USCGC ''Rollin Fritch'' is the

US 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, multi ...

's 19th , and the first to be homeported outside of the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

. She is based at the Coast Guard Training Center in

Cape May, New Jersey Cape May is a city located at the southern tip of Cape May Peninsula in Cape May County, New Jersey, United States, where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the country's oldest vacation resort destinations, and part of th ...

. Like her sister ships she was built in the

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 ...

, in

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, ...

. She was delivered for her sea trials on August 23, 2016, and commissioned on November 19, 2016.

Design

''Rollin Fritch'', like her sister Sentinel-class cutters, is designed with an endurance of five days, and . She is armed with a 25 mm autocannon, gyro-stabilized, and fired from a sensor equipped remote weapons station on the bridge, supplemented by four crew-served

M2 Browning The M2 machine gun or Browning .50 caliber machine gun (informally, "Ma Deuce") is a heavy machine gun that was designed towards the end of World War I by John Browning. Its design is similar to Browning's earlier M1919 Browning machine gun, w ...

machine guns. Her maximum speed is in excess of . She carries a waterjet-propelled high-speed pursuit boat, deployed and retrieved via a

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 ramp allows the pursuit boat to be deployed and retrieved without bringing the cutter to a stop.

Operational duty

''Rollin Fritch'', like her

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...

s, is designed for

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 ...

, and the interception of smugglers. Her high-speed waterjet-propelled pursuit boat, launched from her stern launching ramp, make her a potent weapon for the interception of smugglers.

Homeported in Cape May

The homeport of ''Rollin Fritch'' and her sister ship, is the Coast Guard Training Center in Cape May. According to the ''

Cape May County Herald The ''Cape May County Herald'' is the flagship of the Herald family of community weekly newspapers and publications. Its offices are in Rio Grande census-designated place in Middle Township, New Jersey. - See also: Also identical in the 1990 U. ...

'' local citizens welcome the Coast Guard presence, and its contribution to the local economy.

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 Enlisted may refer to: * Enlisted rank An enlisted rank (also known as an enlisted grade or enlisted rate) is, in some armed services, any rank below that of a commissioned officer. The term can be inclusive of non-commissioned officers or ...

sailors in the Coast Guard, or one of its precursor services, who were recognized for their heroism. In 2014 the Coast Guard announced that Rollin A. Fritch, a Coast Guard seaman who earned a posthumous

Silver Star The Silver Star Medal (SSM) is the United States Armed Forces' third-highest military decoration for valor in combat. The Silver Star Medal is awarded primarily to members of the United States Armed Forces for gallantry in action against an e ...

for his service on the transport during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, would be the namesake of the 19th cutter. Fritch served as a gunner who was seen bravely firing his anti-aircraft gun at a

kamikaze , officially , were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending to d ...

aircraft right up until it struck the bridge where his gun was sited.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rollin Fritch (WPC-1119) Sentinel-class cutters Ships of the United States Coast Guard 2016 ships Ships built in Lockport, Louisiana