WILMINGTON, N.C. — Coast Guard Cutters Diligence and Cushing are open for public tours for the 68th Annual North Carolina Azalea Festival this weekend at the Cape Fear Riverside in downtown Wilmington. Interactive exhibits aboard will allow visitors to understand life aboard a Coast Guard cutter. Visitors will have the opportunity to experience traditional methods of navigation, deck seamanship, engineering, cooking, living quarters, law enforcement and shipboard casualty response.The Diligence crew and their families will be part of the Azalea Festival parade scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Saturday in downtown Wilmington.
Tour times are:
Cutter DiligenceFriday: noon to 5 p.m.Saturday: noon to 5 p.m.Sunday: noon to 5 p.m.Cutter Cushing Friday: 3 to 5 p.m.Saturday: noon to 5 p.m.Cutter Diligence is a 210-foot medium endurance cutter homeported in Wilmington with a crew of approximately 80. Diligence’s primary missions consist of counter drug and migrant interdiction, enforcing federal fishery laws, and search and rescue operations. Medium endurance cutters like the Diligence are built for multi-week offshore patrols including operations requiring enhanced communications, and helicopter and pursuit boat operations, which provide a key capability for homeland security operations at sea.
Fifty year-old Diligence and the other 26 medium endurance cutters are slated for replacement by a new class of cutters. The new Offshore Patrol Cutter will operate more than 50 miles from land, carrying out the Coast Guard's maritime security and safety activities in support of national interests. The OPC will be an economical, multi-mission ship, providing pursuit boat and helicopter capabilities and interoperability with other military and federal partners, superior to the cutters they replace. Equipped with modern sensors, the Offshore Patrol Cutter will provide the enhanced surveillance necessary to detect threats far from U.S. shores and meet the demands of the Coast Guard’s homeland security, search and rescue, law enforcement and other vital missions.
Cutter Cushing is a 110-foot patrol boat homeported in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.
The Cushing and the other 31 Island Class patrol boats are being replaced by 58 new, Sentinel Class Fast Response Cutters. The FRC will be capable of speeds in excess of 28 knots and operating in seas up to 18-feet. Armed with a 25-mm chain gun and four .50 caliber machine guns, the FRC provides lethal homeland security firepower. The speed, stability and firepower of the FRC deliver tremendous lifesaving, law enforcement and homeland security capabilities in the same package.
For more information, contact Cutter Diligence Public Affairs Officer Ensign John Benedict at (910) 815-4528, email John.D.Benedict@uscg.mil.