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U.S. Coastguard Cutter to Arrive in Klaipeda Following BALTOPS Exercises

June 19, 2000

After participating in BALTOPS 2000, a U.S. led, Swedish co-hosted invitational, multinational maritime exercise conducted from 3-17 June 2000 in the Baltic region, the United States Coast Guard Cutter Campbell will visit Klaipeda, Lithuania from 21-25 June and Riga, Latvia from 26-29 June.

BALTOPS was conducted “in the spirit of” Partnership for Peace and provides a basis for promoting mutual understanding and demonstrating maritime platform interoperability between participants through a series of multilateral training exercises.  Exercises included maritime interdiction operations, air defense, surface operations, communications, and seamanship.  The United States, forces from Lithuania and Latvia along with Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom, participated in the most encompassing BALTOPS exercise ever.

Campbell will conduct additional training in the areas of search and rescue, maritime law enforcement and marine environmental protection with their Latvian and Lithuanian counterparts.

Members of Campbell’s crew look forward to enjoying the hospitality, cultural and historical sights of host countries. Campbell will offer free public tours from

1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. on June 22 in Klaipeda at Skirvytes 1.

Campbell departed her homeport of New Bedford, Massachusetts on May 15.  Campbell is a 270-foot long Coast Guard cutter whose primary missions include defense readiness operations, search and rescue and maritime law enforcement duties such as drug interdiction and enforcing fisheries regulations.