The second of three new Coast Guard cutters set to be homeported in Kodiak has arrived. According to a social media post from the Coast Guard on June 2, the Earl Cunningham reached the island this weekend on May 31 after a more than 7,000 mile, months-long journey from the shipyard in Louisiana.
Earl Cunningham joins the other cutter John Witherspoon which arrived on Base Kodiak in January and was commissioned into service in April. Each fast response cutter is named after a Coast Guard member who performed extraordinary service in the line of duty. Cunningham was a World War 1 veteran and died while trying to rescue ice fishermen on Lake Michigan in 1936.
Lieutenant Rick Scott, the commanding officer of the Earl Cunningham, said the new cutter handled incredibly rough seas and weather during its sail to Alaska.
“The big difference besides the technology, the advancement is there, but our sea keeping capabilities, our size and really our weight," Scott explained. "We’re only a little bit longer than the 110s, we’re at 154 feet. But we displace about 353 tons of water, which means that we really do handle those seas a lot better.”
These 154-foot fast response cutters replace the now obsolete 110-foot island class patrol boats. The last of the old patrol boats in Alaska and the Coast Guard as a whole, the Liberty, was officially decommissioned on April 29 in Valdez. Homer, Valdez and Seward all had their homeported island class patrol boats decommissioned within the last few months after decades of service.
Scott said the Earl Cunningham was able to ceremonially relieve the final three island class patrol boats of their duties and take over while passing them off the coast of California.
"You can talk to Coasties all around the world, a lot of people have sailed on 110s," he said. "So a pretty incredible experience to be sailing on this new FRC, and informally but formally too, take over the watch.”
Although the vessel won’t be officially commissioned into service until August, Scott said the 24 crew members onboard the cutter will still respond as needed.
A total of six new fast response cutters are set to operate in Alaska by the end of this year, with half of those homeported on Kodiak Island, according to the Coast Guard. The military agency plans to have one of these new cutters homeported in Seward in the coming years.
The third and final vessel that will be based in Kodiak, the Frederick Mann, is scheduled to arrive in October and be commissioned in December.
