Home Americas US Coast Guard’s Bahrain fleet keeps growing with third FRC handover

US Coast Guard’s Bahrain fleet keeps growing with third FRC handover

Fast response cutter Glenn Harris
USCGC Glenn Harris during sea trials. Photo: Bollinger Shipyards

The US Coast Guard officially received its 44th fast response cutter (FRC), Glenn Harris, in Key West, Florida, on April 22.

Glenn Harris is the third of six FRCs the service plans to station in Manama, Bahrain. Stationing FRCs in Bahrain supports Patrol Forces Southwest Asia (PATFORSWA), the Coast Guard’s largest unit outside of the US, and its mission to train, organize, equip, support and deploy combat-ready Coast Guard forces in support of Central Command and national security objectives.

PATFORSWA works with Naval Forces Central Command in conducting maritime operations to forward US interests, deter and counter disruptive countries, defeat violent extremism and strengthen partner nations’ maritime capabilities in order to secure the maritime environment in the Central Command area of responsibility.

The first two US Coast Guard fast response cutters (FRCs) that will be permanently stationed in Manama, Bahrain, FRCs Charles Moulthrope and Robert Goldman, began their journey to their forward-deployed homeport earlier this month.

The third cutter that will be deploying to Bahrain is named after Glenn Harris, who was awarded the Silver Star Medal for gallantry displayed as a landing craft coxswain during the invasion of Tulagi, which took place Aug. 7-9, 1942, during World War II.

The Sentinel-class FRCs cutters are designed for multiple missions, including search and rescue, national defense, ports, waterways and coastal security, drug and migrant interdiction, and fisheries patrols.

The Coast Guard has ordered 60 FRCs to date. Forty are in service: 12 in Florida; seven in Puerto Rico; four in California; three each in Hawaii, Texas and New Jersey; two each in Alaska, Mississippi and North Carolina; and two transiting to their Bahrain homeport. Three additional FRCs have been delivered and will be commissioned at their homeport of Guam later this year. Future FRC homeports include Astoria, Oregon; and Kodiak, Seward and Sitka, Alaska.