J. Dillon
07-06-2005, 09:07 AM
to help solve some of it's maintenance problems ?
JD
Sailing Far From Smooth
USA TODAY
July 6, 2005
KEY WEST - The 210-foot Coast Guard cutter Decisive is an imposing figure on the horizon as it slices through turquoise waters 10 miles off the Florida shore.
But from the bridge above the deck to the bilge below, Cmdr. Steve Baynes' ship is in shambles.
It's week three of a six-week patrol, and the Decisive has a fuel pump leak, a broken water heater, haphazard radar and global-positioning system, faulty air conditioning, a major hydraulic leak in a patrol boat, high-frequency radios that don't work and a broken anchor winch.
When they're not racing to make emergency repairs, members of Baynes' crew, some suffering from mold-related respiratory problems, replace the saturated rags tied around cold-water pipes that drip onto their bunks at night. They also mop up sewage that routinely backs up and floods their quarters.
In their spare time, they lift weights in a tiny laundry room where rusty washers and dryers hum and a wall-mounted thermometer reads 100 degrees.
And they labor over machine tools, making parts from scratch for mechanical equipment so old that the manufacturers have long since gone out of business.
Coast Guard officers such as Baynes and the men and women they lead have been contending with such problems for years.
While the average age of the Navy's frigates, destroyers and other "surface combatants" is 15.2 years, and the average age of its supply and refueling ships is 20.5 years, the Coast Guard uses ships nearly twice as old, according to the Government Accountability Office. The average age of the Coast Guard's 14 210-foot cutters is 37.3 years, and the average age of its dozen 378-foot cutters is 35.3 years.
"It's just getting more and more difficult to keep these old dogs going," says Baynes, commander of the Decisive's 75-member crew.
The Coast Guard's unofficial motto is "We can do more with less."
"As admirable as that stance is," Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, says, "the cold, hard truth remains that the Coast Guard is experiencing a record number of casualties and mishaps like never seen before, and it's becoming simply unsafe for our young men and women to serve aboard these aging assets."
Given the Coast Guard's new anti-terrorism duties, "it's a disgraceful state of affairs," says maritime security expert Stephen Flynn, a former Coast Guard officer.
With homeland security added to the Coast Guard's responsibilities, security experts and members of Congress say it's time to give the Coast Guard the tools it needs to help protect the nation. They're pushing to speed up a 20- to 25-year, multibillion-dollar program to replace the Coast Guard's "deepwater" fleet, the 88 large ships and 186 aircraft capable of operating many miles offshore.
New mission
The Decisive has been patrolling U.S. waters for nearly 40 years. In the 1970s, it enforced fishing zones in the frigid waters off northern New England. In the 1980s and '90s, it was based in Florida, where the crew seized more than 125 tons of cocaine and marijuana and rescued more than 2,500 Haitian and Cuban migrants trying to get to the USA.
Today, the Decisive mostly patrols Caribbean waters, sometimes a few hundred miles offshore, as part of what has become the Coast Guard's most important mission: protecting the nation from terrorism.
That work is being compromised by a fleet that was well beyond its prime even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Last summer, the 9/11 Commission reported, "While commercial aviation remains a possible target, terrorists may turn their attention to other modes. Opportunities to do harm are as great, or greater, in maritime or surface transportation."
The Coast Guard, which became part of the Homeland Security Department in 2003, is responsible for stopping terrorists who could try to smuggle weapons of mass destruction into the USA through its ports.
In addition to its traditional missions of boat safety, migrant and drug interdiction and fisheries enforcement, the maritime military service must board and inspect cargo ships bound for U.S. ports, share intelligence about threats and possible efforts to smuggle terrorists or weapons into the country, and conduct surveillance on the high seas.
Like much of the Coast Guard's "deepwater" fleet, the Decisive is in very rough shape.
Baynes says its problems affect its new mission:
*About half the time, he can't send his 24-foot "over-the-horizon" boat on night patrols to look for migrants, drug smugglers or anyone trying to illegally enter the USA because the ship's high-frequency radios and Global Positioning System devices aren't working. To send six-man teams out of sight of the ship without radios and GPS would put them in too much danger, Baynes says.
*His ship often can't detect other vessels even a couple of miles away because its radar system is old and temperamental. When it goes down -- which it does at least once a day -- Baynes' crew relies on a small, inexpensive radar system available at any marine supply store for use by recreational boaters.
"We're pretty limited in figuring out who's out there and what they're doing," Baynes says.
*The communication systems are so primitive that "half the time, we can't even talk to other Coast Guard ships," he says.
*Crewmembers have to spend so much time on repairs and maintenance -- often 18 hours a day -- there's no time for training or safety classes.
"Crew fatigue is one of the biggest things I'm worried about," Baynes says.
Chief engineer Lt. Greg Tarpey says he can't even begin to catalog all the things that have gone wrong on the Decisive since it set sail May31.
Migrant rescues
While contending with all the breakdowns, crewmembers have had to handle scores of migrants plucked out of the perilous waters. In mid-June, on the 18th day of the Decisive's latest patrol, Baynes and his crew took on 99 Cuban migrants. One group of 26 had been floating on a ramshackle boat for 21 days. When the Coast Guard found them, two were unconscious.
Baynes is mindful of what probably would have happened to the migrants if his cutter hadn't been patrolling the area. He's also mindful of the new stakes after 9/11. After 20 years in the service, he's used to the "do more with less" approach.
But the problems have become "a constant drain on us," he says. "It's going to get to where one day, I'm just going to have to call my commanders and say, 'I can't sail.'"
