A buoy tender is a type of vessel used to maintain and replace navigational buoys. This term can also apply to an actual person who does this work.
The United States Coast Guard uses buoy tenders to accomplish one of its primary missions of maintaining all U.S. aids to navigation (ATON). [1]
The Canadian Coast Guard uses multi-use vessels (most being icebreakers) with tasks including buoy tending. [2]
United States Coast Guard
Canadian Coast Guard
The United States Navy, United States Coast Guard, and United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use a hull classification symbol to identify their ships by type and by individual ship within a type. The system is analogous to the pennant number system that the Royal Navy and other European and Commonwealth navies use.
The Canadian Coast Guard is the coast guard of Canada. Formed in 1962, the coast guard is tasked with marine search and rescue (SAR), communication, navigation, and transportation issues in Canadian waters, such as navigation aids and icebreaking, marine pollution response, and support for other Canadian government initiatives. The coast guard operates 119 vessels of varying sizes and 23 helicopters, along with a variety of smaller craft. The CCG is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, and is a special operating agency within Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
The USCG seagoing buoy tender is a type of United States Coast Guard Cutter used to service aids to navigation throughout the waters of the United States and wherever American shipping interests require. The U.S. Coast Guard has maintained a fleet of seagoing buoy tenders dating back to its origins in the U.S. Lighthouse Service (USLHS). These ships originally were designated with the hull classification symbol WAGL, but in 1965 the designation was changed to WLB, which is still used today.
CCGS Samuel Risley is a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker and buoy tender assigned to the Great Lakes area. Lead ship of her class, the vessel is named after Samuel Risley, the 19th century maritime inspector and first head of Board of Steamship Inspectors for Upper Canada and Ontario. Based in the Great Lakes, CCGS Samuel Risley is responsible for keeping an ice-free passage between Port Colborne, Ontario and Thunder Bay, Ontario.
The United States Coast Guard commissioned a new Keeper class of coastal buoy tenders in the 1990s that are 175 feet in length and named after lighthouse keepers.
CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier is a Martha L. Black-class light icebreaker and major navaids tender of the Canadian Coast Guard. Built in 1986 by Canadian Shipbuilding at Collingwood, Ontario, Canada, she was the last ship constructed there. The ship has been based out of Victoria, British Columbia.
USCGC Maple (WLB-207) is a Juniper-class seagoing buoy tender operated by the United States Coast Guard. She was based at Sitka, Alaska for 16 years and is currently homeported at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. Her primary mission is maintaining aids to navigation, but she also supports search and rescue, law enforcement, oil spill response, and other Coast Guard missions.
United States Coast Guard Cutter is the term used by the U.S. Coast Guard for its commissioned vessels. They are 65 feet (19.8 m) or greater in length and have a permanently assigned crew with accommodations aboard. They carry the ship prefix USCGC.
There are two classes of USCG Inland Buoy Tenders.
CCGS Simcoe was a Canadian Coast Guard buoy tender and light icebreaker. The second vessel of the name in Canadian government service, Simcoe was in service from 1962 to 2007 based out of the Coast Guard base at Prescott, Ontario working the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway. In 2008 the ship was sold to commercial interests.
USCGC Elm (WLB-204) is a U.S. Coast Guard Juniper-class seagoing buoy tender home-ported in Astoria, Oregon. She is responsible for maintaining aids to navigation on the coasts of Oregon and Washington, including the Columbia River.
CCGS Earl Grey is a Samuel Risley-class light icebreaker and buoy tender in the Canadian Coast Guard. Constructed in 1986, the vessel serves a variety of roles, including light ice-breaking and buoy tending, as well as being strengthened for navigation in ice to perform tasking along the shores off the Atlantic coast of Canada. Like her sister ship, CCGS Samuel Risley, she carries a large and powerful crane on her long low afterdeck for manipulating buoys. Earl Grey is the second icebreaker in Canadian service to carry the name.
USCGC Smilax (WAGL/WLIC-315) is a 100-foot (30 m) United States Coast Guard Cosmos-class inland construction tender, commissioned in 1944. Smilax is the "Queen of the Fleet", as the oldest commissioned U.S. Coast Guard cutter.
An inland construction tender is a type of ship used to build and service shore structures such as piers and buoy trestles. It is also used to maintain buoys and aids to navigation. Less frequently, they may be used for law enforcement, environmental, icebreaking, and search and rescue operations.
USCGC Bluebell (WLI-313) is a United States Coast Guard inland buoy tender based out of Portland, Oregon.
The following January 2019 order of battle is for the United States Coast Guard.
USCGC Elm(WAGL-260/WLI-72260) was an inland buoy tender used maintain aids to navigation by the United States Coast Guard.
USCGC Elderberry (WLI-65401) is an inland buoy tender of the United States Coast Guard. She is based at Petersburg, Alaska and is responsible for maintaining aids to navigation. Her efforts are focused on waterways that are especially shallow or restricted.
USCGC Barberry (WLI-294) is a United States Coast Guard buoy tender that was donated to the state of Maryland in 1971. Based out of two locations in North Carolina and then Portsmouth, Virginia, during her Coast Guard career, the vessel was then used as an icebreaker by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. In 2020, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources announced that the vessel would be replaced; her replacement is expected to be commissioned in 2022.
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