Bollinger Shipyards in Lockport has delivered the final ship in a series of Coast Guard cutters, the company said Thursday.
The Clarence Sutphin is the sixth Bollinger-built cutter destined for Manama, Bahrain, to support U.S. interests in southwest Asia and the Middle East.
It’s the 170th vessel company has delivered to the Coast Guard over a 35-year period and the 47th Fast Response Cutter completed under the current program, which started in 2008.
Each cutter costs about $65 million, and the entire program will cost the Coast Guard more than $3.7 billion, federal records show. The cutters replace the 110-foot Island Class Patrol Boats built by Bollinger 30 years ago.
“Ensuring that the brave men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard have the most state-of-the-art, advanced vessels as they work to build and maintain the necessary regional alliances to ensure maritime security in the region is a top priority,” Bollinger President and CEO Ben Bordelon said in a news release. “Bollinger is proud to continue enhancing and supporting the U.S. Coast Guard’s operational presence in the Middle East and ensuring it remains the preferred partner around the world.”
Category 4 Ida, which made landfall Aug. 29 at Port Fourchon, damaged Bollinger’s facilities there as well as its Lockport shipyard about 38 miles inland. The company reopened all of its 11 sites across Louisiana Sept. 24 following an extensive recovery and rebuilding effort and was able to deliver one cutter a week ahead of schedule.
The latest cutter was delivered this week to the Coast Guard in Key West, Fla.
The Sentinel Class Fast Response Cutter has been used for coastal security, fishery patrols, search and rescue, border patrol and national defense. The 154-foot cutters carry a crew of 24, are armed with four .50-caliber machine guns and can travel at up to 28 knots, or 32 mph.
Each Fast Response Cutter is named for an enlisted Coast Guardsman who distinguished himself or herself in the line of duty.
Clarence Sutphin, a boatswain mate first class, was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his courageous actions during the invasion of the the Japanese-held island of Saipan on June 16 and 16, 1944, during World War II.
Sutphin swam through heavy surf to a landing craft carrying a tank, called a “tank lighter,” that was stranded on a reef, his medal citation says. He remained aboard under mortar and artillery fire until the boat was salvaged.
“Returning to the beach,” the citation continues, “he aided in salvaging another tank lighter under enemy fire and, when a mortar shell struck a group of eight Marines, promptly treated the wounded and moved them to a first-aid station.”
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