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The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Spar arrives in its new home port of Duluth for the first time on March 30, 2022. (photo by Bob Berg)
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Lt. Cmdr. Joel Wright on the bridge of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Spar (photo by Bob Berg)
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The families of the Spar crew members greet the cutter and the crew after almost three months away from home.
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After almost three months away from their families, the crew of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Spar (WLB-206) arrived in Duluth mid-morning on March 30 during substantial wet snowfall to welcoming signs and a host of media coverage.
The 225-foot Juniper class buoy tender will now be homeported in Duluth and already did some ice breaking on its
Crossing under the icon Aerial Lift Bridge for the first time is the USCG cutter Spar (WLB-206). Photo by Charles Howard Smith Photography.
two-week journey up from Baltimore, through the St. Lawrence Seaway system and the Soo Locks and across Lake Superior.
“For us to get through Whitefish Bay, we needed to get the other vessels through Whitefish Bay,” Lt. Cmdr. Joel Wright said of exiting the Soo Locks. There are at least a half dozen other vessels breaking through the ice there, some of which will arrived in Duluth on the same day.
Wright said it’s appropriate this Spar, once stationed in Alaska, is now home in Duluth were the first Spar, a 180-foot
The original U.S. Coast guard cutter Spar was built in Duluth in the early 1940s. (photo courtesy USCG)
sea-going buoy tender, was built during World War II. It was built at the Marine Iron and Shipbuilding Company in Duluth, launched on Nov. 2, 1943, commissioned in June 12, 1944, and decommissioned in 1997. Both were named for the original Coast Guard Women's Reserve or SPARs, itself named for the USCG motto “Semper Paratus, Always Ready.”
Today’s Spar, launched in 2000, was built in the Marinette (Wis.) Marine Corporation like the USCG cutter Alder that it replaced. The Alder left Duluth in July 2021 for Baltimore, where it will remain until this July for maintenance and repair work before being reassigned to San Francisco. The crew of the Alder, however, is now the crew of the Spar.
The crew is slightly under its usual 48 members, but most of them served last summer on the Alder, many sailing with it to Baltimore. Most of the crew returned to Baltimore in January to work and train on the new vessel, which means they had not visited family stationed in Duluth since then.
Getting all of the mechanical parts on the Spar operating again after almost a year out of service was a challenge, Wright said. “The … equipment does not like to sit still for a year.”
During that year, the cutter was repaired on upgraded including with a new crane for its major task of buoy tending.
The journey from Baltimore to Duluth started on March 10 and the crew and cutter went through the St. Lawrence Seaway on a relatively uneventful voyage, although Wright said that crossing Lake Huron they encountered below freezing temperatures and freezing spray coating the vessel.
Wright, who said the cutter’s duties will be the same as the Alder’s, added that buoy placing operations will get under way as soon as conditions allow, probably sometime in April.
In addition to the Spar crew, the U.S. Coast Guard has Station Duluth and Marine Safety Unit Duluth, all with responsibilities for search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, homeland security, ice rescue, recreational boating safety, military readiness and environmental response.
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The Coast Guard Cutter Spar (WLB 206), named after the many women who served in the United States Coast Guard during World War II, is launched in Marinette, Wis. in front of a crowd of 3,500 plus spectators on Aug. 12, 2000. Janet Reno, U.S. Attorney General, was the keynote speaker, had the honor of breaking the champagne bottle on the bow. The Spar originally was homeported in San Francisco (which is where the Alder was to serve after it left Duluth in 2021). USCG photo
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A plaque on the cutter identifies the history of the 225-foot Juniper class buoy tender Spar. (photo by Bob Berg)
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In July 2021 in Baltimore, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Spar had been stripped of paint as part of its year-long maintenance work. (photo by Lt. JG Jacob Ricci, USCG)
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photo of the USCG cutter Spar in Baltimore, July 2021, by Lt. JG Jacob Ricci
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Resplendent in its new paint and docked at its home port, the USCG Spar arrived March 30, 2022, in Duluth. (photo by Bob Berg)
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U.S. Coast Guard Ens. Neeko Helbich Training Officer Coast Guard Cutter Spar, plots position on a navigation chart while under way in the Atlantic Ocean, March 18, 2022. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Gregory Schell)
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U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Frank Aurelio, left, and Seaman Alexander Landry, crew on the USCG cutter Spar, pose on the fantail while unde rway in the St. Lawrence River, March 21, 2022. Spar and her crew are traveling to Duluth, after a year-long maintenance period in Baltimore. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Gregory Schell)
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U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Noah Thompson, a Boatswain’s mate aboard the Spar, clears the weather decks of snow while under way in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, March 20, 2022. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Gregory Schell)
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U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Andrew Bishop, a Damage Controlman aboard the Spar, stretches out the forward cable on the buoy deck while underway in the St Lawrence River, March 22, 2022. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Gregory Schell)
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U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Spar transits over ice in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence on March 19, 2022. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Gregory Schell)