US Coast Guard takes delivery of 57th Sentinel-class cutter

The US Coast Guard has taken delivery of a new Sentinel-class fast response cutter (FRC) built by Bollinger Shipyards of Louisiana. The future USCGC Florence Finch honours Florence Ebersole Smith Finch, a Filipino-American who aided the Philippine resistance movement in World War II and later became an enlisted sailor in the US Coast Guard Women’s Reserve.

As with its earlier sisters, the future Florence Finch has a length of 154 feet (46.9 metres), a flank speed of 28 knots, a state of the art C4ISR suite, and a stern launch and recovery ramp for a 26-foot (7.92-metre), over-the-horizon interceptor cutter boat. Armament includes a 25mm autocannon and four 12.7mm machine guns.

The Sentinel-class cutters are designed for multiple missions including drug and migrant interdiction, ports, waterways and coastal security, fishery patrols, and search and rescue (SAR). The future Florence Finch is the second of two FRCs to be homeported in Sector Columbia River in Oregon.