Bluebonnet, 1939
WAGL
/ WLI-257
A plant, Lupinus subcarnosus of Texas and adjacent regions, with compound leaves and blue flower clusters.
Builder: Dubuque Boat & Boiler Works, Dubuque, Iowa
Length: 91' 4"
Beam: 23'
Draft: 5' 3"
Displacement: 184 tons
Cost: $132,500
Commissioned: 4 November 1939
Decommissioned: 18 January 1965
Disposition: Sold
Machinery: 2 Cooper-Bessemer 6 cylinder, 4-cycle diesel engines; 440 BHP; twin propellers
Performance & Endurance:
Max: 9.0 knots
Cruising: 8.0 knots; 570 mile
range
Deck Gear: Steel boom w/ electric winch; 2 1/2 ton maximum capacity
Complement: 8
Armament: None
Electronics: CR-103 radar (as of 1958)
Tender History:
Bluebonnet was a bay and sound tender designed for the Lighthouse Service. She was commissioned on 4 November 1939 after the Lighthouse Service was absorbed by the Coast Guard. She was assigned to the 8th Coast Guard District and served out of Galveston, Texas where she serviced aids to navigation on the intracoastal waterway, west of New Orleans and west through Galveston. In January 1942 she was designed WAGL-257.
She served out of Galveston for her entire Coast Guard career. She provided disaster relief after a hurricane to the Cameron - Lake Charles area from 27 June to 1 July 1957. In 1965 she was reclassified as an inland buoy tender (WLI) just prior to her decommissioning on 18 January 1965. She was sold on 19 May 1966 and became the fishing vessel Tiffany.
Sources:
Cutter History File. USCG Historian's Office, USCG HQ, Washington, D.C.
Douglas Peterson. United States Lighthouse Service Tenders, 1840-1939. Annapolis: Eastwind Publishing, 2000.
Robert Scheina. U.S. Coast Guard Cutters & Craft of World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1982.
Robert Scheina. U.S. Coast Guard Cutters & Craft, 1946 - 1990. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990.
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