USCGC Richard Etheridge
USCGC Richard Etheridge is the second of the United States Coast Guard's cutters. Like most of her sister ships she replaced a . Richard Etheridge was launched in August 2011. The vessel was officially delivered to the Coast Guard on May 26, 2012, at Key West, Florida, and was commissioned into service in Port Everglades, Florida, on August 3, 2012. Richard Etheridge, and the first and third vessels in the class, , and , are all based in Miami, Florida. Like the other ships of her class, Richard Etheridge is named after an enlisted member of the Coast Guard. Operational history On March 18, 2014, Richard Etheridge landed of illicit drugs captured as part of Operation Martillo. Namesake Richard Etheridge is named after Keeper Richard Etheridge of the U.S. Life-Saving Service, the first African-American to command a life-saving station. Etheridge led the Pea Island Lifesaving Station crew of six in a daring rescue operation that saved the entire crew of the schooner E.S. Newman, which had become grounded in a treacherous storm in 1896. Design The Sentinel-class cutters were designed to replace the shorter Island-class patrol boats. Richard Etheridge is with a remote-control 25 mm Bushmaster autocannon and four, crew-served