The US Navy reported that on March 21, 2023, it handed over to the Egyptian Navy in Alexandria three large Cyclone-type patrol boats withdrawn from their composition - PC 3 Hurricane, PC 6 Sirocco and PC 12 Thunderbolt. The boats arrived in Alexandria on February 12 from their former permanent base in Bahrain, having made a month-long 4,000-mile crossing with mixed American-Egyptian crews around the Arabian Peninsula since January.
PC 12 Thunderbolt Cyclone type patrol boat in the US Navy, 2015 (c) US Department of DefenseRecall that 14 large Cyclone-type patrol boats were built by the American shipbuilding company Bollinger Shipyards and introduced into the US Navy from 1993 to 2000, being used for coastal operations, control of shipping and support for the actions of special operations forces.
Since 2015, ten of the 13 boats of this type that remained in service were based in Bahrain (Manama), mainly to counter the Iranian boat forces, and the remaining three boats were based in Mayport (Florida), mainly for anti-drug operations.
Cyclone type boats have an empty displacement of about 336 tons, a length of 55 meters and a width of 7.6 meters. The boats are equipped with a power plant consisting of four Paxman 16RP200-1-CM diesel engines with a capacity of 3360 hp, providing full speed up to 35 knots. The crew is 28 people. Armament includes two 25 mm Mk 38 automatic artillery launchers, machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, and some of the boats were equipped with Mk 60 quad-container launchers of small-sized guided missiles BGM-176B Griffin B.
The lead boat of this type, the PC 1 Cyclone, was transferred to the Philippine Navy back in 2004. Now the remaining boats are being decommissioned, and of the ten units of the flotilla in Bahrain, only two are still in service - the RS 4 Moonson and the RS 9 Chinook. Five more boats were transferred to the Bahrain Navy "on the spot" in March 2022. and now three - the Egyptian Navy. All three "Mayport" boats were decommissioned in February 2021, and two of them are scheduled to be sold for scrapping, and the last boat in the PC 14 Tornado series is intended for transfer to an unnamed "foreign partner".
One of three large Cyclone-type patrol boats received by the Egyptian Navy from the American Fleet during the passage of the Suez Canal, February 2023 (from) the US Navy
