USCGC Hemlock

USLHT Hemlock in 1934
History
United States Lighthouse Service
NameUSLHT Hemlock
BuilderBerg Shipbuilding Company
Cost$228,480
Launched20 January 1934
Home portKetchikan, Alaska
IdentificationRadio call sign: KCBK
Fatetransferred to the United States Coast Guard
United States Coast Guard
NameUSCGC Hemlock
Acquired1 July 1939
Decommissioned17 June 1958
Home portKetchikan, Alaska
Identification
  • Pennant number: WAGL-217
  • Radio Call Sign: NRYE
FateSold, August 2, 1961
General characteristics as built in 1934
Displacement960 tons, fully loaded
Length174.6 ft (53.2 m)
Beam32 ft (9.8 m)
Draught13.25 ft (4.04 m)
Installed power1,000 bhp (750 kW)
Propulsion2 screws
Speed13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph)
Range1,836 miles (2,955 km)

USLHT Hemlock was a lighthouse tender built for the United States Lighthouse Service in 1934. She spent her entire government career stationed at Ketchikan, Alaska. Her primary missions were maintaining aids to navigation, and search and rescue. The Lighthouse Service was absorbed into the United States Coast Guard in 1939 and she became USCGC Hemlock (WAGL-217). During World War II, the Coast Guard came under U.S. Navy control and Hemlock was armed. She took on a number of military missions, but never saw combat. After the war she returned to her peacetime missions.

Hemlock was decommissioned in 1958, and sold in 1961. In 1965 her engines were removed and she was converted into a floating shrimp cannery. Renamed Pacific Pride, the processing barge was towed to Kodiak, Alaska where she worked for several years. Her ultimate fate is unknown.