By Karen Robes Meeks
The US Coast Guard Cutter Elm arrived Monday at its new homeport in Astoria, Oregon.
Commissioned in 1998, the Juniper Class 225-foot seagoing buoy tender is run by the same crew that operated the Coast Guard Cutter Fir, which left Astoria in June 2018.
The Elm, which recently received a major overhaul at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore, had been part of Sector Field Office Macon, North Carolina, where it spent the last two decades maintaining more than 250 floating aids to navigation from central New Jersey to the North and South Carolina border.
The Elm will service the 114 navigational aids floating along the Oregon and Washington coasts and the Columbia River, These aids are critical to commercial vessel traffic in ports such as Coos Bay, Newport, Astoria, Portland, Longview, and Seattle. The Elm’s heavy lift capabilities allow the cutter to reach buoys out to 60 feet and lift close to 40,000 pounds, according to the Coast Guard.