order to immediately decommission all eight converted ships. The crews were dispersed to other cutters in the United States Coast Guard Seventh District and the ships were towed to the Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay, Maryland, where they remain in a "mothballed" state as of February 2014, pending likely scrapping. The 110-foot patrol boats proved to be an effective addition to the drug and immigration enforcement, search and rescue, and fishery law enforcement. The Island-class cutter design is approaching a period of time where the remaining 110 foot cutters are aging and will either not be maintained adequately or will not be replaced by something newer. A Coast Guard committee found this situation unacceptable and wanted immediate action to avoid any loss in the Coast Guard's operational readiness or national maritime security. The Coast Guard ended the Deepwater Conversion plan early enough to save upwards of $80,000,000 originally planned to be spent altering these vessels. While the Coast Guard has sped up the development associated with the Fast Response Cutter and Sentinel-class cutter, with the 123-foot conversion program idled, there are fewer small patrol craft due to the absence of the converted patrol boats being taken out of service. The fact that six 110-foot cutters are absent due to supporting the Global War on Terror is further complicating the ability of the Coast Guard to have adequate underway patrol coverage domestically. The six deployed cutters have no expected date of return from overseas duty. The Coast Guard sued Bollinger, in 2003, and Bollinger paid a $8.5 million settlement in December 2015. References Island-class patrol boats Patrol vessels of the United States Ships of the United States Coast Guard Ships built in Lockport, Louisiana 1986 ships