USCGC Tamaroa (WMEC-166)

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Career (United States (Navy))
USCGC Tamaroa (WMEC-166) in 1990, formerly USS Zuni (ATF-95).
Name:	USS Zuni (ATF-95)
Builder:	Commercial Iron Works, Portland, Oregon
Laid down:	8 March 1943
Launched:	31 July 1943
Commissioned:	9 October 1943
Decommissioned:	29 June 1946
Struck:	19 July 1946
Nickname:	“The Mighty Z”
Fate:	Transferred to United States Coast Guard
Career (United States (Coast Guard))
Name:	USCGC Tamaroa (WAT-166)^[when?] USCGC Tamaroa (WMEC-166)
Commissioned:	29 June 1946
Decommissioned:	1 February 1994
Fate:	Museum ship
General characteristics
Class and type:	Navajo
Displacement:	1,731 LT (1,759 t/1,939 ST)
Length:	205 ft 6 in (62.6 m)
Beam:	39 ft 3.25 in (11.970 m)
Draft:	18 ft (5.5 m)
Propulsion:	4 × General Motors model 12-278 diesels with diesel-electric drive: 3,010 shp (2,240 kW)
Speed:	16.1 kn (29.8 km/h/18.5 mph) maximum 8.0 kn (14.8 km/h/9.2 mph) economical
Range:	15,000 nmi (28,000 km/17,000 mi) at 8 kn (15 km/h/9.2 mph) (1990)
Complement:	10 officers, 74 enlisted (as of 1990)
Sensors and processing systems:	Radar: SPN-25 (1961); no sonar.
Armament:	WWII: 1 × 3 in/50 guns 2 × twin 40-mm guns 2 × 20 mm guns 1990: 1 x 3-in .50 caliber

USCGC Tamaroa (WAT/WMEC-166) was a United States Coast Guard cutter, originally the United States Navy salvage tug USS Zuni (ATF-95). Following the USGC custom of naming cutters after Native American tribes, she is named after the Tamaroa tribe of the Illiniwek tribal group.

She was one of 70 built in her class for the US Navy. She saw action in World War II, including the Marianas, Philippines, and Iwo Jima operations. After the war she was transferred to the USCG. She was involved in the landmark tort case, Ira S. Bushey & Sons, Inc. v. United States, 398 F.2d 167 (2d Circ. 1968), in which the United States was held vicariously liable for the damage caused by the Tamaroa to a dry dock after an intoxicated seaman opened dry dock valves, causing the ship to list and slide off its blocks.

The bulk of her USCG career was spent patrolling the seas, working in drug interdiction, and fisheries protection. She is perhaps most famous for a rescue described in the book The Perfect Storm (by Sebastian Junger); she rescued both the crew of the yacht Satori, as well as the crew of a downed Air National Guard helicopter. She was also the first vessel to arrive at the sinking Andrea Doria.

After she was de-commissioned from the USGC, she was donated to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York City. She was noticed tied up next to the Intrepid in 1994 by a former crewman who began a campaign to restore her. After several unsuccessful attempts, he hooked up with others interested in her fate and thus was formed what has become the Zuni Maritime Foundation, a newly formed non-profit organization in Richmond, Virginia. The Foundation is intending to preserve the ship in an operational condition, and use her to educate the public. As of 2007, she is undergoing restoration as a museum ship in Newport News, Virginia.^[1]