Coast Guard says farewell to the last 41 Foot UTB in service after 41 years.
If you have ever been through a USCG SAR station, or around one, in the past forty years, odds are you came across a ’41 Utility Boat, Large. Some 156 of these were built by the Coast Guard Yard, Curtis Bay, Maryland between 1973-78. These hardy craft were constructed of welded 5086 aluminum, with a molded fiberglass superstructure and twin Cummins diesel engines with conventional shafts and propellers. Usually ran by a crew of 2-4, they could make 25-ish knots and stay out on the water for half a day or more before returning to shore due to the fact they had no berthing or galley facility.
I remember taking a few cruises on these out of the old Pascagoula SAR station with my JROTC unit in high school. Most people don’t know this, but they kept a fully ready M16A1 in a molded cabinet case in the cabin and had the ability to mount a pair of Vietnam-era M60 machine guns on the deck if needed.
Well the last one, based on the Great Lakes, has been retired. They are replaced by 174 of the new and super-sweet 45-foot Response Boat-Medium (RB-M)
End of an era. Although you can be sure some of these are probably being shipped off to deserving third world allies so that their local coasties can help deter smuggler, save lives, and police poachers.
Here are some pictures of one I took that has been preserved at the USS Mobile (BB-60) Memorial Park a few years back.
