New Fast Response Cutter arrives in Alaska as US Coast Guard bolsters regional forces

Fast Response Cutters are being homeported in Kodiak, Alaska, pictured here, the US gateway for Arctic patrols and related naval operations. (Janes/Michael Fabey)

The US Coast Guard (USCG) acknowledged the arrival of a new Fast Response Cutter (FRC) in Kodiak, Alaska, on 29 January, a week after it confirmed it was surging additional assets to the state to increase USCG presence and focus in support of executive orders signed by President Donald Trump to better secure US borders soon after he was sworn in on 20 January.

The USCG had already started to deploy the 154 ft (46.9 m) Sentinel-class FRCs to Alaska nearly eight years ago to enhance coastguard patrols in region. At a speed of 10 kt, the range of the FRC is about 2,500 n miles (4,630 km), the USCG reported. By contract, the range of the vessels being replaced by the FRCs, the 110 ft (33.5 m) Island-class cutters, is about 1,600 n miles (2,963.2 km).

Besides the greater range, FRCs also have more survivability than the Island-class boats, USCG FRC commanders told Janes, enabling the service to better conduct patrols out to the Bering Sea, Bristol Bay, the Gulf of Alaska, Southeast Alaska, and the Inside Passage of the Pacific Northwest.

FRCs can launch and recover cutter boats from astern or via side davits and they have improved seakeeping and habitability, the USCG said. The ships also host the USCG's SeaWatch command, control, communication, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance system, which includes sensor fusion capability on bridge screens. Recent SeaWatch upgrades on FRCs enable the system to separate classified and unclassified local area networks (LANs), expanding communications between the cutters and small boats.

The USCG commissioned FRC John McCormick