Coast Guard Cutter Morro Bay News

The U.S. Coast Guard said its In-Service Vessel Sustainment (ISVS) Program has passed the halfway point in its effort to upgrade the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems on the service’s 140-foot bay-class icebreaking tugs.The HVAC upgrade on Coast Guard Cutter Katmai Bay was completed on June 1—20 days ahead of schedule—in Cheboygan, Mich., near the tug’s homeport of Sault Sainte Marie, Mich.Meanwhile, Coast Guard Cutter Morro Bay arrived at Coast Guard Yard…

The crew from the Coast Guard Cutter Morro Bay welcomed Navy Reserve medical units from Akron, Ohio, and Youngstown, Ohio, in Cleveland Sunday. The visit was designed to familiarize the Navy Reservists with shipboard operations. The cutter crew gave the members of the medical units a tour of the cutter and explained the missions and capabilities of the Morro Bay. During the tour, the Navy Reservists visited the engine room, mess deck, bridge and berthing areas.

Rear Adm. June E. Ryan, commander of the U.S. Coast Guard Ninth District, was welcomed aboard the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Samuel Risley by Assistant Commissioner Julie Gascon and Captain Signe Gotfredsen of the Canadian Coast Guard, Central and Arctic Region Monday. After a relatively mild winter on the Great Lakes escorting ships through ice and preventing ice jams, the Samuel Risley was upbound through the Soo Locks and the St. Marys River to Lake Superior for further icebreaking at the Port of Thunder Bay and buoy-tending duties.

Coast Guard Cutter Morro Bay returned to homeport in Cleveland Tuesday following a 14-month service life extension project (SLEP) at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore, the U.S. Coast Guard announced. SLEP is a major midlife overhaul which is expected to extend the cutter's service life 15 years. Morro Bay is one of nine 140-foot WTGB icebreaking tugs built between the late 1970s and early 1980s in Tacoma, Wash. Having served on the Great Lakes, mid-Atlantic and New England waterways for more than three decades, the WTGBs were due for a mid-life overhaul.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s Earl F. Weener responds to our March 2014 MarineNews BY THE NUMBERS feature, entitled “Passenger Vessel Safety Record Defies NTSB Hit List.” The NTSB Board Member takes issue with the inference that their scrutiny of the record of passenger vessel safety is misplaced and should be better directed elsewhere. Naturally, we still think otherwise. Each year, the NTSB issues a Most Wanted List of safety advocacy priorities. This year, one of the top priorities is to advance passenger vessel safety. Why? Because when people step onto a ferry, sightseeing boat, or cruise ship, they have a right to a ‘bon voyage’ — literally, a “good trip” and figuratively, a “safe trip” — whether in their daily commutes or on a family cruise.

The Coast Guard Cutter Morro Bay, a 140-foot icebreaking tug homeported in Cleveland but currently moored in Duluth, is scheduled to undergo an in-water repair Sunday and Monday. The Morro Bay suffered a rudder casualty while conducting icebreaking operations in Thunder Bay, Ontario, March 27, and was towed to Duluth by the Coast Guard Cutters Alder and Katmai Bay. Divers and Coast Guard naval engineers examined the Morro Bay and discovered that icebreaking operations exacerbated an unknown, preexisting problem with several bolts that fasten the cutter's rudder to the rudder post.

The 2013 Erie Tall Ship's Parade of Sails (with tall ship tours) is being held for the 4 days starting Sept. 5, 2013 in Presque Isle Bay, Pa., with some 60,000 visitors in attendance. This year's festival marks the 200th anniversary of the building of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's fleet in Erie and his victory at the Battle of Lake Erie off of Put-In-Bay, Ohio, Sept. 10, 1813. Pictured is the US Coast Guard Cutter Morro Bay, a 140-foot ice-breaking tug homeported in Cleveland, as she follows the sailing training vessel Sorlandet, a 211-foot full-rigged ship from Kristiansand, Norway.

Coast Guard Cutter Morro Bay (approaching from right) returns home to New London, Conn., where they were greeted by friends, family members and loved ones on Apr. 19, 2001 after a six-month deployment to the Great Lakes. The crew broke ice in all five of the Great Lakes, not only ensuring the delivery of heating oil to those in the impacted area, but also acting as a search and rescue platform while on patrol, sucessfully rescuing a man who was stranded on an ice floe. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Thomas McKenzie.

A Connecticut-based Coast Guard cutter is scheduled to deploy to the Great Lakes Nov. 29, 2010, to assist in the service's icebreaking mission there throughout the winter months. The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Morro Bay, a 140-ft icebreaking tug, will arrive in the Great Lakes region a few weeks after it departs its homeport of New London, Conn. While there, the crew will assist those of other Coast Guard icebreakers during Operations Coal Shovel and Taconite, the largest domestic ice breaking operations in the country.

The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Morro Bay work to maintain a navigable track through re-frozen brash ice on the Hudson River Wed. Jan. 5, 2010. The Coast Guard Cutter Morro Bay is a 140-ft Bay Class cutter used primarily for ice breaking operations. The cutter is one of five Coast Guard assets assigned to break ice on the Hudson River throughout the season. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Lt. Cmdr. Douglas Wyatt.)