[ollie]

She's purty but she's a mess. Her crew is hardworking and dedicated. There are numerous things wrong that have to be corrected. The corrections have already been done on the 2nd NSC currently being constructed. However there is a row amongst many in the Coast Guard ranks about the waste of money for such a large ship. This is the largest cutter ever built. Frankly, we don't need it.

Most Coasties will tell you that the CG needs nothing larger than the current 270 foot "Bear" Class cutter. If we built smaller faster cutters with better sea keeping abilities, we would spend less money and have more hulls with which to go after the bad guys.

My own opinion is that they made it as large as they did in order to accommodate the Navy in time of war rather than to perform the mission it is supposed to accomplish.

ollie