Response Boat – Medium
A US Coast Guard RB-M underway off Yorktown, Virginia
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| Class overview | |
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| Builders: |
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| Operators: | United States Coast GuardCanadian Coast Guard |
| Planned: | 170 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 16.3 ton |
| Length: | 44 ft 9 in (13.64 m) |
| Beam: | 14 ft 7.75 in (4.4641 m) |
| Draft: | 3 ft 4 in (1.02 m) |
| Installed power: | 2 × MTU Detroit Diesel turbocharged Series 60 engines, 825 hp (615 kW) total |
| Propulsion: | 2 × Rolls-Royce FF-Series waterjets |
| Speed: |
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| Range: | 250 nmi (460 km; 290 mi) at 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) |
| Complement: | 4 |
| Armament: |
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The Response Boat – Medium (RB-M) is a 45-foot (14 m) utility boat used by the United States Coast Guard. It is a replacement for the Coast Guard's retired fleet of 41-foot (12 m) utility boats (UTB), which had been in use by the Coast Guard since the 1970s. The Coast Guard plans to acquire 170 of these RB-Ms over a 6–10 year period. The boats will be built by Kvichak Marine Industries of Kent, Washington and Marinette Marine Corporation of Marinette, Wisconsin.
In the summer of 2017. The Canadian Coast Guard purchased a used 45 RBM from the United States Coast Guard. It is based in Vancouver British Columbia using the callsign Coast Guard 158.
According to the US Coast Guard, "While primarily a Search and Rescue (SAR) asset when the 41' UTB was first fielded, the evolution of missions has increased the requirement to perform many missions including Recreational Boating Safety (RBS), Marine Environmental Protection (MEP), Enforcement of Laws and Treaties (ELT), Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security (PWCS) and Defense Operations (DO), including those traditional missions associated with Homeland Security."
The boat has a deep-V, double chine hull, which provides a balance of performance and stability. The vessel is self-righting if it capsizes in rough seas. Below the pilot house are six compartments:
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In keeping with standard USCG practice, boats of this size have hull numbers and are not named. This type of boat has a hull number beginning with the length of the boat (45′) and then a sequential number. In the case of the RB-M boats, the hull numbers begin with 601. Thus the first boat will be RB-M 45601.
Sources:
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Wikipedia