Ex-USCGC Acushnet (WMEC-167) (Anacortes, Washington)

 place with historical importance, United States Coast Guard, cutter (ship)

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The former "Queen of the Fleet" and oldest operating US Coast Guard Cutter in fleet service, the former USCGC Acushnet is presently in private ownership and in storage here at the Lovic Shipyard in Anacortes, WA, where she has remained since her 2011 decommissioning.

Originally laid down in October 1942 as the US Navy Diver Class Rescue and Salvage Ship USS Shackle (ARS-9), the vessel served with the US Pacific Fleet during the Second World War,conducting vital salvage & repair work at Pearl Harbor, Midway, Guam, Iwo Jima and Okinawa among many other places through the conflict, assisting numerous vessels in distress or those that had been damaged by enemy action. On dangerous minesweeping duties in the East China Sea at the end of the war, the Shackle continued to clear the sea lanes before returning stateside where she decommissioned from US Navy service in June 1946 with three Battle Stars to her record.

Joining two of her Diver Class sisterships, the former Shackle was transferred to the United States Coast Guard immediately after her deactivation from the US Navy. Commissioning into USCG service on August 23rd, 1946 as the USCGC Acushnet (WAT-167), she began her new career based at Portland, Maine as a member of the US Coast Guard's 1st District. Performing weather station duties, search & rescue and fisheries patrols for the next 22 years in the often-stormy North Atlantic, the Acushnet was selected to serve as the key support ship for the National Data Buoy Project and spent from 1968-1978 hauling deep water ocean buoys from both San Diego and Gulfport to build the current network of weather and sea-state buoys across both the Pacific & Atlantic oceans.

Returning to her USCG duties in 1978, the Acushnet was reassigned to the 7th District at Miami and spent the next 12 years patrolling the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean, and Caribbean Sea. Shifting her homeport back to Pacific waters in 1990, the Acushnet arrived at USCG Station Eureka and began her patrols along the West Coast from Southern California to the Bering Sea. Originally slated to be deactivated along with her sisters in the mid-1990's, the Acushnet was found to be in excellent material condition and permitted to remain in service, again shifting her homeport to Alaskan waters and arriving at her new homeport of Ketchikan in 1998.

Continuing to perform her duties of search and rescue, homeland security, maritime law enforcement, and environmental protection in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea, the Acushnet continually proved herself to be up to the considerable challenges of her operating area and following the decommissioning of the USCGC Storis (WMEC-38) in 2007, the 65 year old Acushnet became the oldest operating Cutter in the US Coast Guard, garnering her the title of “Queen of the Fleet” and giving her the traditional golden hull numbers. After public outcry stopped a USCG attempt to deactivate her as a cost-saving measure in 2008, the Acushnet continued to serve the mariners and people of Alaska as a member of the US Coast Guard’s 17th District until she was formally decommissioned in March of 2011.

www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/Acushnet1946.pdf
www.navsource.org/archives/09/37/3709.htm