.
Unconvinced, the station dispatched a
41-foot utility boat. The boat's crew reported flames as well as heavy smoke. Coast Guard
Marine Safety Office Miami directed the Ecstasy to return to the Miami anchorage
and established a safety zone around the vessel. Ecstasy then finally radioed,
"We need help, we need help."
The Coast Guard swiftly launched three
more utility boats, five cutters--Chandeleur, Matagorda, Maui, Point
Martin, and Point Glass--an HH-65A helicopter (from Air Station Miami), and two
HH-60J helicopters (from Air Station Clearwater, Fla.). Four commercial coastal tugs also
stood by to assist. CINCLANTFLT (commander in chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet) was kept
informed, and the Kidd-class guided-missile destroyer USS Scott was diverted from
the waters off West Palm Beach, Fla. Helicopters at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., and
elsewhere in the vicinity, were put on standby, as was the CG cutter Valiant.
Virtually every potentially available resource was deployed or put on alert.
Coast Guard teams assisted in controlling
the fire. Seven Ecstasy crewmembers and two tug personnel had to be medevaced due
to smoke inhalation. (Between 50 and 60 passengers suffered mild smoke inhalation but did
not require evacuation).
The weather was clear, the seas were only
four to six feet, and the wind, coming in from the southeast, was under 10 knots. The Ecstasy
was only minutes away from the dock. Military and civilian rescue and firefighting
resources were nearby. The crew of the Ecstasy responded well. But change only one
or two of those conditions and circumstances, and everyone aboard could have been in
serious peril.
"Serious peril" accurately
describes the Prinsendam incident, which started early in the morning of 4 October
1980, 120 miles southwest of Sitka, Alaska. The 427-foot cruise ship caught fire and began
flooding. During the 18-hour rescue operation that followed, weather conditions rapidly
degenerated: 35-foot seas, freezing rain, and 40-knot winds. The closest Coast Guard
assets were 170 nautical miles away when the distress call came in. Coordinating with the
U.S. Air Force, Canadian forces, and several merchant vessels in the area, Coast Guard
cutters and long-range helicopters rescued 563 people from almost certain death. The liner
eventually sank, but without loss of life, in what has been called the most successful
large-scale marine rescue in peacetime history.
But the challenge facing the Coast Guard
and its people is growing. Cruise ships that will carry 10,000 people are already on the
drawing boards, and the cruise industry is forecasted to triple--to 15 million passengers
annually by 2020. The Coast Guard will need far better equipment to answer the call in the
21st century.
Protection of Natural
Resources
Few activities in the world pose as big a
threat to America's marine interests as illegal fishing on the high seas with drift nets.
The Coast Guard is responsible for most of the Pacific for preventing drift-net fishing.
In late May 1998, a Coast Guard HC-130H Hercules from Air Station Kodiak, Alaska,
patrolling about 360 miles south of Attu, Alaska, detected two vessels with drift nets
deployed. The crew of a nearby Russian Navy vessel intercepted one and took it into
custody, but only after having to fire on the vessel to stop it. Because no other U.S.
Coast Guard vessel was available, the polar icebreaker USCGC Polar Sea was diverted
to investigate the second fishing vessel.
The Polar Sea tracked the vessel
for three days, until relieved by the cutters Boutwell and Jarvis. After a
five-day, 900-mile chase, Boutwell's crew finally boarded the 150-foot fishing boat
Shen Shun. But it had not been easy. The Shen Shun refused to stop and be
boarded. Boutwell's resourceful crew built a special boarding ladder that could be
secured from the cutter's small boat. As the official report states, "using the
cutter's small boat, a boarding team maneuvered alongside the rusty trawler and secured a
ladder to its side. They scrambled aboard and took control of the ship, meeting no
resistance from the fishing vessel's crew."
At the request of the Chinese government,
the Shen Shun was escorted to Shanghai for prosecution. Case closed. But over the
next week, five more drift netters were spotted in the Pacific.
The world's fish harvest more than
quadrupled from 1950 to 1996, when it reached 93 million tons. Last year, the Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations estimated that, because of massive
overfishing, only 80 million tons were available for harvest. The FAO expects the demand
to increase by 2010, to 115 million tons, however, as the world's population continues to
grow.
