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 and still on active duty.
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 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 Mohawk (WMEC-913) is a 270' United States Coast Guard Famous-class medium endurance cutter. She was launched on September 9, 1989 at Robert Derecktor Shipyard Incorporated of Middletown, Rhode Island and commissioned in March 1991. She is the third cutter named for the Mohawk nation, a tribe of Iroquoian Indians from the Mohawk Valley of New York.
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 first of the 210' Medium Endurance Cutter Fleet and the fourth Revenue Cutter / Coast Guard Cutter to bear the name Reliance. 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 Diligence (WMEC-616) is a Reliance-class United States Coast Guard 210-foot medium endurance cutter formerly based in Wilmington, NC but now based in Pensacola, Florida. Diligence was the second of 16 cutters built from 1962 to 1968. Fourteen of this class of cutter are still in active U.S. service, and two have been transferred to foreign navies.
USCGC Resolute (WMEC-620) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter.
USCGC Steadfast (WMEC-623) was a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter in commission for 56 years. Commissioned in 1968, Steadfast was home ported in St. Petersburg, Florida for her first 24 years of service. In 1992, she was decommissioned for Major Maintenance Availability (MMA) to extend her service another 25 years. Following MMA in February 1994, Steadfast was re-commissioned and home ported in Astoria, Oregon until her decommissioning on February 1, 2024.
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:
The USCGC Harriet Lane (WSC-141) was a 125-foot patrol boat, commonly known as a "buck-and-a-quarter", 1926–1946.
United States
