USCGC Smilax (WLIC-315)The Coast Guard has issued a Request for Information “seeking information regarding various ship mounted, marine cranes for the Waterways Commerce Cutter (WCC) program.”
The interesting thing here is that it gives us a good idea of what is expected of these ships which hope to combine both buoy tending and construction in a single ship.
- A. River Buoy Tending
- B. Pile Driving and Extraction
- C. Tower Construction
- D. Large Buoy Operations
The RFI calls out specifics of weight, number, height, etc.
I’m hoping we will not try to use WCC as a ships designation. Even then it would probably have to be WWCC. Considering what WC means, we probably don’t want to go there. WLI at least has precedence, but in the standardized typing conventions “L” refers to “Landing” or amphibious warfare and “I” stands for intelligence. If we wanted to more closely follow the standard typing convention we might go with WNR,” W” the prefix for Coast Guard, “N” as primary type designation for Navigation since “N” is not currently used as a primary designation but only as a modifier for Nuclear power where it always comes at the end of the designation, and “R” for River.
having worked on small buoy boats, I know the need is there. my hardest working boat was a 45 boat. thing and crew worked liked the devil. built like a landing craft with no door. not a sea boat but got caught more then once in the shit. best work boat I ever worked on. built in 57. one main engine, and one genny. we would pick a harbor that needed work and park our asses there. live on the boat for a week. loved that raft. we gave it to corps of engineers for work in the c&d canal. they were impressed.
at the time we also had a 55 and a 21. neither was even close as a work boat.
not exactly a fast raft either. 11 knots with the current.. took all day to transit from woods hole, through cape cod canal. we moored at canal station for buoy ops the next week.