USCGC Harriet Lane (WMEC-903) | |
History | |
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United States | |
Builder | Tacoma Boatbuilding Company, Tacoma, Washington |
Acquired | April 1984 |
Commissioned | 14 June 1984 in Seattle, Washington |
Homeport | Honolulu, Hawai'i |
Identification |
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Motto |
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Status | Active |
Badge | |
General characteristics | |
Displacement | 1,800 tons |
Length | 270 ft (82 m) |
Beam | 38 ft (11.6 m) |
Draught | 14.5 ft (4.4 m) |
Propulsion | Twin turbo-charged ALCO V-18 diesel engines |
Speed | 19.5 knots (36.1 km/h; 22.4 mph) |
Range | 9,900 nautical miles (18,300 km; 11,400 mi) |
Boats & landing craft carried | |
Complement | 100 personnel (14 officers, 86 enlisted) |
Sensors and processing systems | |
Electronic warfare & decoys | AN/SLQ-32 (receive only) |
Armament | |
Aircraft carried | HH-65 Dolphin |
USCGC Harriet Lane (WMEC-903) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter. Named after Harriet Lane, niece and official hostess of President James Buchanan. Harriet Lane was constructed by Tacoma Boatbuilding, Tacoma, Washington and delivered 20 April 1984.
Harriet Lane was commissioned on 14 June 1984 and has served the Coast Guard and the nation with distinction, for example, by conducting Coast Guard and national defense missions from Maine to South America and even into the Pacific Northwest. In 1994, as the Commander of Operation Able Manner forces, she directed the rescue of thousands of Haitian and Cuban migrants flowing across the Windward Passage and Florida Straits toward U.S. shores. During this mass migration, Harriet Lane's crew saved over 2,400 migrants, directed 15 cutters, an aerostat and multiple aircraft. She has twice been a key U.S. participant in the annual UNITAS multi-national exercise with South American navies in 1994 and 1997. In 1995, Harriet Lane conducted a trial Alaska patrol to determine the feasibility of placing a medium-endurance cutter in the Seventeenth District.
In 1996, Harriet Lane was the on scene commander for much of the initial search and recovery of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island. She escorted an international fleet of tall ships during the OPSAIL 2000 Parade of Sail. Most recently, exhibiting the Coast Guard's multi-mission nature and typical of Harriet Lane's twenty years of service, she stood as a maritime security sentry in Charleston, South Carolina Harbor for the Operation Iraqi Freedom load-out, then moved south to the Caribbean and seized two tons of cocaine headed for the U.S., and finally, rescued several hundred migrants attempting to reach the U.S. in unseaworthy boats.
In May 2010, Harriet Lane was directly involved in response efforts of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico after the major explosion that sank the rig. This was considered the worst environmental disaster in US history.
In March 2023, the U.S. Coast Guard announced that Harriet Lane will be transferred to the Indo-Pacific in late 2023 as an 'Indo-Pacific Support Cutter'. [1] Harriet Lane completed a 15 month, $21 million Service Life Extension Program at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore on 3 August 2023. Among other work, a 25mm Mk 38 Mod 3 gun was installed. [2] In mid-December 2023, Harriet Lane arrived in her new home port of Honolulu, Hawai'i to begin work as part of U.S. Coast Guard District 14. [3] [4]
In June 2024, she embarked on a 68-day mission covering 13,400 nautical miles, visiting and training with government partners in Tuvalu, Tonga, Samoa and the Cook Islands, including participating in an international fleet review in honor of Tongan King Tupou VI's 65th Birthday and the 50th anniversary of the Royal Tongan Navy. She joined 11 ships from 10 countries in Nuku’alofa including Australia's HMAS Choules, China’s PLA-N Zibo, Japan’s JS Noshiro, New Zealand’s HMNZS Manawanui, UK's HMS Tamar, with Tonga's VOEA Ngahau Koula serving as the King's flagship. [5]
The Medium Endurance Cutter or WMEC is a type of United States Coast Guard Cutter mainly consisting of the 270-foot (82 m) Famous- and 210-foot (64 m) Reliance-class cutters. These larger cutters are under control of Area Commands. These cutters have adequate accommodations for crew to live on board and can do 6 to 8 week patrols.
USCGC Dauntless (WMEC-624) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter, commissioned in 1968.
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.
USCGC Thetis (WMEC-910) is a United States Coast Guard Famous-class medium endurance cutter. She is the 10th ship of the Famous Class cutters designed and built for the U.S. Coast Guard and the third Coast Guard cutter to bear the name. Laid down August 24, 1984 by Robert Derecktor Shipyard Incorporated of Middletown, Rhode Island. She was launched April 29, 1986 and named for the cutters USRC Thetis, which served from 1899 to 1916, and USCGC Thetis (WPC-115), which served from 1931 to 1947. The Greek goddess Thetis, incidentally, was the mother of Achilles. The Famous Class cutter Thetis was commissioned on June 30, 1989. She conducts patrols throughout the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.
