In the Pacific, U.S. Coast Guard Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutters, operating out of Guam and Hawaii, are breaking one operational record after another. It has been a good run for the six relatively new ships, but, after six years in the theatre, and with few local options to maintain this hard-charging forward-deployed fleet, these vessels will inevitably break down.
The Coast Guard’s operational tempo is unsparing. In August, the Coast Guard’s three Guam-based cutters celebrated the completion of four patrols over 44 days. One of the three ships, the USCGC Myrtle Hazard (WPC 1139) deployed for two weeks, enjoyed a few weeks at home, and then went right back out to sea for 46 days, visiting Australia and Papua New Guinea. The record-breaking patrol wrapped up this week, soon to be followed by another.
These efficient little Fast Response Cutters, operating in the heart of a contested region, offer a big, prestigious change for the oft-overlooked Coast Guard. And, while everybody at the Coast Guard Headquarters is happy now, caution is warranted. If the Coast Guard fails to drive for a long-term, all-of-government approach to the recapitalization of Pacific-based maritime support infrastructure, and chooses, instead, to sacrifice solid maintenance for their headline-grabbing missions, the Coast Guard’s newfound glory will prove fleeting.
Big Jobs Going To The Coast Guard’s Small Ships:
After a rough start, the Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutter has made the Coast Guard a geopolitical player. In the Pacific, almost overnight, the Coast Guard’s motley fleet of old and short-ranged patrol boats disappeared, replaced by platforms ready to support a swashbuckling melding of diplomacy and maritime security.
The Coast Guard’s newfound geopolitical relevance is a big change. Previously, the Coast Guard’s aged 110-foot Island-class patrol boats—ships the Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutters are replacing – had far less reach. Guam-based Island-class cutters would occasionally travel to the Republic of Palau or patrol the western parts of the Federated States of Micronesia. The Hawaiian-based patrol boats, for their part, might venture to American Samoa or the remote Johnston Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, patrolling U.S. exclusive economic zones and the high seas, but that was it.
Today, the longer-legged Fast Response Cutters have made the U.S. Coast Guard into a far-reaching floating embassy throughout Oceania. Since first arriving in Hawaii in 2017, Hawaii’s three Sentinel-class cutters have traveled to French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. They’ve also patrolled waters off Niue and Tokelau.
Guam-based Fast Response Cutters have, since their late 2020 arrival, traveled even farther, reaching from the Northern Mariana Islands to Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Nauru. In addition to those visits, they’ve patrolled waters off the Solomons Islands and Kiribati. A visit to the Philippines may soon follow.
As these ships continue to prove their worth, advancing pressing U.S. diplomatic and national security goals, they’re in more demand than ever. Coast Guard crews are responding with aplomb, taking on temporary duty personnel from elsewhere to ensure they aren’t sailing short-handed while extending their stores capacity on cruises by lashing extra freezers to the decks.
The ships are handling the long cruises too. But the big problem is that these ships are at risk of out-sailing their support networks. The Coast Guard’s hard-charging Pacific sailors have revealed several concerning deficits in Coast Guard operational and maintenance support. Operational challenges are being addressed, but, without solid maintenance support, the Coast Guard will, in time, struggle to maintain their blistering pace of engagement in the Pacific.
The U.S. Needs High-Level Maintenance Options In The Pacific:
On both Hawaii and Guam, the Coast Guard has done a great job of establishing reliable hubs for Sentinel-class cutters, coordinating the commissioning of new shore facilities with the arrival of new ships. The Service’s Director of Operational Logistics is actively expanding an expeditionary support team (DOL-X) as they work to stand up a new base team within the Coast Guard’s existing physical Guam footprint.
It has worked well. On Guam, locals used the Coast Guard’s storm-hardened Fast Response Cutter support facilities to shelter critical gear from a typhoon. Locally, the Guam-based weapons augmentation team and a wide-ranging maintenance augmentation team have moved mountains to keep their Sentinel-class cutters at sea and functional, and their high level of local engagement throughout the Pacific are underestimated force multipliers.
The foundations are set for growing the Coast Guard’s maritime footprint in the Pacific. But now, to keep these ships performing well over the long term, the Coast Guard needs viable forward facilities for conducting depot-level maintenance.
Despite their enviable performance record, the Coast Guard cannot simply wave away heavy, higher-level depot maintenance for the Sentinel-class fleet or any other Coast Guard vessel.
According to a United States Government Accountability Office report, Fast Response Cutters need to be pulled out of the water every four years for basic preventative maintenance. On average, the four-month effort handles corrosion concerns, new hull coatings, electrical upgrades, shaft replacements and so forth—everything a far-ranging ship needs to stay functional. As the current refit of the Fast Response Cutter John McCormick (WPC-1121) demonstrates, a $3.65 million refit is a small price to pay to help keep a $65 million cutter fully mission capable for another four to five years.
As the ships age, they will, after being beaten up by non-stop operations in the deep Pacific, need an occasional emergency dry dock to fix an emergent casualty.
