 USCGC Red Cedar
| |
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name | Red class |
| Builders | U.S. Coast Guard Yard |
| Operators | |
| Succeeded by | Keeper class |
| Built | 1964–1971 |
| In commission | 1964–1999 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Buoy tender |
| Displacement | 572 t (563 long tons) full load |
| Length | 157 ft 10 in (48.11 m) |
| Beam | 33 ft 0 in (10.06 m) |
| Draft | 7 ft (2.1 m) |
| Installed power | 1,800 bhp (1,300 kW) |
| Propulsion | 2 × Caterpillar 398A Diesel engines |
| Speed | 12.5 kn (23.2 km/h; 14.4 mph) |
| Range | 2,450 nmi (4,540 km; 2,820 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement | 4 officers, 28 enlisted |
The Red class consisted of five coastal buoy tenders designed, built, owned, and operated by the United States Coast Guard. This was the first new class of buoy tenders built after World War II. It was designed to work in coastal waterways and the major rivers which fed them such as New York Harbor, Chesapeake Bay, and San Francisco Bay. Their primary mission was maintaining aids to navigation, with secondary missions of search and rescue, light icebreaking, law enforcement, and marine environmental protection.
At the end of their Coast Guard careers, two of the ships were sunk off the New Jersey coast as part of artificial reefs. The three others were transferred to the Argentine Navy, where they remain in service.