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USS Cyclone (PC 1)

USS CYCLONE was the lead ship of the Navy's CYCLONE - class of patrol coastal boats. The ship was decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on February 28, 2000, and was given to the US Coast Guard the next day. There, the CYCLONE was re-commissioned as USCGC CYCLONE (WPC 1). Serving in this role for another four years, the ship was finally transfered to the Philippines on March 8, 2004, where the CYCLONE entered naval service as BRP MARIANO ALVAREZ (PS 38).

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS CYCLONE. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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USS CYCLONE History:

The patrol coastal ship USS CYCLONE originated in the early 1990s shift of the United States Navy toward littoral operations and special operations support. Under this concept, the Navy and U.S. Special Operations Command sought a small, fast craft that could patrol coastal waters, conduct interdiction, and insert and recover special operations forces in support of the post-Cold War strategy often summarized as "Forward...From the Sea". In this context, a contract for the first of what became the CYCLONE-class was placed with Bollinger Shipyards of Lockport, Louisiana, on August 30, 1990, making CYCLONE the prototype for a series of coastal patrol ships intended to work closely with Navy SEALs and other special operations units.

Construction began at Bollinger's yard on the Bayou Lafourche when CYCLONE was laid down on June 22, 1991. The hull used steel construction with an aluminum superstructure to keep weight down while maintaining structural strength, and the design incorporated four high-power diesel engines driving four shafts to give the ship very high speed and rapid acceleration for short-notice coastal missions. CYCLONE was launched on February 16, 1992, and sponsored by Ms. Betty LeMoyne. Sea trials in the Gulf of Mexico followed, during which the Navy evaluated the ship's handling, propulsion, and the integrated combat and navigation suite that would become standard for the class.

Originally, the Navy planned to commission CYCLONE on May 1, 1993. In the run-up to that date, however, the ship suffered a significant setback. On March 12, 1993, she collided with the LASH (Lighter Aboard Ship) mothership ROBERT E. LEE. The impact caused enough structural damage to require a ten-week yard period for repairs and delayed the ship's entry into service. Once repairs were complete and trials repeated to confirm the restoration of her performance, CYCLONE was finally commissioned on August 7, 1993, at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, with Lieutenant Commander Randall L. Johnson in command.

Following commissioning, CYCLONE joined Naval Special Warfare forces on the U.S. East Coast and was homeported at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Virginia. From there, she operated under the control of Naval Special Warfare Command, with missions centered on coastal patrol, interdiction surveillance, and support of special operations forces. She was fitted with a small but flexible armament that included a stabilized 25-millimeter gun system, additional 25-millimeter weaponry, machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, and provisions for man-portable surface-to-air missiles, giving the ship enough firepower to protect herself and the small boats and boarding teams she supported.

As the first unit of the class, CYCLONE served as a testbed for refining tactics, equipment fits, and operating procedures that would be applied to the subsequent patrol coastal ships. During the mid-1990s, CYCLONE's activities reflected the Navy's need for small, responsive ships in politically sensitive littoral environments. Photographic evidence shows the ship operating off the coast of Haiti around 1994 while still homeported at Little Creek, Virginia, illustrating how the Navy used the new patrol coastal ships for presence and patrol duties in the Caribbean at a time when the United States was heavily engaged in managing instability and political crisis there.

Alongside these deployments, CYCLONE took part in exercises, coastal patrols, and training evolutions with special operations units, practicing the insertion and extraction of small teams and the use of embarked rigid-hulled inflatable boats and combat rubber raiding craft. These activities allowed the Navy to evaluate how well a 170-foot coastal patrol ship could support missions that previously relied on smaller boats or larger surface combatants.

Although the CYCLONE-class satisfied many of the technical requirements established for high-speed coastal patrol and special warfare support, it soon became clear that the ships occupied an awkward niche. Special operations forces assessed the design as too large compared with smaller, more concealable craft, while the surface Navy regarded the ships as too small for blue-water escort or traditional surface combatant roles.

As additional units of the class joined the fleet in the mid-1990s, CYCLONE continued to operate from Little Creek but increasingly served as a platform for demonstrating capabilities rather than as the centerpiece of a fully embraced fleet concept. By the late 1990s, Navy plans called for phasing out several of the patrol coastal ships, including CYCLONE. Her active Navy career ended on February 28, 2000, when she was decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list at Little Creek.

Almost immediately afterward, on February 29, 2000, the ship was transferred to the United States Coast Guard, which at that time was examining options to fill a capability gap between its 110-foot ISLAND-class patrol boats and its 210-foot medium endurance cutters. In Coast Guard service the ship was re-commissioned as USCGC CYCLONE (WPC 1).

As USCGC CYCLONE, the former Navy patrol coastal ship entered a new phase of her career centered on homeland security, law-enforcement, and maritime safety missions. The Coast Guard based her at Curtis Bay, Maryland, reflecting both the proximity of the Coast Guard Yard and the service's desire to employ the ship in coastal and offshore patrol roles in the Atlantic approaches to the United States.

However, the experience soon showed that the ship's high operating and maintenance costs, driven by her four powerful main engines and the complexity of her combat systems, made her less economical than purpose-built Coast Guard cutters. Coast Guard planning documents around 2001-2002 list "PC 1 (ex-USS CYCLONE)" among units proposed for decommissioning as part of service reductions, indicating that the ship was not fully integrated into the long-term cutter force structure. While serving under the Coast Guard ensign, CYCLONE spent much of her time in a reduced operating status, available to augment patrol forces when needed but not heavily deployed. This relative inactivity made her a candidate for transfer abroad when U.S. policy turned toward using retired or underused assets to strengthen the maritime security forces of partner nations. In the early 2000s, the United States sought to help the Philippines improve its ability to interdict smugglers, pirates, and armed groups in the southern Philippines and adjacent seas, where maritime traffic is dense and the threat environment complex. Against that backdrop, CYCLONE was selected for transfer.

In January 2004, the ship was sold to the Philippine Navy under the Foreign Military Sales program as part of a broader package of military assistance. Before delivery, she underwent refit work at Bollinger that included installation of a stern ramp known as the Combat Craft Retrieval System (CCRS). This modification extended the stern by about nine feet and allowed the ship to launch and recover a 20-foot rigid-hulled inflatable boat directly over a ramp that could be lowered below the waterline, greatly improving her ability to handle fast small craft essential for boarding and special operations missions.

At the same time, some of the original U.S. Navy weapon fits were simplified or removed, notably the provision for shoulder-fired Stinger surface-to-air missiles, while the basic gun and grenade-launcher armament remained suitable for patrol and law-enforcement roles. On March 8, 2004, the ship was formally commissioned into the Philippine Navy as BRP GENERAL MARIANO ALVAREZ (PS-38), named after a general of the Philippine Revolution against Spain. She became the lead and only unit of what the Philippine Navy refers to as the MARIANO ALVAREZ-class of patrol ships and was assigned to the Patrol Force of the Philippine Fleet. From her new bases in the Philippine archipelago she undertook coastal patrols, interdiction missions, and support to joint military and law-enforcement operations, particularly in the southern Philippines where concerns about piracy, kidnap-for-ransom, and insurgent or terrorist activity required a persistent naval presence.

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