Manitowoc's Marine Group Launches Coast Guard Cutter

The Manitowoc Company, Inc. announced the launch of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Cypress, the tenth ship in a series of 14 seagoing buoy tenders being built at Manitowoc's Marinette Marine subsidiary.

The 225-foot Juniper-class vessel is part of a series of contracts, which were awarded to Marinette in 1993 and 1998.

The launch ceremony featured Deputy Secretary of Transportation Michael P. Jackson as the keynote speaker, with Caron Jackson, the Deputy Secretary's wife and sponsor of the ship, who performed the traditional christening ceremony.

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Cypress will homeport in Mobile, Alabama, under the command of LCDR Samuel "Duke" Walker. It will have a complement of six officers and 34 enlisted personnel. Cypress will join her sister cutters, now operating in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, to form a new fleet of technically advanced, multi-mission buoy tenders. Cypress is equipped to perform search and rescue, law enforcement, pollution response, and domestic icebreaking missions, as well as servicing aids to navigation.

The USCGC Cypress is named after an earlier Coast Guard cutter that served the United States from 1908 through 1946, assigned to the 6th Light House District in Charleston, S.C. The original Cypress was decommissioned on August 20, 1946, after nearly 40 years of distinguished service.

Besides its buoy tender construction program for the U.S. Coast Guard, Marinette Marine is constructing three 310-foot passenger ferries for the City of New York and two 127-foot oceangoing tugs for a commercial customer. Earlier this month, the company was awarded an $82.4-million contract to build a new Great Lakes icebreaker that will replace the USCGC Mackinaw.