LOCKPORT, La. – The Coast Guard took delivery of the Coast Guard Cutter Myrtle Hazard from Bollinger Shipyards LLC in Key West, Florida on Thursday. This is the 162nd vessel Bollinger has delivered to the U.S. Coast Guard over a 35-year period and the 39th Fast Response Cutter (FRC) delivered under the current program.
The cutter Myrtle Hazard is the first of three FRCs to be homeported in Apra Harbor, Guam, increasing the presence for the Coast Guard in the Indo-Pacific Theater. Additionally, later in 2020, Bollinger will be delivering the first of six (6) FRCs that will be home-ported in Manama, Bahrain, which will replace the Island Class Patrol Boats supporting Coast Guard Patrol Forces Southwest Asia, the Coast Guard’s largest unit outside of the United States.
A young mother in 1918, Myrtle Hazard answered a help-wanted ad for a qualified radio operator after graduating from a radio and telegraphy class at the Baltimore YMCA. Extremely skilled in telegraphy and proficient in Morse code, the Coast Guard enlisted Ms. Hazard on January 21, 1918 and she became the service’s first female electrician. Ms. Hazard worked at U.S. Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C. as an electrician’s mate 3rd class and was later promoted to electrician, 1st class, before being demobilized after the war’s end.
“Our latest delivery of the USCGC MYRTLE HAZARD is an important milestone in the FRC Program as it is the first of several vessels that will expand and support the Coast Guard’s operational presence and enhance the US mission in the Indo-Pacific region – a focal point emphasized by both President Trump and Admiral Shultz,” said Bollinger President & C.E.O. Ben Bordelon. “Building ships for the U.S. Coast Guard provides critical assets to bolster our national security interests, both domestic and abroad. We are proud and humbled to be partners in the FRC program.”
Bordelon continued, “Delivering vessels on schedule and on budget to the Coast Guard in these unprecedented times given the COVID-19 challenges that we are all facing shows the resiliency and dedication of our incredibly capable workforce. The FRC hot production line continues to produce and provide stability in the industrial base for the U.S. Government and our Bollinger workforce, assuring economic benefit for the Lafourche Parish Louisiana region, our vendor partners in the 40-plus states that support the FRC program, and our country.”
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