The United States possesses the largest
EEZ in the world, with 42,000 miles of coastline to patrol. Within the EEZ waters are some
of the world's most valuable fisheries, containing fish stocks that support a $20 billion
American industry. The question arises, therefore: If the Coast Guard is now so short of
resources that it must send a polar icebreaker to chase illegal fishermen, what will it do
in 2010?
Mobility for the Nation
The Coast Guard is responsible for the
fixed and floating aids to navigation that keep the nation's maritime freight moving, and
maintains more than 50,000 such aids, not only along the coasts of the United States, but
on every navigable river within U.S. boundaries. The Coast Guard established and maintains
the differential global positioning system that provides mariners the precise navigation
information necessary for safe operation in and around U.S. ports. The Coast Guard also
establishes and enforces the safety requirements for all U.S.- and foreign-flag commercial
vessels operating to and from U.S. ports, and operates the vessel traffic systems that
guide mariners in and out of major U.S. ports. It also licenses U.S. merchant mariners.
In short, the Coast Guard has regulatory
and management responsibility for almost 90 percent of all of the freight moved across
U.S. borders--another enormous responsibility. But in most years funding available to the
Coast Guard for that mission is less than $500 million.
As Hurricane Georges approached the Gulf
of Mexico in September, the Coast Guard began to batten down the hatches. Boaters in the
Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Texas were urged to seek safe harbor. The captain of the
port closed Gulfport, Miss., to all commercial traffic, pilots in the New Orleans area
secured operations, and the Southwest Pass and the Mississippi River outlet were closed to
all deep-draft traffic. The preparations undoubtedly helped--but nothing stops a
hurricane.
29 September: Damage assessment
began. The ports of Gulfport and Pascagoula, Miss., Mobile, Ala., and Pensacola and Panama
City, Fla., all remained closed. There was extensive damage to aids to navigation, and
potential shoaling of ship channels. Major flooding continued. New Orleans was spared,
thanks to the Category 2 storm's late turn to the northeast, but damage was nonetheless
sufficient to prevent area pilots from working, which meant that most commercial traffic
from New Orleans to Panama City had to be halted.
Coast Guard radio traffic also was
hampered because five high-level radios towers were badly damaged. Aids to navigation were
severely affected, with Pascagoula the hardest hit--virtually every aid there was damaged
or destroyed. In Mobile Bay, 30 miles of main-channel buoyage was lost. Coast Guard buoy
tenders from all over the Gulf were brought in to repair the damage and get the marine
traffic moving again. Over a dozen sailboats were sunk; 50 more were beached in Dog River,
Ala., alone. Dauphin Island, Ala., was cut in two, several barges were sunk, and over 65
percent of the piers on Mobile's Eastern Shore were damaged.
Despite its comparatively low wind speeds
(up to 110 mph), Hurricane Georges effectively stopped all commercial traffic not only on
the Central Gulf Coast but also on the river systems into and out of the nation's
heartland. All of which brings up another relevant question: What assets will the Coast
Guard need to respond to a Category 5 hurricane?
Maritime Security at Risk
If the Coast Guard had not been doing its
best to stop drugs short of America's coasts, there would have been more than 460 million
additional "hits" of cocaine last year and 100 million more marijuana joints on
the streets of America. As part of the national war on drugs, the Coast Guard's
interdiction efforts are essential--but without enough resources even the best
law-enforcement agencies sometimes lose.
12 September: The cutter USCGC Confidence
sighted a drug suspect "go-fast" traveling north at 31 knots, 90 miles west of
Martinique in the West Indies. Confidence launched its small pursuit boat, but it
had no hope of intercepting a vessel capable of 60 mph. Confidence contacted a
nearby French Navy ship and a Coast Guard aircraft for help. The go-fast began maneuvering
erratically, obviously trying to evade pursuit. A French Customs aircraft arrived to
assist with surveillance and tracking.
