CHARLESTON, S.C. – A local Coast Guard cutter will return home to Charleston Tuesday at approximately 1 p.m. after a seven-week deployment in the Caribbean Sea.
The CGC Gallatin, a 39-year-old cutter, steamed more than 10,000 miles in the Caribbean Sea to keep United States shores safe while deployed in support of campaign Steel Web, the Coast Guard’s overarching counter drug strategy to reduce the supply of drugs to the U.S. by denying traffickers access to the maritime routes.
During the patrol, Gallatin saved three people from a sinking vessel off the coast of Curacao and saved two people stranded in a pleasure craft in the Florida Straits. The crew also conducted a joint boarding of a coastal freighter with the Colombian navy.
On the transit back to the Low Country, Gallatin hosted a luncheon in Key West, Fla., for The Interdiction Committee with guests including Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen and the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy Roger Walters.
Coast Guard Cutter Gallatin is scheduled to deploy again later this year.
