Much as Commonwealth nations often cooperate in missions at sea -- as these Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy and U.S. Navy warships (including the classic Spruance-class destroyer Fletcher, center) operated together in 2002 -- so too do today's links work together to create a clearer understanding of the news // Navy

Tea-drinkin’, “cheers”-sayin’, Bovril-eatin’, short pants-wearin’, pirate-fightin’, boomerang throwin’ links, helping you say ‘g’day’ to naval developments around the world:

• The Royal Navy doesn’t need carriers after all, a former Defence Staff chief said this week, and instead it should build more small ships to grow its fleet.
• England’s Prince Philip, Duke of Edinborough — Queen Elizabeth II’s arm candy — met an instructor of Royal Navy sea cadets this week and asked her if she worked in a strip club. Continued The Daily Mail: “The 88-year-old royal then appeared to think better of the suggestion in the current weather and joked that such an occupation would be ‘too cold.’
• The Australian navy is reeling from a new round of revelations in a sex scandal that Scoop Deck first told you about all the way back in July.
• Up in Marinette, Wisconsin, the littoral combat ship Fort Worth is about 30 percent complete, says shipbuilder Lockheed Martin.
• Russian President Dimitri Medvedev acknowledged problems in his country’s armed forces, which comprises mostly conscripts, although one analyst said the Russian navy could become an all-volunteer force.
• Costs for the Coast Guard’s Deepwater modernization program have risen again, our colleague Susan Schept reports.

The Coast Guard national security cutter Waesche transits through the San Francisco Bay Sunday for the first time en route to its homeport of Alameda, Calif. //PA3 Kevin Metcalf/Coast Guard

This must be a welcome sight for Coast Guardsmen everywhere: A new ship! Check out the second-in-class national security cutter Waesche, which is scheduled to be commissioned in May.

The Alaska Ranger sank 120 miles west of Dutch Harbor March 23, 2008. Seaman Gregory Crane and Seaman Nathan Cramer aboard the high endurance cutter Munro assist a crew member from the Alaska Ranger. // Coast Guard

A Coast Guardsman from Air Station Barbers Point will be featured in the cable documentary, “Mayday! Bering Sea,” which is scheduled to air 9 p.m. and 12 a.m. EST (6 p.m. and 9 p.m. PST) Wednesday on the Discovery Channel, according to the Coast Guard.

The documentary recounts the story of the Alaska Ranger, a 189-foot fishing vessel that sunk in the icy waters of the Bering Sea, March 23, 2008. Aviation Survival Technican 2^ndClass Abram Heller is credited with saving eight of the 42 fishermen who went into the water after the Alaska Ranger sank. Heller received the Distinguished Flying Cross. In total, crews from Air Station Kodiak and the high endurance cutter Munro rescued 20 Alaska Ranger crewmembers in 10–foot seas and 25-mph winds.

Coasties also will be featured on Oprah on Thursday when the talk show host interviews service members from the Tampa Bay area who helped rescue NFL player Nick Schuyler. To keep track of other upcoming shows, click here.

An oldie, but a goodie: Northrop Grumman's trade-show handout about the National Patrol Frigate, circa 2008 // Philip Ewing / Staff

Remember the wild, crazy year called 2008? The presidential election was going full swing … Kanye West asked a befuddled America how it could be so heartless … and in certain elite circles, the big debate was littoral combat ship v. national security cutter. Back in those golden, by-gone days, the hip crowd was saying, “hey, why don’t the Coast Guard and the Navy both buy LCSes or NSCs, or both services get a couple of each, and realize increased savings and commonality?”

Shipbuilder Northrop Grumman even issued rack-display cards for that year’s trade shows depicting its cutter with a haze-gray paint scheme.

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead took pains to explain why they didn’t like that idea: The Coast Guard’s vessel is designed for many days’ endurance at a moderate speed, hunting for smugglers in the Eastern Pacific. The Navy’s ship is a full-bore speed demon, designed to rip up the waves at 45 knots — with constant support from an oiler — and operate in a strike group with other warships. (Funny: LCS did chase some smugglers this week, though.)

After awhile, people forgot about all this. Or did they? At a hearing on Capitol Hill today, House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Ike Skelton, D.-Mo. brought the “National Patrol Frigate” concept roaring back to life:

From the transcript:

SKELTON: … [L]et me ask Admiral Roughead — I was at a shipbuilding port not too long ago. And I saw a ship being built for the United States Coast Guard. I think it’s called the National Security Cutter. And I was just wondering why that particular ship that we don’t have to redesign or reconfigure won’t do for the Navy? I’ve seen no request for anything like it or for that particular ship itself.

