The Marine Protector class is a class of coastal

patrol boats A patrol boat (also referred to as a patrol craft, patrol ship, or patrol vessel) is a relatively small naval vessel generally designed for coastal defence, border security, or law enforcement. There are many designs for patrol boats, and they ...

of the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...

. The 87-foot-long vessels are based on the Stan 2600 design by

Damen Group The Damen Group is a Dutch defence, shipbuilding, and engineering conglomerate company based in Gorinchem, Netherlands. Though it is a major international group doing business in 120 countries, it remains a private family-owned company. Dame ...

, and were built by

Bollinger Shipyards Bollinger Shipyards is an American constructor of ships, workboats and patrol vessels. Its thirteen shipyards and forty drydocks are located in Louisiana and Texas. Its drydocks range in capacity from vessels of 100 tons displacement to 22,000 to ...

Lockport, Louisiana Lockport is a town on Bayou Lafourche in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 2,490 in 2020. It is part of the Houma– Bayou Cane–Thibodaux metropolitan statistical area. History Lockport, founded in 1835, ...

. Each boat is named after sea creatures which fly or swim The Coast Guard placed its original order in 1999 for 50 boats, which were delivered by mid-2002. Several additional orders brought the class to a total of 74 ships, with the last, , being completed in October 2009. Four additional vessels were built for

Foreign Military Sales The United States Department of Defense's Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program facilitates sales of U.S. arms, defense equipment, defense services, and military training to foreign governments. The purchaser does not deal directly with the defens ...

, with two each going to

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

and

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

. In May 2021, The United States announced that it would be sending three ships to the

Lebanese Navy The Lebanese Navy ( ar, القوات البحرية اللبنانية ''Al-qūwātu al-Baḥriyya al-Lubnāniyya'', literally "the Lebanese Sea Forces") is the Navy of the Lebanese Armed Forces. It was formed in 1950 and based in Beirut Naval Bas ...

The Marine Protector class replaced the 82-foot . These older boats had one small and one large berthing area, and they had to stop for five or more minutes to deploy or retrieve their pursuit inflatable boat via a small crane. The last Point-class cutter was decommissioned in 2003. In 2020 the Department of Homeland Security proposed a budget for the Coast Guard for 2021 where 8 Marine Protector cutters would be decommissioned, as their missions could be taken by new

Sentinel class cutters The Sentinel-class cutter, also known as Fast Response Cutter due to its program name, is part of the United States Coast Guard's Integrated Deepwater System Program, Deepwater program. At it is similar to, but larger than the lengthened 1980s- ...

General characteristics

Missions include combating drug smuggling, illegal immigration, marine fisheries enforcement and

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

support. Since the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

many have a

homeland security Homeland security is an American national security term for "the national effort to ensure a homeland that is safe, secure, and resilient against terrorism and other hazards where American interests, aspirations, and ways of life can thrive" to ...

mission in the form of ports waterways and coastal security (PWCS) patrols. Boarding parties can be launched while the vessel is underway, through the cutter's

stern launching ramp Some modern patrol vessels are equipped with a stern launching ramp, for deploying smaller rescue or pursuit boats without requiring the parent ship to first come to a halt. Typically the smaller craft are powered by water-jets, and can driv ...

. The attached rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB) has been upgraded since the initial inception of this class of cutter, in an effort to increase speed and sea state sustainability for boarding parties and rescue and assistance teams. The stern launching system requires just a single crewmember to remain on deck to launch or retrieve the boarding party. Their high-speed pursuit boat uses the same diesel fuel as the cutters. The cutters consume approximately 165 gallons of diesel per hour at their maximum speed of . Like all new U.S. Coast Guard vessels, the Marine Protector class are designed to accommodate crews of mixed gender with five separate small berthing spaces accommodating standard crews of ten with maximum berthing for 12. and assigned to guard a

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

submarine base in

Kings Bay, Georgia Kings Bay Base is a census-designated place (CDP) in Camden County, Georgia, United States; it is home to the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. The population was 1,777 at the 2010 census. Geography Kings Bay Base is located in southeastern Camde ...

, and and guard another submarine base in

Bangor, Washington Bangor Base is a census-designated place (CDP) in Kitsap County, Washington, within U.S. Naval Base Kitsap on the Kitsap Peninsula. Its population was 6,054 at the 2010 census. Geography Bangor is located north of the center of Kitsap County a ...

, mount an additional machine gun, one operated by remote control.

Boats in class

References

External links

Globalsecurity.org
- WPB 87' Marine Protector Class
U.S. Coast Guard: 87-foot Coastal Patrol Boat (WPB) - Marine Protector Class
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marine Protector class Marine Protector-class coastal patrol boats, Patrol vessels of the United States