USCGC Chincoteague (WAVP-375) - U.S. Coast Guard Service

U.S. Coast Guard Service

Chincoteague was homeported in Norfolk, Virginia, throughout her Coast Guard career. Her primary duty was to serve on weather stations in the Atlantic Ocean to gather meteorological data. While on duty in one of these stations, she was required to patrol a 210-square-mile (544-square-kilometer) area for three weeks at a time, leaving the area only when physically relieved by another Coast Guard cutter or in the case of a dire emergency. While on station, she acted as an aircraft check point at the point of no return, a relay point for messages from ships and aircraft, as a source of the latest weather information for passing aircraft, as a floating oceanographic laboratory, and as a search-and-rescue ship for downed aircraft and vessels in distress, and engaged in law enforcement operations.

In December 1955, Chincoteague took the disabled merchant ship Canadian Observer under tow to keep her from going aground off the south coast of Newfoundland in Canada.

On 30 October 1956, Chincoteague rescued 33 crewmen from the West German merchant ship Helga Bolten in the North Atlantic by using two inflatable lifeboats during heavy seas. She then stood by distressed vessels for seven days until they could be towed to the Azores by commercial tug.

On 1 May 1966, Chincoteague was reclassified as a high endurance cutter and redesignated WHEC-375. On 26 September 1966 her long-term long from the Navy to the Coast Guard came to an end when the Navy transferred her outright to the Coast Guard.

Chincoteague took the disabled merchant ship Kenyon Victory under tow 30 nautical miles (56 km) south of San Salvador Island in the Bahamas on 5 October 1969 until relieved of the tow by a commercial tug.