*"Dire situation," 1A
JD
Sailing Far From Smooth
USA TODAY
July 6, 2005
KEY WEST - The 210-foot Coast Guard cutter Decisive is an imposing figure on the horizon as it slices through turquoise waters 10 miles off the Florida shore.
But from the bridge above the deck to the bilge below, Cmdr. Steve Baynes' ship is in shambles.
It's week three of a six-week patrol, and the Decisive has a fuel pump leak, a broken water heater, haphazard radar and global-positioning system, faulty air conditioning, a major hydraulic leak in a patrol boat, high-frequency radios that don't work and a broken anchor winch.
When they're not racing to make emergency repairs, members of Baynes' crew, some suffering from mold-related respiratory problems, replace the saturated rags tied around cold-water pipes that drip onto their bunks at night. They also mop up sewage that routinely backs up and floods their quarters.
In their spare time, they lift weights in a tiny laundry room where rusty washers and dryers hum and a wall-mounted thermometer reads 100 degrees.
And they labor over machine tools, making parts from scratch for mechanical equipment so old that the manufacturers have long since gone out of business.
Coast Guard officers such as Baynes and the men and women they lead have been contending with such problems for years.
While the average age of the Navy's frigates, destroyers and other "surface combatants" is 15.2 years, and the average age of its supply and refueling ships is 20.5 years, the Coast Guard uses ships nearly twice as old, according to the Government Accountability Office. The average age of the Coast Guard's 14 210-foot cutters is 37.3 years, and the average age of its dozen 378-foot cutters is 35.3 years.
"It's just getting more and more difficult to keep these old dogs going," says Baynes, commander of the Decisive's 75-member crew.
The Coast Guard's unofficial motto is "We can do more with less."
"As admirable as that stance is," Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, says, "the cold, hard truth remains that the Coast Guard is experiencing a record number of casualties and mishaps like never seen before, and it's becoming simply unsafe for our young men and women to serve aboard these aging assets."
Given the Coast Guard's new anti-terrorism duties, "it's a disgraceful state of affairs," says maritime security expert Stephen Flynn, a former Coast Guard officer.
With homeland security added to the Coast Guard's responsibilities, security experts and members of Congress say it's time to give the Coast Guard the tools it needs to help protect the nation. They're pushing to speed up a 20- to 25-year, multibillion-dollar program to replace the Coast Guard's "deepwater" fleet, the 88 large ships and 186 aircraft capable of operating many miles offshore.
New mission
The Decisive has been patrolling U.S. waters for nearly 40 years. In the 1970s, it enforced fishing zones in the frigid waters off northern New England. In the 1980s and '90s, it was based in Florida, where the crew seized more than 125 tons of cocaine and marijuana and rescued more than 2,500 Haitian and Cuban migrants trying to get to the USA.
Today, the Decisive mostly patrols Caribbean waters, sometimes a few hundred miles offshore, as part of what has become the Coast Guard's most important mission: protecting the nation from terrorism.
That work is being compromised by a fleet that was well beyond its prime even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Last summer, the 9/11 Commission reported, "While commercial aviation remains a possible target, terrorists may turn their attention to other modes. Opportunities to do harm are as great, or greater, in maritime or surface transportation."
The Coast Guard, which became part of the Homeland Security Department in 2003, is responsible for stopping terrorists who could try to smuggle weapons of mass destruction into the USA through its ports.
In addition to its traditional missions of boat safety, migrant and drug interdiction and fisheries enforcement, the maritime military service must board and inspect cargo ships bound for U.S. ports, share intelligence about threats and possible efforts to smuggle terrorists or weapons into the country, and conduct surveillance on the high seas.
Like much of the Coast Guard's "deepwater" fleet, the Decisive is in very rough shape.
Baynes says its problems affect its new mission:
*About half the time, he can't send his 24-foot "over-the-horizon" boat on night patrols to look for migrants, drug smugglers or anyone trying to illegally enter the USA because the ship's high-frequency radios and Global Positioning System devices aren't working. To send six-man teams out of sight of the ship without radios and GPS would put them in too much danger, Baynes says.
*His ship often can't detect other vessels even a couple of miles away because its radar system is old and temperamental. When it goes down -- which it does at least once a day -- Baynes' crew relies on a small, inexpensive radar system available at any marine supply store for use by recreational boaters.
"We're pretty limited in figuring out who's out there and what they're doing," Baynes says.
*The communication systems are so primitive that "half the time, we can't even talk to other Coast Guard ships," he says.
*Crewmembers have to spend so much time on repairs and maintenance -- often 18 hours a day -- there's no time for training or safety classes.
"Crew fatigue is one of the biggest things I'm worried about," Baynes says.
Chief engineer Lt. Greg Tarpey says he can't even begin to catalog all the things that have gone wrong on the Decisive since it set sail May31.
Migrant rescues
While contending with all the breakdowns, crewmembers have had to handle scores of migrants plucked out of the perilous waters. In mid-June, on the 18th day of the Decisive's latest patrol, Baynes and his crew took on 99 Cuban migrants. One group of 26 had been floating on a ramshackle boat for 21 days. When the Coast Guard found them, two were unconscious.
Baynes is mindful of what probably would have happened to the migrants if his cutter hadn't been patrolling the area. He's also mindful of the new stakes after 9/11. After 20 years in the service, he's used to the "do more with less" approach.
But the problems have become "a constant drain on us," he says. "It's going to get to where one day, I'm just going to have to call my commanders and say, 'I can't sail.'"
*"Dire situation," 1A