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September 30, 2009

The Virginian-Pilot
© September 30, 2009

By Jaedda Armstrong

The Coast Guard cutter Legare is due home to Portsmouth on Thursday from a three-month deployment to West Africa, the service announced.

Crew size About 100 Coast Guardsmen

Leader Cmdr. D. Scott Bauby

Location of deployment West African coast

Deployed July 1

Returning Oct. 1

Highlights The cutter Legare’s crew worked with navies and maritime enforcement agencies in Morocco, Sierra Leone, Senegal and Cape Verde through a Navy program known as Africa Partnership Station.

While in Sierra Leone, the cutter was involved in that nation’s largest-ever maritime law enforcement case. Along with members of Sierra Leone’s Maritime Wing, the Legare’s crew boarded and seized the fishing vessel Yu Feng for illegal fishing. Yu Feng’s crew faces fines of $1 million and forfeiture of its catch and vessel.

Vice Adm. Robert J. Papp Jr., commander of the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Area, is to award the Legare’s crew the Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Commendation.