Coast Guard Assets

Explore the aircraft, cutters and boats used by the Coast Guard to conduct various missions throughout the world.

April 24, 2019

MH-65 short range recovery helicopter

The MH-65 short range recovery helicopter is conducts short-range rescue missions and is certified for all weather and night time operations but is prohibited from flying under known ice conditions.

Adm. Charles W. Ray, vice commandant of the Coast Guard, tours a replica of the first offshore patrol cutter's bridge at the Eastern Shipbuilding Group shipyard in Panama City, Florida, Thursday, March 14, 2019. The OPCs will complement the capabilities of the Coast Guard’s national security cutters, fast response cutters, and polar security cutters as an essential element of the Department of Homeland Security’s layered security strategy.

April 24, 2019

Offshore Patrol Cutter

Provides the midrange capability in the Coast Guard's layered defense concept, filling the role between the NSC and FRC and replacing the service's two classes of aging medium endurance cutters. The OPC will feature increased range and endurance, more powerful weapons, a larger flight deck, and improved C4ISR equipment, and will accommodate aircraft and boat operations in higher sea states.

Coast Guard Cutter Flying Fish, an 87-foot patrol boat homeported in Virginia Beach, Virginia, steams north alongside the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel off Virginia Beach, Feb. 15, 2018. The cutter’s crew of 12 primarily conducts search and rescue and marine fisheries enforcement missions in the lower Chesapeake Bay and off Virginia’s coast.

April 24, 2019

87-foot Marine Protector class

The 87-foot Marine Protector class is an innovative, multi-mission class of vessel capable of performing search and rescue, law enforcement, fishery patrols, drug interdiction, illegal immigrant interdiction and homeland security duties up to 200 miles offshore

The Coast Guard Cutter Forrest Rednour arrives in San Pedro, California, Aug. 11, 2018. The Forrest Rednour is slated to be the first of four Fast-Response Cutters to be home-ported at Base Los Angeles-Long Beach and is scheduled to be officially commissioned in the fall.

April 24, 2019

154-foot Sentinel class

The 154-foot Sentinel class cutters are able to deploy independently to conduct the service's missions such as port, waterway and coastal security; fishery patrols; drug and illegal immigrant law enforcement; search and rescue; and national defense operations.

The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Liberty prepares to moor at their homeport of Juneau, Alaska, March 13, 2018. The crew of the Cutter Liberty, a 110-foot patrol boat homeported in Juneau, Alaska, was completing tailored ship's training availability, a biennial readiness assessment of the cutter and crew.

April 24, 2019

110-foot Island class

The 110-foot Island-class patrol boat missions consist of maritime homeland security, migrant interdiction, drug interdiction, defense operations, fisheries enforcement and search and rescue.

The Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw, a 240-foot heavy icebreaker, breaks ice near Marine City, Mich., along the St. Clair River, Jan. 28, 2015. The cutter was operating as part of Operation Taconite, which is the ice breaking operation for the northern Great Lakes.

April 24, 2019

240-foot Great Lakes class

The Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw performs ice breaking as well as aids to navigation, search and rescue, law enforcement and other missions.

The Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star, with 75,000 horsepower and its 13,500-ton weight, is guided by its crew to break through Antarctic ice en route to the National Science Foundation's McMurdo Station, Jan. 15, 2017. The ship, which was designed more than 40 years ago, remains the world's most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker.

April 24, 2019

399-foot Polar class

The 399-foot Polar class icebreakers were designed for open-water ice breaking to serve in the Arctic and Antarctic, supporting science and research as well as providing resupply to remote stations. Their capabilities also enable them to perform search and rescue, ship escort, environmental protection and enforcement of laws and treaties in places most ships cannot reach.

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB-20) is in the ice Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018, about 715 miles north of Barrow, Alaska, in the Arctic. The Healy is in the Arctic with a team of about 30 scientists and engineers aboard deploying sensors and autonomous submarines to study stratified ocean dynamics and how environmental factors affect the water below the ice surface for the Office of Naval Research. The Healy, which is homeported in Seattle, is one of two ice breakers in U.S. service and is the only military ship dedicated to conducting research in the Arctic.

April 24, 2019

420-foot Healy class

The Coast Guard Cutter Healy is designed to conduct a wide range of research activities. The scientific community provided invaluable input on lab layouts and scientific capabilities during design and construction of the ship.

April 24, 2019

65-foot small harbor tug

The 65-foot inland buoy tender services fixed and floating short range aids to navigation along the coastal and inland waterways.

April 24, 2019

65-foot class river buoy tenders

The 65-foot river buoy tenders perform essential aid to navigation tasks to help keep mariners safe and keep the flow of commerce moving without interruptions.