USCGC Forward (WMEC-911) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter. She is the fourth cutter of that name; two were United States Revenue Cutter Service vessels and two, including the contemporary cutter, Coast Guard vessels. All were named for Walter Forward, fifteenth United States Secretary of the Treasury. The present Forward was constructed by Robert Derecktor Shipyard Incorporated, Middletown, Rhode Island, was delivered in May 1989, and commissioned 4 August 1990. USCGC Forward (WMEC-911) and USCGC Legare (WMEC-912) were commissioned in a joint ceremony in Portsmouth, Virginia.
USCGC Tampa (WMEC-902) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter. She was commissioned 16 March 1984. Her motto, "Thy way is the sea, thy path in the great waters", matches the inscription that is engraved on the memorial at Arlington National Cemetery for the 131 persons lost following the sinking of a previous cutter Tampa on September 18, 1918.
USCGC Northland (WMEC-904) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter. Her keel was laid down in 1981 and she was launched in 1982 by the Tacoma Boatbuilding Company of Tacoma, Washington. She was commissioned on December 17, 1984.
USCGC Spencer (WMEC-905) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter. Her keel was laid on 26 June 1982 at Robert Derecktor Shipyard Incorporated, Middletown, Rhode Island. She was named for John Canfield Spencer, United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1843 to 1844 under President John Tyler and launched on 17 April 1984 and was commissioned into service on 28 June 1986.
USCGC Escanaba (WMEC-907) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter based in Portsmouth, Virginia. Her keel was laid on April 1, 1983, at Robert Derecktor Shipyard Incorporated, Middletown, Rhode Island. She was launched February 6, 1985 and is named for her predecessor, USCGC Escanaba (WPG-77) which sank during World War Two, and was named for the Escanaba River and Escanaba, Michigan. Escanaba (WMEC-907) was formally commissioned August 29, 1987 in Grand Haven, Michigan, the home port of her predecessor.
USCGC Tahoma (WMEC-908) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter. Her keel was laid on June 28, 1983 at Robert Derecktor Shipyard Incorporated, Middletown, Rhode Island. She was delivered August 12, 1987 and commissioned April 6, 1988. She is the third cutter to bear the name Tahoma, which is the Northwest Pacific Indian word that refers to the Cascade Range mountain peak now known as Mount Rainier. Her nickname, Mighty T, was selected because it was the nickname of her predecessor, Tahoma (WPG-80), during World War II.
USCGC Campbell (WMEC-909) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter based at Naval Station Newport in Newport, Rhode Island. Campbell is the sixth Coast Guard Cutter to bear the name and is assigned to the Atlantic. The ship bears the distinction of having made some of the largest narcotics seizures in Coast Guard history as well as being the command ship for the TWA 800 recovery effort.
USCGC Bear (WMEC-901) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter. She was laid down August 23, 1979 and launched September 25, 1980 by the Tacoma Boatbuilding Company of Tacoma, Washington. She was commissioned February 4, 1983. She was named for USRC Bear (AG-29), a steam barquentine that was built in Scotland and served the United States Treasury Department in the United States Revenue Cutter Service's Alaskan Patrol.
USCGC Valiant (WMEC-621) is a United States Coast Guard multi-mission medium endurance cutter in service since 1967. Valiant is home ported in Jacksonville, Florida and operates in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico for the Commander, Coast Guard Atlantic Area. Missions include search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, marine environmental protection, and national defense operations.
USCGC Reliance (WMEC-615) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter. She is the fourth Revenue Cutter / Coast Guard Cutter to bear the name Reliance and the first of the 210' Medium Endurance Cutter Fleet. Constructed by Todd Shipyards in Houston, Texas and commissioned in 1964, she was originally homeported in Corpus Christi, Texas. Her duties included offshore oil rig inspections, fisheries, counter drug, alien migrant interdiction, marine pollution patrols, and search and rescue. Reliance has been homeported in Yorktown, Virginia, Port Canaveral, Florida, New Castle, New Hampshire and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. As of May 2019, she is stationed at the Naval Air Station Pensacola in Pensacola, Florida.
USCGC Resolute (WMEC-620) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter.
USCGC Venturous (WMEC-625) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter. The vessel was constructed by the American Shipbuilding Company in Lorain, Ohio in 1967 and commissioned in 1968. The ship has served on both the west and eastern coasts of the United States. The vessel is used for search and rescue, fishery law enforcement, border enforcement and smuggling interdiction along the coasts and in the Caribbean Sea.
USNS Vindicator (T-AGOS-3) was a United States Navy Stalwart-class modified tactical auxiliary general ocean surveillance ship that was in service from 1984 to 1993. Vindicator then served in the United States Coast Guard from 1994 to 2001 as the medium endurance cutter USCGC Vindicator (WMEC-3). From 2004 to 2020, she was in commission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fleet as the oceanographic research ship NOAAS Hiʻialakai.
USCGC Harriet Lane refers to three ships of the United States Coast Guard:
USCGC Stratton (WMSL-752) is the third Legend-class cutter of the United States Coast Guard. It is the first "white hull" cutter named after a woman since the 1980s. Stratton is named for Coast Guard Captain Dorothy C. Stratton (1899–2006). Stratton served as director of the SPARS, the Coast Guard Women's Reserve during World War II.
The USCGC Harriet Lane (WSC-141) was a 125-foot patrol boat, commonly known as a "buck-and-a-quarter", 1926–1946.