ROUGHEAD: Yes, sir. And we have looked at a variety of options for the type of capabilities we need to meet our — the needs of the maritime strategy. And the Coast Guard and the National Security Cutter, that ship is optimized for their missions. And as we look at what we have to do, and as a Navy that has to have versatility and agility built into our ships.

Because I think it’s important that our ships be able to provide for a range of missions, and not simply be focused on one. I would say maybe perhaps the exception to that is the ballistic missile submarine because of what its mission is.

But we have to provide for a range of capabilities. For us, speed becomes important. And that led us to the LCS. I, since becoming CNO, I’ve looked at the speed requirements again, and I have reassured myself that we’re in the right place. But what we’re building now meets the requirements that we have to deliver the type of navy the nation needs to be able to operate in the places where we expect to have to operate in the future.

SKELTON: May I ask, Admiral, for the record, ask some bright shipbuilder over the Navy Systems Command to give us the pros and cons of that particular ship, including the cost? Would you do that for our record?

ROUGHEAD: Yes, sir, I will.

SKELTON: No rush, two or three weeks, whatever.

ROUGHEAD: Yes, sir, I’ll do that.

SKELTON: And it’s easy to do, but that would — I really had to scratch my head when I saw that ship. You know, why can’t we — we have the plans and we wouldn’t have to start from scratch there.

ROUGHEAD: Yes, sir, I’ll do that.

What do you think? Could the Navy use a couple “national patrol frigates” in addition to its LCS fleet?

An advertisement to watch a sneak preview of "Modern Sniper: Coast Guard" on the Military Channel. //Coast Guard and Military Channel

The Coast Guard invited the media to attend an all-hands sneak preview in Jacksonville, Fla., of the debut of “Modern Sniper” on the Military Channel. Although Scoop Deck could not be there, we will be watching as the cable channel profiles the Jacksonville-based Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron at 9 p.m. (8 p.m. central) on Thursday, Feb. 25. Known as HITRON, the unit is tasked with stopping drug trafficking,

One sniper shot at a time.”

Coast Guard Health Services Technican 2nd Class Jeremiah Romankowski, attached to the Port Security Unit 311, administers first aid Feb. 14 to people in Leogane. // PA2 Thomas M. Blue / Coast Guard

A resourceful Coast Guard volunteer has been using social media and cell phone text messages to help rescuers find Haitians who are trapped or have been missed by food and water distributions, according to The New York Times. Ryan Bank has worked with the State Department, the Pentagon, aid groups and Haiti’s leading cell phone carrier, among other entities, to get help to Haitians.

Although cell phones calls could not get connected, text messages were easier because they used less bandwidth. Kudos to clever thinking. Bank has received more than 18,000 messages.

The Coast Guard's legendary motor lifeboat 36500 has been restored to its former luster by preservationists in Massachusetts. // David Liscio / Orleans Historical Society

Scoop Deck got a copy of February’s WoodenBoat magazine for Valentine’s Day this year (from a Valentine who, mercifully, tolerates the idiosyncrasies of a ship addict) but didn’t get a chance to give it a close read until today’s flight back from Jacksonville. In addition to some engaging write-ups and many illustrations of beautiful craft that Scoop Deck could never afford in ten lifetimes, the magazine has a great feature about a legendary Coast Guard motor lifeboat that has been restored to its former glory up in Massachusetts.

Motor lifeboat 36500 and its crew rescued 32 of 33 men adrift aboard the wrecked stern section of the tanker Pendleton 58 years ago today in an epic operation that has become a Coast Guard legend. The boat took aboard all those survivors despite having a maximum rated capacity of 12 people, creating a constant risk of being swamped or overturned. But even though 36500 saved the day, it was left to rot and ruin after being decommissioned in 1968.

That was until a group of enthusiasts got it added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003, and began the work of restoring the wood-and-canvas lifeboat to its original luster. You can find out much more about the boat and the restoration online here, and you can understand why, for as pretty as wooden craft are, they’re also a lot of work.

A Navy helicopter and a Coast Guard "fire team" will collaborate to help the Freedom stop smugglers, as in this 1999 Coast Guard encounter // Coast Guard

ABOARD THE LITTORAL COMBAT SHIP FREEDOM — Remember a few weeks ago when we wondered how this ship would use its new airborne-use-of-force capability to help stop drug runners in the Caribbean? The answer is pretty simple: The Freedom’s helicopter will put Coast Guard shooters where they need to be to stop “non-compliant vessels,” as goes the law enforcement phrase, and Coast Guard fingers will pull the triggers.

