The Coast Guard commissioned the USCGC Jeffrey Palazzo (WPC-1163), a Bollinger-built Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutter, during a Sept. 12 ceremony at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York.
Bollinger Shipyards, Lockport, La., built the 154' cutter, which is named for Coast Guard reservist and New York City firefighter Jeffrey Palazzo, who was killed while responding to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Palazzo served in the Coast Guard Reserve as a Machinery Technician 1st Class aboard the cutter Cape Horn out of Station Rockaway. He also served with the New York City Fire Department, first at Brooklyn’s Ladder Company 109 and later with Staten Island’s Rescue Squad 5.
“It is an incredible honor to have built this vessel in his name,” said Ben Bordelon, president and CEO of Bollinger Shipyards. “The Jeffrey Palazzo (WPC-1163) will carry on his legacy, protecting lives, securing our homeland, and serving as a lasting reminder of his courage and sacrifice.”
The commissioning follows a March 2025 ceremony at Bollinger’s Lockport facility in which the shipbuilder received two pieces of steel recovered from the World Trade Center site.
The steel was escorted from New York to Louisiana by four retired Coast Guard Port Security Chiefs and was later incorporated into memorial plaques aboard two Bollinger-built FRCs, the Jeffrey Palazzo and USCGC Vincent Danz (WPC-1162).
Bollinger said it has delivered more than 189 vessels to the Coast Guard during a relationship spanning more than three decades.
The Sentinel-class FRC is 154' long and has a flank speed of 28 knots. The cutters are equipped with a C4ISR suite and a stern launch-and-recovery ramp for a 26' over-the-horizon interceptor boat.
The Coast Guard uses the cutters for a range of domestic and overseas missions. FRC deployments have extended as far as the Marshall Islands, approximately 4,400 nautical miles from their homeport.
