July 14, 2010:
The Chinese coast guard has a new, 631 ton coastal patrol boat. The 66.5 meter/206 foot long (8.5 meters/26.4 foot wide and depth of 4.5 meters/14 foot) boat has a top speed of 42 kilometers an hour. The ship can stay at 15 days at a time. The boat is armed with a quad 14.5mm machine-gun and small arms. Also carried is a speedboat. Crew quarters and most work spaces are air conditioned. These new boats are desperately needed, because most of the several hundred patrol boats in use are old (30 or more years old) and inefficient (unreliable with large crews and low speed).