Bodega Bay, California in December 1969. This was the only Swift Boat lost during training operations. No crewmen were lost in the event. Vietnam service The first Swift Boats arrived in South Vietnam in October 1965. The boats were initially used as coastal patrol craft in Operation Market Time, interdicting seaborne supplies on their way to the Viet Cong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) forces in South Vietnam. However, the design's shallow draft and low freeboard limited their seaworthiness in open waters. These limitations, plus the difficulties being encountered in the interior waterways by the smaller, more lightly armed PBRs, led to the incorporation of Swifts to patrol the of rivers and canals of Vietnam's interior waterways. Swift Boats continued to operate along the Vietnamese coastal areas, but with the start of Admiral Elmo Zumwalt's "SEALORDS" riverway interdiction strategy, their primary area of operations soon centered upon the Cà Mau Peninsula and the Mekong Delta area in the southern tip of Vietnam. Here they patrolled the waterways and performed special operations, including gunfire support, troop insertion and evacuation, and raids into enemy territory. The Mekong Delta is composed of ten thousand square miles of marshland, swamps and forested areas. The region is interlaced by rivers and canal ways. Controlled by the VC, the interior waterways of the Mekong Delta were used to transport supplies and weapons. Swift Boats generally operated in teams of three to five. Each boat had an officer in charge, one of whom would also be placed in overall charge of the mission. Their missions included patrolling the waterways, searching water traffic for weapons and munitions, transporting South Vietnamese marine units and inserting Navy SEAL teams. When the Swift Boats began making forays up the waterways into the interior of the delta, they initially took the carriers by surprise, causing them to drop their materials and run off into the overgrowth. Occasionally a short firefight would break out. As it became clear that control of the waterways was being contested, the VC developed a number of tactics to challenge the U.S. Navy. They set up ambushes, built obstructions in the canals to create choke points and began to place mines in the waterways. For the Swifts, coming back down river was always more dangerous than going up river. The passage of a patrol assured their eventual return, providing an opportunity for the VC. Ambushes were