Lt. Cmdr. Roy Zaletski, Freedom’s air boss — he’s a member of its helo detachment — said when the ship needs to stop a fast-moving suspected smuggler, it will deploy its MH-60S Seahawk carrying some of the ship’s embarked Coast Guardsmen. The “fire team,” as Zaletski called it, will use the standard HITRON procedures: They’ll fire warning shots with the Seahawk’s M240 machine gun to get a speedboat to stop, and if it doesn’t, a Coast Guard sniper will put a .50 caliber round in one of the boat’s engines, forcing it to slow down.

Zaletski’s helicopter also can carry AGM-114 Hellfire missiles for use on surface targets, but he said he didn’t envision needing to use them against small, drug-carrying speedboats.

“That might get a little extreme,” he said.

The boat reportedly capsized Feb. 28 in the Gulf of Mexico when the anchor caught. Schuyler was rescued by the Coast Guard. The three others onboard drowned: the owner of the boat, Marquis Cooper, a linebacker with the Oakland Raiders; Will Bleakley, a former USF football player; and Corey Smith, a former player with the Detroit Lions.

One of the beneficiaries of the flag-football tournament and sports memorabilia auction in Lutz was the nonprofit Coast Guard Foundation, which supports the “education, welfare and morale” of Coast Guard members. Right now, that means helping out the Coast Guard members and families who were stationed in Haiti when the Jan. 12 earthquake hit.

AMT2 Lee Fenton of HITRON took aim with his .50 caliber sniper rifle at a mock smugglers' boat during a training event in Florida last March. The Freedom is training up in airborne use of force before sailing on its its trial deployment later this month // PA2 Bobby Nash / Coast Guard

Even before the littoral combat ship Freedom touched saltwater, people were talking about how it could work with the Coast Guard on counter-drug operations in the Caribbean — up to and including the notion that the Coast Guard would buy its own LCSes so it could have them full-time. Since Freedom and the Coast Guard’s first national security cutter, the Bertholf, have gone from concepts to actual ships and done actual things at sea, people don’t talk as much anymore about a Coast Guard LCS.

Still, every indication is that Freedom will be doing lots of Coast Guard missions during its trial deployment to the 4th Fleet area of responsibility; it will even have a Coast Guard boarding team for part of its cruise. If Scoop Deck were a betting blog, it’d lay good money on the notion that Navy commanders really want some exciting FLIR video of Freedom using its 45-knot sprint speed to chase down cocaine traffickers, then launching its Coast Guardsmen to finish off the take-down.

And those aren’t the only tools it’ll have: According to this Navy announcement, Freedom is undergoing “counter-illicit trafficking and airborne use of force training and certification” during a visit to Naval Station Mayport, Fla. So does that mean Freedom’s own MH-60S Seahawk helicopter will be firing on drug boats? Or that the ship will be collaborating with the MH-65C Dolphins of the Coast Guard’s Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron — aka HITRON?

Whatever happens, it sounds like the makings for some thunder in paradise.

Information Technician 2nd Class Jose Estrada, from the 270-foot cutter Tahoma, rushes an injured Haitian girl to an awaiting Coast Guard HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter Jan. 19 in Killick.//PA3 Brandyn Hill/Coast Guard

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen took time out Thursday to give Coast Guardsmen a well-deserved pat on the back for being the first responders after the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti. The Coast Guard deployed 1,000 service members, eight cutters, five planes and five helicopters over the past two weeks.  The service also stood up a Homeland Security Task Force in Miami to help evacuate American personnel in Haiti.

In a five-minute video on his blog, Allen thanked service members:

“There will be difficult times in the days and weeks ahead, but I feel our men and women are up to the challenge…You have performed superbly and I thank you.”

Just as the dock landing ship Carter Hall prepared to offload supplies and troops offshore, so too do today's links bring the latest updates about the humanitarian mission in Haiti // MC2 Kristopher Wilson / Navy

Heavy-lift helo flyin’, cargo pallets loadin’, well deck floodin’, LCU launchin’, force-for-good-bein’ links, anchored offshore and ready to deliver the latest updates on the biggest Navy amphibious operation since Inchon.

• The U.S. is sending a second amphibious ready group to join the one already on station off Port-au-Prince and delivering shipments of food and medicine. The amphibious assault ship Nassau, the amphibious transport dock Mesa Verde and the dock landing ship Ashland are to arrive in the Caribbean within a week.
• The quiet professionals of the Coast Guard are continuing to evacuate Americans, deliver supplies and help clear the port of Port-au-Prince.
• Typically the Royal Navy would be a part of such a major international response to Haiti, The Times reports, but budget cuts mean Great Britain doesn’t have its normal naval presence in the Caribbean.
• How important is the port of Port-au-Prince to getting serious quantities of relief supplies into Haiti? Galrahn’s got a great post that talks about that and many other things. Sample factoid: 13 C-17 shipments = 1 USNS Sacagewea.
• Doctors aboard the hospital ship Comfort are peeved they haven’t been able to give more aid so far.
• Our salty senior colleague Mark D. Faram, on the ground with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, has some great shots of the Marines setting up their supply drop in Leogane.

