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Coast Guard to return 2 patrol boats to Navy

NORFOLK, Va. — Once shuffled around and unappreciated, the Navy will recover two of its Cyclone-class patrol coastal boats from the Coast Guard in a ceremony Friday at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base, according to Naval Surface Force Atlantic.

Monsoon and Tempest have been in use by the Coast Guard on drug interdiction and coastal security missions since 2004 and 2005 respectively.

Originally designed for use by Naval Special Warfare and built through the 1990s, the 180-foot-long PCs were judged to be too large and unstealthy by that community and shunted back to the conventional fleet, which didn’t want them either. A total of 14 were produced, with the lead ship of the class decommissioned in 2000, transferred to the Philippine military in 2003 and renamed the General Mariano Alvarez.

But events of the past seven years have put a high demand on such a boat, and the Navy has made steady use of the Cyclone class. Typhoon, Sirocco, Chinook, Firebolt and Whirlwind are forward-deployed in Bahrain. Hurricane, Squall and Thunderbolt are kept at Little Creek for training; PC crews take turns rotating to the forward-deployed hulls for six months at a time.

Chief Mass Communications Specialist Victor Brabble, spokesman for SurfLant, said Monsoon and Tempest will initially be based out of Little Creek.

PCs are manned by a crew of 32; a small berthing area that has since been removed on some boats due to stern ramp modifications could support nine special operators. The five forward-deployed boats patrol the Persian Gulf, particularly in the shallow waters off the coast of Iraq near two strategically important oil-pumping platforms.

They are armed with fore and aft 25mm Bushmaster cannons as wells as several crew-served weapons.

According to the Navy, the Coast Guard will return Tornado, Shamal and Zephyr to the Navy in 2011.