USCGC Spar (WLB-206)

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Career

Ordered:
Laid down:	15 December 1999
Launched:	12 August 2000
Commissioned:	3 August 2001
Decommissioned:	Still Active
Struck:	Still Active
Fate:	Still Active
General Characteristics
Displacement:	2,000 tons (Full Load)
Length:	225 Feet
Beam:	46 Feet
Draft:	13 Feet
Propulsion:	Two 3608 Caterpillar Engines Marine Engines 3100 HP
Speed:	15 knots at full load displacement (80%) rated power
Range:	6,000 miles at 12 knots
Complement:	8 Officers 40 Enlisted
Armament:	2 x .50 caliber machine guns
Motto:	Aleutian Keeper

The USCGC Spar (WLB-206) is a United States Coast Guard seagoing buoy tender home-ported in Kodiak, Alaska. The ship tends buoys in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and has acquired the nickname Aleutian Keeper. The Spar also performs other duties, such as maritime border security, maritime environmental protection, maritime law enforcement, search and rescue, and domestic icebreaking. The cutter is named after the Coast Guard Women's Reserves, also known as SPARS from the Latin and English translations of the Coast Guard Motto: Semper Paratus; Always Ready!

[edit] History

The keel for the Spar was laid on December 15, 1999 at Marinette Marine Corporation in Wisconsin. SPAR was launched on August 12, 2000. She made the trip from Marinette, Wisconsin to Kodiak from March to June 2001 and was commissioned later that year on August 3. The Spar took Alaskan Aids to Navigation responsibility for the waterways of decommissioned USCGC Ironwood and USCGC Firebush and regularly sees duty throughout the Aleutian Chain, as far west as Adak and the Bering Sea and as far north as the Kuskokwim River.