“If you like the way people almost blow up airplanes — how are we doing with our seaports? Does anybody in this room know? I argue they don’t. Let me tell you, it’s not a pretty picture. Just imagine, a ship blowing up over the Big Dig in Boston. What prevents that from happening? Or blowing up the San Diego Bridge at rush hour? I don’t think we’re ready for that. I know we’re not. And again, why not? Well, who does it belong to? Is it a Navy issue? No, we do 12 miles and out. Is it a Department of Homeland Security issue? Is it a Port of Savannah, or Charleston issue? Who owns it? It’ll get fixed when an incident occurs and we have a congressional investigation. That’s when it’ll get fixed.”

Ulrich also warned that since insurgents have become so adept at using roadside bombs, they should have no trouble planting what he called “maritime bombs,” i.e. mines, in American harbors.

So… ah… enjoy the rest of your day!

A 33-foot patrol boat similar to the one involved in a fatal accident over the weekend.//Photo by PA3 Henry G. Dunphy/Coast Guard

The Coast Guard is having a difficult December with two boating accidents — the latest on Sunday when a Coast Guard boat struck a recreational boat in San Diego and killed an 8-year-old boy. On Dec. 5, a Coast Guard boat collided with a commercial catamaran in Charleston Harbor, S.C., and two people were injured. Both incidents took place during or after Christmas parades on the water.

While the NTSB investigates the causes to both accidents, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Skip Bowen offered words of caution in his blog on Monday:

In the meantime I’m asking all of you to speak with your people regarding operational safety. This is a busy time of the year. In some areas the winter weather can create extremely dangerous conditions. ..We must operate safely regardless of the environment we find ourselves in.

The Coast Guard has released a list of its Top 11 videos, showing Coasties at their best. Why 11? Because the Coast Guard has 11 missions…

People can vote online at the Coast Guard’s YouTube channel for their favorite video in the Coast Guard’s best video of 2009 contest. Scoop Deck does not wish to skew the voting, but it does have its favorites: Check out the pirate capture and the medical evacuation from the submarine.

Sony Pictures Television

It’s “Heroes’ Week” on Wheel of Fortune from Dec. 14 to 18. Of course, every service is represented, but Scoop Deck thought you might want to know more about the sailors and Coasties playing.

Here are the bios released by Wheel of Fortune:

Coast Guard Health Services Technician 2nd Class Amber Barrick, stationed at Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater, Fla., will appear Dec. 15. Originally from Ohio, she also is a tactical casualty combat care instructor. Barrick tried out for the show at a Wheelmobile event in Orlando.

Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Chuck Paris, commanding officer of the 87-foot patrol craft Halibut stationed in Marina Del Rey, Calif., will appear Dec. 16. Originally from East Tawakoni, Texas, he enjoys jogging, surfing, and playing football.

Engineman 3rd Class Scott Mulligan, stationed aboard the dock landing ship Pearl Harbor in San Diego, also will appear that night. He has been in the Navy for six years and enjoys playing and watching sports. Both Paris and Mulligan applied online at WheelofFortune.com to become contestants and were called for an audition.

Coast Guard Marine Science Technician 3rd Class Frances Bastob, stationed at Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles-Long Beach, Calif., will appear Dec. 17. Also that night,  Cmdr. Steve Cincotta, a submarine commander stationed at Navy Mine Anti-Submarine Warfare Command in San Diego, will appear. Originally from Berwick, Maine, he is a 20-year Navy veteran. Both tried out for the show at a Wheelmobile event in Carlsbad, Calif.

Yeoman 1st Class (SW) Reggie Goins works at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, Calif. Reggie, originally from Tazewell, Tenn., has been in the Navy for 17 years and will appear on Dec. 18.

Members of the Kodiak Officer's Spouses Association help bring gifts to the remote Kodiak Island villages. // PA1 Sara Francis / Coast Guard

If you haven’t already penned your must-haves for your Christmas list, the Coast Guard has done it for you with the release of its ideas for “12 nautical days of Christmas.”

Topping this list, of course, is a marine GPS navigation system. That’s right. Come Jan. 4, the Coast Guard is pulling the plug on LORAN-C.

