USCGC KENNEBEC (WLIC-802)
Portsmouth, Virginia
Welcome aboard the United States Coast Guard Cutter KENNEBEC.
CGC KENNEBEC (WLIC-802) is the third in a series of four of the Coast Guards most modern inland construction tender. The primary purpose of the KENNEBEC and her sister ships is to build, or rebuild if destroyed, those fixed aids to navigation used by mariners to safely navigate the inland waters of the United States. The KENNEBEC was built at the Coast Guard Yard, Curtis Bay (Baltimore), Maryland in 1976. The cutter is named after the Kennebec River in Maine. Principle characteristics of the KENNEBEC are:
Length…………………… 160 feet
Beam…………………….. 32 feet
Draft……………………... 05 feet
Engines…………………... 2 caterpillar 379’s
500 HP each
Speed…………………….. 10 Knots (10.5
MPH)
A Chief Warrant Officer serves as the cutters Commanding Officer. A Boatswains Mate Chief serves as the ships Executive Petty Officer and a Chief Machinery Technician serves as the Engineering Petty Officer. The ship has a total crew of 15 people from various ratings assigned. These personnel include Boatswain Mate (2), Store Keeper (1), Machinery technician (2), Electrician (1), Damage Controlman (1), Food Specialist (1) and four non-rated personnel.
The KENNEBEC is home ported in Portsmouth, Virginia. The normal operating area is from Washington D.C. through the southern half of the Chesapeake Bay including the Atlantic Intercostals Waterway south to Roanoke Island, North Carolina. She also has responsibility for constructing aids in the Virginia Inside Passage. KENNEBEC frequently venture out of her “home waters” to assist other construction tenders with various projects or if disaster strikes (eg: ice or hurricane damage to fixed aids to navigation). This makes KENNEBEC responsible for over 1,400 fixed aids to navigation. A fixed aid to navigation is a pile, either wood or steel, that is driven in to the bottom, marking the edge of a channel. They can be equipped with a light, day-mark or both.
The most unusual feature of KENNEBEC and her sister construction tenders are their “spuds”. The spuds, four upright square steel piles, can be raised or lowered at will. When lowered into the sea bottom they prevent movement of the vessel, which provides a stable platform for our crane and pile driver. When underway the spuds are raised. The real workhorse of KENNEBEC is the crane with its 70 foot boom. The crane is capable of lifting loads up to 10 tons.
Being a modern cutter the KENNEBEC was designed with crew comfort in mind. Two and four person berthing areas are equipped with individual air conditioning and heating units. The galley (kitchen) is large and equipped with modern type appliances.
Adobe Acrobat Reader (PDF)