USCGC ''John McCormick'' (WPC-1121) is the United States Coast Guard's 21st

cutter Cutter may refer to: Tools * Bolt cutter * Box cutter, aka Stanley knife, a form of utility knife * Cigar cutter * Cookie cutter * Glass cutter * Meat cutter * Milling cutter * Paper cutter * Side cutter * Cutter, a type of hydraulic rescue to ...

, and the first to be stationed in Alaska, where she is homeported at

Coast Guard Base Ketchikan Coast Guard Base Ketchikan is a major shore installation of the United States Coast Guard located in Ketchikan, Alaska. The base is a homeport for two Sentinel-class cutters and a buoy tender, and is the only Coast Guard dry dock in the state. Lo ...

. The vessel's manufacturer,

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 ...

, of Lockport, Louisiana, delivered the ship to the Coast Guard on December 13, 2016, for her acceptance trials, and then ''John McCormick'' was commissioned on April 12, 2017 in Ketchikan, Alaska.

Mission

The Sentinel-class cutters are lightly armed patrol vessels with a crew of approximately two dozen sailors, capable of traveling almost 3,000 nautical miles, on five day missions. The cutter is a multi-mission vessel intended to perform law enforcement, search and rescue, fisheries and environmental protection, and homeland security tasks. '' Houma Today'' quoted Ben Bordelon, Bollinger's CEO, that ''John McCormick'' will ''""assist in defending our nation's interests in the Alaskan maritime region.""''

Operational history

On March 12, 2017, ''John McCormick'' stopped in

Astoria, Oregon Astoria is a port city and the seat of Clatsop County, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1811, Astoria is the oldest city in the state and was the first permanent American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains. The county is the northwest corne ...

, on its way to its commissioning in Ketchikan. The Coast Guard invited Astoria residents to tour the vessel. The ''

Daily Astorian ''The Astorian'', formerly known as ''The Daily Astorian'', is a newspaper, published in Astoria, Oregon, United States, established in 1873,

'' reported that the Coast Guard was considering stationing two Sentinel-class cutters in either Astoria or Newport, Oregon. The vessel arrived in Ketchikan, Alaska on March 17, 2017. The Ketchikan fireboat and smaller Coast Guard vessels escorted her to her moorings. She was commissioned on April 12, 2017. Five other Sentinel-class cutters will be based in Alaska, including the

USCGC Bailey T. Barco USCGC ''Bailey Barco'' (WPC-1122) is the United States Coast Guard's 22nd United States Coast Guard Cutter, cutter, and the second to be stationed in Alaska, where she was homeported at Coast Guard Base Ketchikan. The vessel's manufacturer, Boll ...

in Ketchikan. Admiral Charles D. Michel, the Coast Guard's Vice Commandant, attended the vessel's commissioning ceremony on April 12, 2017. He published an op-ed in the '' Juneau Empire'' celebrating the improvements the cutter offered over earlier models. He explained how important the cutter, the five sister ships that will join her patrolling Alaska's water, will be for the Alaskan economy. On September 23, 2020, the ''John McCormick'' proceeded to Hoonah, Alaska, on a rescue mission. Her crew rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that was stranded on rocks there, and were able to tow the vessel back to port.

Namesake

In 2010, Charles "Skip" W. Bowen, who was then the United States Coast Guard's most senior

non-commissioned officer A non-commissioned officer (NCO) is a military officer who has not pursued a commission. Non-commissioned officers usually earn their position of authority by promotion through the enlisted ranks. (Non-officers, which includes most or all enli ...

, proposed that all 58 cutters in the Sentinel class should be named after enlisted sailors in the Coast Guard, or one of its precursor services, who were recognized for their heroism. In 2014 the Coast Guard announced that

John F. McCormick John F. McCormick was a sailor in the United States Coast Guard who was recognized for his courage. McCormick was born in Portland, Oregon, and served much of his 26 year Coast Guard career in Oregon. After his 1947 retirement, he made his hom ...

, a Coast Guard seaman who earned a Gold Lifesaving Medal for saving the life of fellow Coast Guard sailor, Richard O. Bracken, off

Clatsop Spit Clatsop Spit is a giant sand spit on the Pacific coast along U.S. Route 101 between Astoria and the north end of Tillamook Head in Clatsop County, northwest Oregon at the mouth of the Columbia River. The Clatsop Spit was formed by Columbia River ...

, near the treacherous

Columbia River bar The Columbia Bar, also frequently called the Graveyard of the Pacific, is a system of bars and shoals at the mouth of the Columbia River spanning the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington. It is known as one of the most dangerous bar crossings in ...

, would be the namesake of the 21st cutter.

Accolades

The crew of ''John McCormick'' was awarded the 2017 " Hopley Yeaton Cutter Excellence Award (small cutter)" by the Douglas Munro Chapter of the Surface Navy Association. The award was presented on January 11, 2018 at the 2018 Surface Navy Association National Symposium in Washington, D.C. The "small cutter" category of the award includes those with a length of 175 feet or less; over 150 such cutters were considered for the 2017 award. The Hopley Yeaton Cutter Excellence Award recognizes crew performance in areas such as the crew's accomplishment of operations and of missions, their training and readiness, their engineering prowess, and their commitment to the crew and to their families. The award citation noted the crew's high level of readiness and training, which allowed it to quickly deal with engineering and damage control problems which had appeared during ''McCormick''s long voyage the previous year from

Key West Key West ( es, Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it cons ...

to her Ketchikan homeport. Also noted were the crew's immediate and effective integration into the Ketchikan community and into the Coast Guard's Alaskan operations: during 2017, ''McCormick''s crew conducted 77 fisheries boardings and rescued or helped to rescue ten people and more than US$1 million in property.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:John McCormick (WPC-1121) Sentinel-class cutters Ships of the United States Coast Guard 2016 ships Ships built in Lockport, Louisiana