Coast Guard Will Catch More Drug Smugglers With New Technology
By Caroline Shively
For years, the U.S. Coast Guard has watched as drug smugglers in fast boats outran them on the high seas. Too often, the cutters of old were too slow and their small chase boats too cumbersome to launch over the side quickly. Plus, their helicopters onboard were often out-gunned by the tiny boats filled with criminals who’d rather sink or die than be captured with a boatload of cocaine.
Many times, the Coast Guard members could only watch as the drug runners flipped them off and gunned their engines as they sped past. But the Coast Guard says that’s changing thanks to the recently commissioned Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf — the first of eight cutters rolling out in the next several years. As we toured the Bertholf in Baltimore Harbor recently, its crew members rushed to show us all the high-tech gadgets at their disposal and explain how they‘ll use them.
We learned the 57-millimeter gun on the bow can hit a target seven miles away and shoot 40 rounds in 11 seconds. “I can do some damage with that,“ the gunners mate told us with a solemn face. If seven miles isn’t close enough, they can send out the MH65C helicopter that sits on the Bertholf’s bridge. It’s armed with one gun for shooting warning shots at fast boats that won’t stop and a sniper rifle for taking out their engines if they don’t. Even before a drug runner can see the helicopter coming, the pilot can use it’s infra-red equipment to detect how many people are on board, how many engines it has and sometimes if they have contraband on board.
The Bertholf actually has fast boats of its own. All cutters do. Most have small boats that can be loaded into the water to give chase into shallower seas and at higher speeds than the cutters themselves can go. But on other cutters, the boats have to be lowered off the side, at the perfect speed and sea and wind conditions. On the Bertholf, they have their fast boats poised to drop off the stern. These take only four minutes to launch.
The inside of the ship is also packed with new features that even the crew seems in awe of. Take the guy in the engine control room who’s manning a computer screen instead of a monkey wrench. He can now click his mouse to adjust a setting instead of running into the engine room to manually crank it to a different position.
Then there’s the berthing rooms- bedrooms to you and me. The old cramped rooms are things of the past. The Bertholf has six-man rooms and there’s no hot racking — when you rotate in and out of the same bunk with a crew member on a different shift. I asked Chief Warrant Officer Matthew Boyle about the bunk he had when he signed up 24 years ago. “I slept in a 30-man berthing in the area they called the rain forest. I was underneath the air conditioning unit with no curtain over my pit and the water dripped from the condensation.”
I asked him if any of those old cutters had the computers and flat-screened TV that we were standing next to in a berthing room on the Bertholf. “No way,” he said, smiling. Unfortunately for Boyle, just as the Bertholf is moving to its home port of Alameda, California, he’s being transferred to a Coast Guard station in Alaska.
When the story hits, FOX News is there. With bureaus across the world, there isnt any news that gets by FOX News. 
Drugs have really changed the world. They are responsible for many gang related crimes, and other sickening behavior.
Wonderful! Can I re-up? Sure beats the ole CG 95′ boats of the 60’s. Stationed COTP, LA/LB
Even with all the new toys you can buy, only a percent or two of the drugs is ever intercepted. Drugs today are cheaper, more widely available, and stronger than they were when Nixon started the so called war on drugs. Period. Prohibition didn’t work in the early part of the 20th century giving rise to huge crime organizations before it was finally repealed. Today the alcohol lobby is one of the largest in the country and taxes from alcohol give billions annually to all levels of government. All this despite the fact that over 50,000 deaths a year result from alcohol affected car accidents and that the majority of domestic violence arrests also involve alcohol use.
The fact that people may or may not be for legal use of drugs does not change the fact that not a thing has changed with drug use and drug related crimes for the last 50 years except that many more people are in prisons for low level drug crimes becoming a burden on the tax base instead of an asset to it. Despite billions of dollar to the effort. The old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result holds true to the so called war on drugs.
In the war on the open seas, we need real courage. We must accept that allowing the cargo to get lost may be hurting all of us…the drugs may be entering the water shed! The affect upon you as an individual may be small compared to the increase in ability it may provide to bacteria and infectious diseases. That is the reason why we need to care about what happens to drug evidence not just the criminal, the dangerous DNA alternating drugs which are reaching into all things water influenced!
We will become increasingly involved with water as our oil interest move off shore, so we better get bigger and better when it comes to the other guys… Off shore drilling means we must protect our interest, then likely worth more off shore. We can solve the smell issue from off shore drilling, we can even solve the visuals concerns, but we will need to be resolved to change to better energy sources!
America’s future will lean to the sea and we will be great at this too — go for it. I can’t wait to see more about the new technology boats in the navy and coast guards on channels like 13 and discovery. The future is ours, let’s stop wasting our funds and develop ones which our children will want more than drugs, more than greed, more than lust: prostitution and godlessness. We can develop whole new industries based around these growth industries!
WHY NOT!
Can I get a one year reenlistment at age 58?
I spent 6 greats years in the USCG.
I would even pay the government to serve a year on the Bertholf.
Please do not let Jane Fonda or Kerry on the ship. They would probable blame you for the smugglers being there! The reason I said that is that I was in Viet Nam and had to put up with them then. Thanks to the brave men of the Cost Gurards and others in the Military that is protecting out freedom. Sincerely, Franklin D. Simmons
My daughter is serving on this ship as her first assingment out of the Coast Guard Academy. We are so proud of her we could just pop! Please keep all these sailors in your prayers.
Eileen Hull