As the Coast Guard’s chief of media relations — Lt. Cmdr. Chris O’Neil — put it:

“Nothing says ‘I love you’ to a mariner like the gift of a marine GPS navigation system, a Coast Guard approved life jacket, boating safety course or 406 MHz electronic position indicating radio beacon.”

Here is the rest of the gift list for those who want to cut and paste:

• A 406 MHz EPIRB (make sure you register it after purchase, or rescuers may be delayed in reaching you!)
• A Coast Guard-approved life jacket
• A handheld VHF-FM radio
• A Boating Safety Course
• Vessel Safety Check from the Coast Guard Auxiliary (it’s free!)
• A Coast Guard approved fire extinguisher
• A first aid kit in a watertight container
• A seamanship book
• Nautical charts for the areas your favorite mariner frequents
• A signaling kit
• A life raft with a survival kit

The crew of the medium endurance cutter Alex Haley. PA1 Sara Francis/Coast Guard

As the Coast Guard’s mission heats up in the Arctic Ocean, the service is testing to see which boats it can use in the rough, icy waters. During the region’s brief summer, the Coast Guard sent the medium endurance cutter Alex Haley on patrol. For their 21 days above the Arctic Circle, the ship’s crew received the Coast Guard Arctic Service Medal on Nov. 20 in Kodiak, Alaska. They are the only medium endurance cutter in the fleet to have earned the medal. A hearty congratulations from Scoop Deck.

MH-65D, the latest iteration of MH-65 helicopter platform. // Coast Guard photo

The Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter is celebrating its 25th birthday today. The service accepted the HH-65A Dolphin helicopter for service on Nov. 19, 1984.

The Dolphin has served the Coast Guard well, and they have another 18 years to go in service before they will be replaced under the Deepwater program. By the end of October, the service had moved 48 of the upgraded MH-65Cs  through their third segment of upgrades. The biggest change is a new engine that provides 40 percent more power and offers greater reliability. The helicopters also have new weapon mounts. Pretty nifty birthday gifts.

The MH-65Ds began in-flight testing in March. Look for a new flight navigation system, which is common to DOD helicopters and replaces the current compass, gyro systems and GPS system.

When the $901 million upgrade is finished in 2017, the Dolphins also will have equipment that will allow them to be secured and transferred to the hangars of the new national security cutters.

It’s been a long, cold, rainy week here at the Center of Excellence, so what better way to wrap things up than by taking a mental vacation to the warm, exotic eastern Pacific? And, since we’re transporting ourselves there anyway, why not imagine some kind of motivational at-sea operations during the trip? No need to tax your brain — check out this video from the Coast Guard.

The national security cutter Bertholf interdicted four high speed vessels suspected of transporting cocaine — or maybe those guys are just dumping fish food overboard — using its MH-65C Dolphin helicopter and its small boats. Of particular delight here on the Deck were the shots of the Bertholf itself, which, as you’ll see at about 1:36, is throwing out an enormous heat plume as it runs its diesels and gas turbine at full CODAG power. Cool.

H/T: Coast Guard Capt. Bruce Baffer, who showed this movie Thursday in a presentation at a Surface Navy Association event outside Washington.

Unpronouncable name, fine-looking ship. // Coast Guard

Nothing puts a Coast Guardsman in a better mood than getting a new ship. Navy Times has had the privilege of being around when the Coast Guard showed off new vessels, all the way from the small (a Response Boat-Medium) to the large (the national security cutter Bertholf) and saw how the associated crew members glowed. And although we weren’t there Friday, it’s fair to say that glow was in effect when the lifesaving service accepted its second national security cutter, the Waesche.

Rear Adm. Ron Rabago, the Coast Guard’s top acquisition officer, signed the paperwork in Pascagoula, Miss., to transfer ownership of the Waesche from its Northrop Grumman shipyard to the U.S. government. The ship is set to sail to its new homeport of Alameda, Calif., in January.

The carrier George Washington trained with Korean warships in the Pacific last week. International cooperation was a key plank of the maritime strategy unveiled two years ago this week // MC3 Jeffrey Stewart/ Navy

The famed brown-shoe blogger SteeljawScribe — or as they’d say in Pittsburgh, “Stuhljawr-Scrub” — has reminded the Internet this week that we’ve reached the second anniversary of the unveiling of the maritime strategy (pdf), the document that was supposed to pave a clear road forward for the U.S. naval services and Coast Guard.

Asks Steeljaw: Did it? Answers Steeljaw: Kinda.

As a guidance document the strategy was useful, he writes, but it was incomplete because it contained no specifics for how many and what kinds of ships the U.S. would need to execute it. Those details were supposed to come in the “Naval Operations Concept,” the force structure document for which the world still waits. (Although incomplete initial versions have bubbled to the surface.)

