Cutter returns to Port Angeles after 1½ years of upgrades
The cutter Cuttyhunk pulls into the Coast Guard Group/Air Station Port Angeles dock on Ediz Hook shortly after daybreak Christmas morning. -- U.S. Coast Guard photo
By Paige Dickerson, Peninsula Daily News
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But most of the alterations have happened inside the 110-foot Coast Guard cutter that returned home to Port Angeles on Christmas Day.
New generators and a communications suite were among the upgrades installed on the Cuttyhunk while it spent 1½ years on the East Coast.
The cutter strutted the new equipment when it slipped into Port Angeles Harbor in a surprise early arrival on Christmas morning.
Instead of a planned noon arrival, the crew pulled the cutter around Ediz Hook just after dawn on Tuesday.
"The crew just decided it was Christmas, and they wanted to be with their families so they just got going as soon as they could," Port Angeles Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Eric Perdue said.
The cutter, commanded by Chief Warrant Officer Christopher Smasne, has a complement of one officer, two chief petty officers and 13 enlisted personnel aboard.
Overhauled in Maryland
The Cuttyhunk left Port Angeles in September 2006 for a $6 million overhaul of communication, navigation and engineering equipment at the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Md.
The crew has been traveling on the return trip from Curtis Bay since Nov. 20, and traveled 7,300 nautical miles via the Panama Canal.
Because the time to perform the overhauls was so long, the Cuttyhunk was decommissioned from service, Perdue said.
The cutter will be recommissioned in February and the full crew will return to work on it.
A rotating smaller crew had been with the ship in Curtis Bay.
"Some of these guys hadn't seen their families in four months, because they have been deployed to be with the Cuttyhunk for that long," Perdue said.
Life extension
The overhauls were designed to extend the life of the cutter by about 15 years.
"This is essentially a stop-gap filler for the ships coming from the Deepwater program, because the projected has been designed to replace all the ship because they are aging," Perdue said.
"By putting them through this project, they have extended the life for another 15 years or so."
The Coast Guard's Integrated Deepwater System, begun in 2002, is a multi-year program to modernize and replace the Coast Guard's aging ships and aircraft, and improve command and control and logistics systems.
It is the largest such program in the history of the Coast Guard, which came under the Department of Homeland Security in 2002.
Law enforcement mission
The Cuttyhunk is listed as a multi-mission cutter, but the primary purpose is law enforcement.
Other duties it performs include search-and-rescue, marine environmental protection and homeland security.
The cutter was built in 1988 by Bollinger Shipyard in Lockport, La., and can move at a maximum speed of 30 knots.
It is equipped with stabilizers to minimize motion, thus reducing the crew's fatigue.
Also stationed at the Coast Guard Group/Air Station Port Angeles are three 87-foot coastal patrol boats, Wahoo, Adelie and the Swordfish.
The 87-foot coastal patrol boat Osprey, under the Port Angeles command, is based in Port Townsend.
A fifth, Sea Lion, is based in Bellingham under the Port Angeles command.
The five smaller cutters perform similar functions to the Cuttyhunk.
Also stationed in Port Angeles is the Active, a 210-foot, 42-year-old medium endurance cutter which patrols for the command out of Seattle.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: December 25. 2007 9:00PM