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Acquisition Update: Coast Guard Transfers Two Former Cutters To Pakistan

Dec. 13, 2016

Coast Guard Capt. Robert Bevins, commanding officer of the Asset Project Office, and Pakistani Air Force Group Captain Raashid Siddique Qureshi, attache for defense procurement at the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, sign certificates of transfer for the former cutters Key Biscayne and Grand Isle on the deck of the ex-Key Biscayne at the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland, Dec. 7, 2016. U.S. Coast Guard photo.

The Coast Guard transferred the former cutters Key Biscayne and Grand Isle to the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency in a ceremony at the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland, Dec. 7. Pakistan is the second nation to receive 110-foot patrol boats through the Office of International Acquisition’s Excess Defense Articles (EDA) Program.

The former cutters Key Biscayne and Grand Isle are the third and fourth 110-foot patrol boats transferred to a foreign partner nation. According to the Foreign Military Sales letter of offer and acceptance with Pakistan, the Coast Guard will provide $8.4 million of new equipment and technical and training services before the cutters are transported via commercial heavy-lift cargo ship from their current station at the Coast Guard Yard to their Pakistan homeports in spring 2017.

The Coast Guard transferred the first two 110-foot patrol boats to enter its EDA program to the Republic of Georgia in September 2016.

Each 110-foot patrol boat transfer saves the Coast Guard approximately $400,000 in remediation and disposal costs. EDA transfers also help build and sustain international partnerships in support of the Coast Guard’s national maritime strategy and promote regional and global maritime safety and security.

The Key Biscayne and Grand Isle were both decommissioned in March 2015. The multimission 110-foot Island-class patrol boats entered service in the mid-1980s; 26 of the 49 cutters originally in the class remain in service. The ships are being replaced with 58 154-foot fast response cutters, 19 of which are in service.

For more information: Excess Defense Articles program page

Last Modified 1/25/2017