The NOC, writes Steeljaw:

is increasingly important as planners inside and out of the naval services wrestle with new concepts and capabilities, the most recent example being the significant shift in BMD emphasis in the European theater … This redirection and the attendant gossamer-light expositions of how we will employ sea-based BMD in the maritime strategy has led to a fair degree of mis-information and erroneous assumptions as to general operational capabilities, requirements, and necessary force structure.  More detailed explanation, as would be found in a NOC, would go a long ways to alleviate this condition.

On the anniversary of the MarStrat, it’s worth asking: How valuable has it proved for the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard?

The abandoned sailboat discovered last week by the destroyer Cole wouldn't be the first sailing vessel to encounter problems on the open ocean // Naval History and Heritage Command

Last week the Deck brought you the case of the abandoned sailboat — a vessel discovered adrift by the destroyer Cole with a damaged mainsail and nobody aboard. At the time, there was nothing to go on but a pair of Navy photos, but now, we know what happened. Or do we?

According to a story on the Navy’s Web site, the master of the boat was rescued at sea July 14 by the Coast Guard, and his vessel has been at sea ever since. The Navy and the Coast Guard apparently contacted the guy to tell him the Cole had found his boat, so he asked the Cole’s crew to gather up some of the stuff he left aboard.

But there are still lots of holes in this story that nobody has been able to plug. A spokesman for 2nd Fleet in Norfolk said he had no information about the encounter beyond what was in the story online. And a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Area said she could find no record of a rescue at sea July 14. And nobody knew the name of this man, his boat, or what calamity forced him to be rescued by the Coast Guard.

It’s not much, but at least it confirms the crew wasn’t swallowed up by mysterious sea gas.

Can you fill in the missing pieces?

Drug runners be ye warned: The British frigate Iron Duke brought in the biggest cocaine seizure in the Royal Navy's history this week // Royal Navy

Does anyone not enjoy seeing the Royal Navy interdict drug smugglers, seize their contraband, then shoot up their vessels and sink them? If you don’t like it, don’t watch this video of the British frigate Iron Duke’s latest coup — the biggest cocaine seizure in Royal Navy history — which includes some pretty motivational footage of a helicopter machine gun raking the drug runners’ boat.

This is only the latest big takedown by Iron Duke, which Scoop Deck readers will remember from the last time it made a big drug collar out on the water. By the way, the embedded video here includes a voiceover added by the ITN network; you can see the Royal Navy’s raw, unedited video on its website here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo by PO3 Seth Johnson/Coast Guard

The air station also took part in a unique event conceived by Master Chief Petty Officer Patrick Daniels, the command master chief at Air Station Atlantic City.  Five ensigns were sent to every Coast Guard Air Station, where air crews took photos with the flags. The photos were placed in albums given to family members of the lost crew members. Each of the four families took home an ensign. The remaining flag will stay at Barbers Point. A touching feature story written by Petty Officer 3rd Class Angela Henderson details the journey these flags took. 

PA2 Thomas M. Blue/Coast Guard

The Legare patrols alongside the Senegalese Navy vessel, Poponquine.  During the six-day joint operation, several Senegalese boarding team members embarked Legare and participated in boarding and training exercises along with Coast Guard boarding team members.

PA2 Thomas M. Blue/Coast Guard

Coast Guard crew members aboard the Over-the-Horizon deployable boat from the Legare, maneuver near the cutter.

Petty Officer 2nd Class NyxoLyno Cangemi/Coast Guard photo Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Shawn Beaty, 29, of Long Island, N.Y., looks for survivors in the wake of Hurricane Katrina Aug. 30, 2005.

In honor of the Coast Guard’s birthday Aug. 4, the Naval Institute has put together a new collection of rescue photos, including historic photographs and modern images.

“While the equipment and technology have vastly changed, the Coast Guard’s ‘always ready’ spirit remains the same,” according to the Naval Institute.

And you can save 20 percent on your photo order. Check out the link for the coupon code.

The sun set on the frigate Iron Duke as it prepared to pull out of Portsmouth, England for a deployment // Royal Navy

The crew of the Royal Navy frigate Iron Duke ruined the afternoon of some suspected drug smugglers this week, when it interdicted their boat, arrested them, and then sank their vessel. The BBC has some great video of the Iron Duke’s sailors going to town on the suspects’ vessel with their cannons and machine guns — you can see it here. The U.S. Coast Guard was also along for the ride, the Beeb reported.

Iron Duke, by the by, is the same frigate that England’s Prince William served aboard last year as part of his extended stint in the British military.

