The US Coast Guard has commissioned its latest fast response cutter, the 'Joseph Tezanos'.
The 'Tezanos' is the sixth fast response cutter to be homeported in San Juan, Puerto Rico and the 18th to be commissioned into the Coast Guard fleet.
Prior to her formal commissioning ceremony, the 'Tezanos' responded to the Caribbean Fantasy incident August 17 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. With 511 passengers and crew rescued, the case of the ferry Caribbean Fantasy stands as the largest maritime evacuation in US waters in recent history, the US Coast Guard said.
The 46-metre long 'Tezanos' has a beam of 7.62 metres and a maximum sustained speed of more than 28 knots.
The vessel is designed to conduct maritime drug interdiction, search and rescue, national defence, homeland security, living marine resource protection and other Coast Guard missions.
