Mission accomplished. After a 105-day deployment to Alaska, plus biannual shipboard training off the coast of San Diego, the Coast Guard Cutter Stratton has returned to its homeport at Alameda, California. During the deployment Stratton's crew, along with an MH-65 helicopter aircrew from Air Station Kodiak, patrolled the Bering Sea up to the ice edge of the Arctic, where they conducted search and rescue missions in the Bering Sea.
With support from the ship’s unmanned aircraft system, the crew helped to safeguard Alaska’s multi-billion-dollar fishing industry with 15 fisheries law enforcement boardings, to ensure compliance with maritime laws. Their mission aided in protecting the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone by patrolling the maritime boundary line to prevent illegal harvest in U.S. waters.
The Stratton crew also collected vital data to help with future Coast Guard deployments and exercise an effective presence in the Arctic.
While anchored in San Francisco Bay, the Stratton hosted a change of command ceremony, in which Capt. Stephan Adler relieved Capt. Bob Little as Stratton's commanding officer. The Stratton then completed its biannual shipboard training cycle off the San Diego coast with nearly 200 drills in areas of damage control, navigation seamanship, naval warfare, communications, medical response, engineering casualties and force protection. The Coast Guard said crew efforts resulted in an average drill score of 97%, demonstrating excellence in all warfare areas.
Stratton's crew also relieved crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Douglas Munro, the Coast Guard’s last 378-foot-high endurance cutter, as they made their final patrol prior to being decommissioned in late April. The Stratton is one of four 418-foot national security cutters homeported in Alameda.