As Lynn Burton climbed back onto the boat to call for help, she shot a few quick frames of the growing nest of bees on her boat. (Lynn Burton, for FLORIDA TODAY)

Holy Cow.

Florida Today reports on a swarm of bees that got tired as it crossed the Indian River Lagoon and decided to take a break aboard a small boat. The frightened boaters took refuge in the water at first, but then climbed back in the boat once they realized the bees were staying at the stern. They huddled at the bow and called in the troops. The Melbourne Police launched a rescue boat; Indialantic Police sent a personal watercraft;  the Coast Guard  launched a rubber dinghy; and the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office sent a helicopter to the rescue, the newspaper reports.

“It was funny for the first 10 seconds,”  Lynn Burton, the boat owner, told Florida Today.

PA3 Richard Brahm/Coast Guard

Capt. Melissa Bert, the new commander of Coast Guard Sector Juneau, said she has been impressed with the “Good Samaritan” spirit she has encountered in her first month on the job in Alaska. A dozen private vessels and two volunteer sea planes helped in the search for a missing boater last week after a Good Samaritan spotted an unmanned, powered canoe 34 miles west of Wrangell in Clarence Strait. The Coast Guard ultimately had to call off the rescue mission after two unsuccessful days of searching for the former Marine.
“It is amazing how many good Samaritans will help,” Bert said. “That’s very important in remote areas.”
Bert said the weather can be unpredictable, making safety measures extremely important. It is not uncommon in the winter for winds to reach 70 to 80 knots. “While it’s magnificent one moment, it can be terrifying the next,” Bert said. “Life is very tenuous here.”

Paul Conner, the search and rescue controller at Coast Guard Sector Northern New England. (Lt. Lauren Trochio/Coast Guard)

The wonders of modern communication.

Coast Guard Sector Northern New England was searching Sunday for a possible overdue fisherman out of Cobscook Park in Eastport, Maine, until a search on Facebook helped locate information which ultimately closed the case and saved up to $30,000, according to Coast Guard officials.

A park ranger who spotted a lone vehicle and trailer without a boat sitting  in an empty parking lot passed along the license plate number to the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard traced the name, address and phone number of the vehicle owner but couldn’t reach him.

Before launching a costly search, Paul Conner, the search and rescue controller, decided to use Facebook to check for any contact information on the missing fisherman or his relatives. Conner sent an e-mail to one of the man’s relatives, but Connor ended up hearing back first from the fisherman by phone. He was simply moored at a different location and was A-OK.

“Sometimes we have to be very creative in our information gathering,” said Conner. “A simple internet search can often help us locate a missing person before a boat or aircraft is even on scene.”

Later that day, in that very same district,  the Coast  Guard called off a search after a boater sailing from Block Island to Newport sent an e-mail to his family that he was safe after a storm.

“For over 200 years the Coast Guard has been using any means necessary to fulfill our mission,” said Captain Jim McPherson, commander at Sector Northern New England. “Now we can add social online media as another tool in our lifesaving kit.”

Coast Guard

Are you one of the million people who have been plucked from the water to safety by a Coast Guardsman?

The nonprofit Coast Guard Foundation announced a campaign to find out the true stories behind the more than 1 million people rescued since the creation of the Coast Guard.

The foundation launched the ‘Are You One in a Million?’ campaign June 18 in conjunction with its own 40th anniversary celebration. The foundation, initially created to support the Coast Guard Academy and its cadets, expanded its charter in 1986 to support projects that enhance the education and morale of Coast Guard members and their families.

A picture of individuals rescued and their families may be submitted with each story, according to a foundation press release. Individuals can submit their stories at www.one-in-a-million-rescued.org.

Click here to read why David Weiss of Annapolis said, “Thank God for moms and the Guard.”

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus tours Portsmouth Naval Shipyard June 15 // MC2 Kevin O'Brien/Navy

Much as experienced shipwrights apply their time-honed skills to build the steel beasts that ply the world’s oceans flying the flag of the U.S. Navy, so too are we now ready to slide this hull of links down the ways:

• Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, wrapping up a two-day trip to the shipyards of the Northeast, liked what he saw at Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine; and also liked Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, outside Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
• China’s naval enthusiasts are getting pumped about designs for the People’s Liberation Army-Navy’s new aircraft carriers.
• Russia’s newest frigate has come back from sea trials, after 19 years under construction.
• Rep. Gene Taylor, D. Miss., chairman of the House Armed Services seapower subcommittee — who is pretty plugged in with Navy shipbuilding — can’t be bothered with Twitter or Facebook. He’s on YouTube, though.
• Three Coast Guardsmen have joined the Navy frigate Crommelin off Hawaii, patrolling for illegal fishing vessels.

