Richard O Bracken News

Bollinger Shipyards has delivered the USCGC JOHN MCCORMICK, the 21st Fast Response Cutter (FRC) to the U.S. Coast Guard. The 154 foot patrol craft USCGC JOHN MCCORMICK is the 21st vessel in the Coast Guard's Sentinel-class FRC program, and the first FRC to be stationed at Ketchikan, Alaska. The FRC has been described as an operational “game changer,” by senior Coast Guard officials. Previous cutters have been stationed in the 7th Coast Guard District in Florida or San Juan, PR, and two have been stationed in the 5th Coast Guard District in Cape May, NJ.

1938- On 26 March 1938 the US Coast Guard motor lifeboat Triumph departed from the Point Adams Station, located near Hammond, Oregon at the mouth of the Columbia River. It proceeded out to the bar and stood by while several crab boats crossed in. The tug Tyee with a barge load of logs in tow was attempting to cross out. Tyee passed too close to the life buoy and the barge drifted into the outer break on Clatsop Spit. Triumph, while attempting to assist Tyee, lost Surfman Richard O. Bracken overboard in the breakers of Clatsop Spit. Bracken would have been drowned had it not been for the skill of BN (L) John F. McCormick, Officer-in-Charge of Triumph, and the cooperation of the crew, namely CMOMM (L) Albert L. Olsen and Surfman Harold W. Lawrence.