That’s going to be a problem. In the 4,000-mile stretch of sea between Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines, there’s very little maintenance support on offer. Guam currently has absolutely no dry dock or ship-lift facilities. And, right now, Hawaii has little ship repair capacity to spare either. Rather than get an in-theatre refit, Hawaii-based Juniper-class seagoing buoy tenders must spend an extra month trundling some 7,000 miles to get fixed in Baltimore at the U.S. Coast Guard Yard. While that may make sense for big ships facing 15-month mid-life refits, beat-up small ships with serious maintenance issues cannot be counted upon to make the trip. America’s fleet of pint-sized performers needs local deep maintenance options throughout the Pacific.
Dependable, regular maintenance is critical requirement for the Coast Guard’s small cutters. With the procurement of the Sentinel-class cutter, the Coast Guard has done an amazing job of packing the capabilities of a mid-sized cutter in a patrol boat footprint. By distilling the work of a medium-endurance cutter—ships of 210 to 270 feet, crewed by a force of 75 to 100—into a trim 154-foot craft, staffed by some 24 “coasties”, the Coast Guard has taken modern theories of efficient maritime staffing and, somehow, made it all work.
But these trim ships lack the redundancy other, larger craft may enjoy. If, on a Fast Response Cutter, the boarding launch breaks, the ship will struggle to perform basic law enforcement or search and rescue missions. Unlike a larger cutter, with a spare boat, the Sentinel-class cutters need to keep their small boat and other gear in a far higher state of repair. Lacking redundancy, they simply cannot operate when things start breaking.
Deferred maintenance is stacking up. Already, the Hawaii-based Fast Response Cutters—which haven’t seen a dry dock since their 2017 arrival in theatre—are likely to need at least one to two months of extra repair work.
Where The Fleet Goes, Maintenance “Fleet Train” Must Follow:
For better or worse, the Coast Guard is positioning itself to be a sacrificial “forcing function” to encourage wider U.S. investment in forward maintenance resources in the Pacific. By pushing more and more ships into the Pacific theatre, and then pushing those ships to the absolute limit, America’s maritime law enforcement agency is developing the beginnings of a business case by creating a steady demand signal for local, in-theatre maintenance support.
The Coast Guard’s Pacific tempo is increasing. Six 4500-ton Legend-class National Security Cutters, among the Coast Guard’s largest, most sophisticated ships, are currently based in the Pacific. In 2019, the long-legged, frigate-sized ships made their first tentative forays into the western Pacific. Four years later, at least three are set to make long patrols throughout the Indo-Pacific this year alone.
More ships are coming. In 2024, an old-but-refreshed medium-endurance cutter will arrive in the region, serving as something of a roving U.S. embassy, small-boat tender and maritime engagement schoolhouse.
Once the 3700-ton Heritage-class Offshore Patrol Cutters arrive, the first four will be based in the Pacific.
And, of course, if Congress approves, at least four additional Fast Response Cutters may flow into Oceania.
At some point, one or more of those vessels will need help, broken either by the Coast Guard’s daunting pace of operations, or by age, accident, confrontation or some other mishap. New ships are not immune. In 2020, the USCGC Waesche, a National Security Cutter on an initial patrol through the Western Pacific, suffered a spectacular engine fire and turned to the American Navy base in Yokosuka for emergency support.
With the Fast Response Cutters paving the way, Guam makes a strong candidate for a larger Coast Guard presence and forward maintenance hub. With better maintenance facilities, Offshore Patrol Cutters and other Coast Guard and other U.S. government ships can use Guam as a central base, moving forward as needed.
But Guam must start from scratch. A major ship repair facility during the Cold War, Guam’s military ship repair facilities were completely cut by the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission. Privatization didn’t go well, and two big floating dry docks, after years of poor maintenance, vanished in 2016. In 2018, even the Navy mothballed their local repair facility, offering nothing to replace it.
The situation got worse this year. The last small drydock in Guam was sunk during Typhoon Mawar, assessed as a total loss. While local agencies have expressed ongoing interest in diversifying the island’s economy to support surface repair, workforce development, and building up this capacity, the island completely lacks a dry dock.
With an important mission, new ships and an increased level of Congressional attention, the Coast Guard can help encourage an integrated, all-of-government effort to invest in Guam’s long-neglected waterfront. For the Coast Guard, a new depot, stockpiling replacement cutter engines and other spare parts, is a good start. A floating dry dock or ship-lift, coupled with new machining and a berthing barge for U.S. government maintenance fly-away teams could—and should—follow, along with physical space for beefed-up medical, child-care and housing support for Coast Guard families, crews and maintenance personnel.
Sure, successful deployments with fresh, relatively new ships are a nice public relations boon. But nothing demonstrates America’s long-term commitment to a lawful and orderly Pacific than a Coast Guard-led push for better maintenance and support facilities in the Pacific. If successful, it’ll keep U.S. Government ships from breaking down and help Coast Guard cutters to keep breaking the things they should—operational records, maritime criminal gangs, illegal fishing networks and, ultimately, China’s plans for Pacific hegemony.
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