Allen expounded on one of the statements he made Tuesday at the Arctic Symposium at the Naval Academy , where he mentioned two things that keep him up at night. The first is something – accidents, oil spills, etc. — happening in the Arctic, where the Coast Guard does not have a presence. The second thing is the potential danger of  small boats.

“If I were to give you a common thread between the Mumbai attacks, piracy off the Horn of Africa, these self-propelled semisubmersibles that are coming up from South America, the Cole attack – the common denominator on all those are unregulated small boats. It’s the modality of attack.”

Capt. Timothy Close, the Coast Guard’s captain of the Tampa port, sat in on the meeting. Apparently, luxury boat owners have their own nightmare scenario to worry about: Migrant smugglers are stealing high-end boats along the west coast of Florida to do their dirty work. Here’s what Close had to say:

“In a couple of cases they’ve had GPS locator chips in the boats, and we actually got one phone call from a guy who was somewhere in Oklahoma. He called the local police down in Marco Island saying, ‘Hey, I just got a page my boat’s being moved.’ So they went and got that boat back immediately and arrested a couple of folks, too.”

Pacific Missile Range - The Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf conducts a test launch of a MK-234 NULKA round June 9, 2009. The Bertholf is the Coast Guard's newest and most advanced large cutter. Photo Courtesy of Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division.

Check out the first in class National Security Cutter Bertholf conducting a “successful” missile testing of its Decoy Launching System at the Pacific Missile Range SoCal OPAREA on June 9.

The crew of the 418-foot cutter, the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dalhgren Division and the Navy Research lab  launched two MK-234 NULKA rounds that hover in air while attracting incoming anti-ship missiles. The successful completion of the missile test fire was the first phase of Bertholf’s two-month national defense patrol, according to the Coast Guard.

Sweet.

Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard

Looks like some knuckleheads are running out of things to do in Alaska.

The Coast Guard in southeast Alaska is asking the public’s help to catch vandals who are shooting up buoys, moving them off their moorings and stealing their batteries.

Apparently, this isn’t the first time that Coast Guard Sector Juneau has had to deal with this. In 2007, McDonald Rock Lighted Buoy in Stephens Passage sunk after being shot by a large caliber rifle, according to a Coast Guard press release.

Vandals face a fine of $2,500 and up to one year in prison.

U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Michael Anderson

If you fall off your boat, it just might be your destiny.

That’s something that was a little hard for Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen to swallow during his trip to the Arctic region last year.

Allen had everyone’s ears when he spoke Tuesday morning at the Naval Academy on the Coast Guard’s emerging role in the Arctic. As climate change continues to decrease ice cover, the service has its work cut out for it in addressing how to handle increased shipping traffic, commercial fishing, eco-tourism and drilling for natural gas and oil.

Allen emphasized the need to engage the local indigenous population to learn how to handle the challenging weather conditions. He brought up a story on how difficult that might be. During a trip to Point Barrow, Alaska, in August, the Coast Guard offered the local population boating safety courses. The opportunity to get free life vests fell flat.

“They won’t wear a life jacket. It’s orange, and it can be seen by a polar bear. [And] they said if you fall out of a boat, you must be intended to die … so we need to do some outreach.”

His comments came at the the Third Symposium on the Impacts of an Ice-Diminishing Arctic on Naval & Maritime Operations, which runs Tuesday to Thursday.

Pete Barry posted a record of 262-216 (.548), and he finishes his collegiate career with a record of 413-315 (.567) in 27 seasons, according to an Academy press release.

Coast Guard Tug Association

This is probably cold comfort to Clevelanders still smarting from the Cavaliers’ elimination from the NBA Playoffs, but a new ship is on its way to joining the city’s respectable group of historic vessels on the lakefront across from downtown. The 110-foot Coast Guard cutter Apalachee, a large tug that spent its career protecting and serving mariners in Baltimore and Portland, Maine, will become Cleveland’s latest museum ship. Crewed by a salty band of former Coast Guard ‘tuggers,’ the 66 year-old Apalachee arrived in Cleveland on Tuesday under its own power.

The Apalachee will join the William G. Mather Museum, a classic old steam-powered steel-hauler tied up near the Great Lakes Science Center. Also tied up not far away is the World War II submarine Cod. Mather, Cod and now the Apalachee should make a pleasant trifecta for certain kinds of tourists with an idle afternoon in the City of Industry.

PA3 Annie R. Berlin/Coast Guard

If you were an heir to the throne of the United Kingdom and you were making your first official visit to the United States, who would you ask to hang out with? The Coast Guard, of course. England’s Prince Harry toured New York Harbor May 30 aboard a Coast Guard response boat-medium.