A British Royal Navy ship and the cutter
USCGC Adak were diverted to assist in intercepting the go-fast as it headed south,
this time running toward Venezuela. The French Navy ship then launched its helicopter to
maintain surveillance. U.S. Coast Guard headquarters in Washington granted permission for
a right-of-visit boarding and the use of nondeadly force, and Coast Guard District Seven,
headquartered in Miami, authorized use of warning shots if the vessel did not stop. At one
point, the French helicopter, hovering 30 feet over the go-fast, reported that the boat's
crewmembers were trying to foul the helicopter rotor by throwing debris. District Seven
advised Venezuela of the go-fast's intent to enter its territorial seas, and Venezuela
responded by deploying one of its own naval vessels. But the go-fast still got away. After
patrolling the go-fast's path in search of possible contraband that might have been
jettisoned during the pursuit, all of the law-enforcement assets that had been called out
returned to their normal patrol operations.
The final count of assets actively
involved in the pursuit: three U.S. Coast Guard cutters, one Coast Guard aircraft, one
U.S. Customs aircraft, one U.S. Navy aircraft, one French Navy warship, one French Navy
aircraft, one French Customs aircraft, one British warship, and one Venezuelan patrol
craft.
Only four days later, testifying before
the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations at a joint hearing on U.S. Anti-Drug
Interdiction Efforts, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. James M. Loy stated, "It is
important for this committee to know that, in my estimation, the most significant problem
we have is the lack of a surface end-game capability in the transit zone and the arrival
zone. We are getting brutalized at the moment by go-fast vessels." The situation
described by Loy apparently has persuaded him to consider the use of force by Coast Guard
aircraft. He has directed that the use of nondeadly force be evaluated, and that the
results of the evaluation be available early this year.
Another major threat facing the United
States is the migration of illegal aliens. It is the Coast Guard's job to keep illegal
migrants from reaching U.S. soil. An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people illegally migrate
to the Western Hemisphere every year. Many are smuggled in aboard ship. Most are from
island countries with little or no ability to absorb their population growth and no
economy to support it. The overall situation is expected to get worse. For instance, the
populations of the Dominican Republic and Haiti are expected to rise 17 and 18 percent,
respectively, by 2010.
Mass migrations, such as those in 1994
from Haiti and Cuba, can result in tens of thousands of migrants being intercepted, or
rescued, in a very short period. If interdiction efforts are unsuccessful, the average
cost to return a single migrant to his or her home country is $10,000 to $30,000. Without
the tools to effectively combat these threats to U.S. national sovereignty, the Coast
Guard's continued success is in question.
National Defense
The Coast Guard is an armed force with a
long history of courageous defense of the nation alongside its sister services. Its
contributions are being recognized more and more not only by U.S. leaders but also by
foreign governments. Coast Guard forces have deployed in support of diplomatic sanctions
against Haiti, and in support of the restoration of democracy in that same country. Coast
Guard forces also were deployed to the Arabian Gulf in support of Operation Desert Storm,
and USCG cutters were operating in the Gulf as recently as the summer of 1998 to help
enforce the U.N. sanctions against Iraq.
April 1998, the Arabian Gulf:
Under cover of darkness, the CG cutter Chase is carrying out maritime-interception
operations as part of a U.S. Navy surface action group (SAG). Chase spots a
potential smuggler sneaking out of the Khawr Abd Allah River. The master maneuvers to stay
within waters claimed by Iran, where U.S. warships cannot go. For almost six hours, Chase's
combat watchstanders track the suspect vessel as it hugs the Iranian coast.
There is a short distance on the eastern
side of the Arabian Gulf where Iran's territorial waters do not extend far enough for a
ship to maintain a straight course and avoid international waters. The Chase's
commanding officer hopes that this master will follow the usual practice, which is to take
the chance and maintain a straight course. Chase matches the vessel's every move,
being careful to remain covert through the use of deceptive lighting and varying speeds.
Its boarding team stands by to launch, with the cutter's rigid-hull inflatable boat (RHIB)
swung out in the davits, ready for pursuit. Chase's opportunity finally comes: The
vessel's master decides to risk cutting across international waters with his lights out.
Turbines spring to life and, at 27 knots,
Chase maneuvers to intercept. The cutter hails the vessel by radio. No response.
"Try again," says the commanding officer. The response is less than polite, and
the vessel turns north, back toward Iran. Running dark, Chase's boarding team
approaches the vessel from the opposite side in the RHIB. Because the tanker is running
very low in the water, the boarding team is able to easily step aboard. Finding no one on
deck, members of the boarding team stealthily enter the pilothouse. They surprise the
master, first mate, and helmsman. The master is politely asked to reverse course, and the
remainder of the nine-man crew is awakened and mustered on deck. Time elapsed from the
moment the Chase kicks into high gear to the encounter in the pilothouse: 20
minutes.
The Coast Guard's unique capabilities in
interdiction, night boarding, inspection, and shiphandling made this particular
arrest--and three more like it--possible for Chase in its one month in the Gulf. In
the future, the need for such operations, both overseas and along the U.S. coasts, is
expected to increase, necessitating additional Coast Guard resources.
The Coast Guard's military-engagement
responsibilities continue to increase even in the peacetime arena. The service operates
like the navies of many emerging nations do and is therefore frequently invited by these
nations to train them to protect their own sovereignty--so that U.S. forces will not have
to.
The CG also has been steadily
strengthening and expanding its ties and its working relationships with the U.S. Navy. The
new "National Fleet Concept" demands a closer USN/USCG alliance as the ships and
systems that will be used by both services are built to protect 21st-century America. It
already is apparent that the Navy will be experiencing a "low-end" shortage of
frigates, and that the Coast Guard represents the most cost-effective short-term solution
to the problem.
An Uncertain Future
"Since fiscal year 1992, the Coast
Guard has assumed increased responsibility while shrinking its workforce by nearly 10
percent and operating with a budget that has risen about 1 percent a year in actual
dollars. The commandant of the Coast Guard told the Congress in 1996 that funding was no
longer sufficient to sustain the normal pace of operations." So states the May 1997
GAO (General Accounting Office) report Coast Guard: Challenges for Addressing Budget
Constraints. Two years later, more personnel cuts have been made, no additional
dollars have been authorized, and several new responsibilities have been added to the
Coast Guard's burden. Its equipment now has reached the point where it can only be
described as, at best, operationally and technologically "challenged." The Coast
Guard lacks the people it needs, the equipment it needs, and the funding it needs, yet is
continually expected to do more with less.
In the last decade the Coast Guard has
been unable to invest for the future. Its AC&I (acquisition, construction, and
improvements) funding actually has decreased, in constant 1999 dollars, and the average
AC&I level in recent years has been less than one-third of what is required to keep
the Coast Guard modernized and fully capable of carrying out its range of missions.
Enter the Coast Guard's Deepwater
Capabilities Replacement Acquisition program (Deepwater for short). The Coast Guard needs
independent, long-range operating capabilities and the ability for sustained operations in
severe weather and sea conditions. The goal of the Deepwater project is to modernize the
service's aircraft, ships, and command-and-control infrastructure with an integrated
system of afloat, aviation, and information-technology systems that will fill those needs.
The first phase of the project is devoted
primarily to capability analysis and concept development. Its goal is to identify existing
commercial and military technologies that can be used to develop an operating system at
the lowest possible price to U.S. taxpayers. The system can then be scaled to meet any
Deepwater need.
Simultaneously, the Coast Guard is
reviewing all of its current roles and missions--and those likely to be imposed in the
foreseeable future. This first comprehensive review in 17 years will validate the
Deepwater requirements and identify possible opportunities for the Coast Guard to be more
effective and efficient in its operations. With its typical resourcefulness, the Coast
Guard already has launched an innovative approach to solve its current equipment
shortfall: Deepwater. As Coast Guard officials describe it, Deepwater is both:
(a) A mission that requires
extended on-scene capability and flexibility, ranging from the U.S. coastline to the
Arabian Gulf; and
(b) The largest and most important acquisition
project in Coast Guard history--a project, moreover, that is being approached from a
mission-based set of building standards (the recapitalization of the entire Deepwater
fleet), and not simply a cutter-replacement program.
But most of all, it is the future, not
just of the Coast Guard, but of America's inherent capability to assert its national
sovereignty and defend its own territory and citizens--and protect its overseas interests
as well. Deep-water is, in short, a unique and cost-conscious procurement concept and
project, that, if and when approved by the administration and funded by Congress, will
provide the Coast Guard the capability it needs to meet the demands of the 21st century.
JAMES H. THACH III, director of
search-and-rescue requirements at Sikorsky Aircraft, is chairman of the Navy League's
Coast Guard Active and Reserve Affairs Committee.
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