The USCG 40-foot Utility Boat

[pachesma]

Man, ya have no idea how many great naps I took laying on the 40's "doghouse" doing "flare sighting" searches(aka- planes going in or out of midway or o'hare)-JRC

[BuoyJumper]

Came across some more photos of CG 40-footers ... enjoy.


40425 Seattle, Washington                                                                    40548 Curtis Bay, Maryland 


40454 Los Angeles Harbor (Wendell Weber)  40458 Japan Airlines SAR 22 Nov 1968, 108 saved.  (YN1 Bill Graham) 

[Zoomer]

The 40548 looks like the famous picture I've seen of the 40 boat going up Wrangel Narrows in Ketchikan, AK   Could be wrong....I've been wrong before, just ask my wife

[EX-CG-GM]

As I recall that JAL 747 parked itself in the mud at the end of San Francisco's airport.

[Zoomer]

As I recall that JAL 747 parked itself in the mud at the end of San Francisco's airport.

I remember that!!!!!!!

[boatmanmark]

I love this thread, brings back many memories. Most of them good. I was in the Guard from November 74 to November 78 and after MK school went to Group NY. My first job there was to strip those 40s waiting for the scrap yard (see the pics "a sad day" ). In time they got loaded on a barge and headed away. Then a Commander saw them going by in one peice and we had to follow the barge to its dock and wait there while they cut the 40s in half with a torch. I was put on the first 41 at NY , the 41361. I have to say after being out on a 40 that 41 was damn nice, especially after being on the oil spill on Gowanus canal into February. But the 40 sure does have character. Funny story.
When I was at Eatons Neck we pulled the 40542 out and worked her over during the winter. We rebuilt everything and made a new engine box also. I rebuilt one 6-71 and another engineer did the other. We shimmed the govenors and at sea trials she ran great. I was on the 41 with the 40 following. She looked great and was keeping up with us as we increased speed. You know the 41 could do 26 kts. Well at around 2400 rpm I told the coxswain to give the 41 all she had, and we went up to  2650 right away. I figured we would leave the 40 in our wake. Well the coxswain of the 40 hit it also and also put himself right on our wake. He had that 40 doing 26kts and we could not pull away!
 I remember the Bosuns at the Group trying to put on "speed lines" at the stern. They would take a hawser and slip it under the stern where it would act as a trim tab, push the stern up and get the boat going faster. Don't know if it worked but I think we felt it did.
 Anyway I learned a lot at the Group and put it to good use over the years. Love your restoration Bugsey, maybe I will see you out there some time. I myself would love to get my hands on a 41 to restore. I loved them. I got 4 of them surplus for my job in the NPS. Put some Cummins 6c at 350 hp in and she cruised at 26 kts! Joining the USCG was one of the best things I ever did. And I doubt they get away with what we did!

[BuoyJumper]

Welcome aboard Mark and thanks for posting.  As you can see we're pretty partial to the old forties here. 
They were a great utility boat in their day.

[boatmanmark]

No doubt, the 40 has classic lines, and I loved them also. Nothing like doing a NY harbor patrol in the early spring on the 40, going past the coffee plant, and the domino sugar plant. And maybe once in a great while swinging past the beer plant and getting a few(dozen) cases! What was that, Pabst? Seeing how close they could run at the seawall along the FDR Drive.

[pachesma]

When I was at Eatons Neck we pulled the 40542 out and worked her over during the winter. We rebuilt everything and made a new engine box also. I rebuilt one 6-71 and another engineer did the other. We shimmed the govenors and at sea trials she ran great. I was on the 41 with the 40 following. She looked great and was keeping up with us as we increased speed. You know the 41 could do 26 kts. Well at around 2400 rpm I told the coxswain to give the 41 all she had, and we went up to  2650 right away. I figured we would leave the 40 in our wake. Well the coxswain of the 40 hit it also and also put himself right on our wake. He had that 40 doing 26kts and we could not pull away!
 I remember the Bosuns at the Group trying to put on "speed lines" at the stern. They would take a hawser and slip it under the stern where it would act as a trim tab, push the stern up and get the boat going faster. Don't know if it worked but I think we felt it did.
 Anyway I learned a lot at the Group and put it to good use over the years. Love your restoration Bugsey, maybe I will see you out there some time. I myself would love to get my hands on a 41 to restore. I loved them. I got 4 of them surplus for my job in the NPS. Put some Cummins 6c at 350 hp in and she cruised at 26 kts! Joining the USCG was one of the best things I ever did. And I doubt they get away with what we did!

GOOD story, Mark!! I was also an MK(also witha cox pin) from 77 to 81 and at the unit I was at(STA St Joseph Mi) we also outprocessed quite a few 40 boats, plus we had a 40 boat stationed there for awhile(499) before we got our 41. When I was there we probably outprocessed 4 of 'em, and our own 40 boat. And as we were taking what was essentially the last 71 series powered boats offa the GL's, we also usually got all that units stock of 71 parts. We also got parts from our GRU(Muskegon) and Milwaukee. And as; at that time, Milwaukee was a pretty big "industrial" GRU( Muskegon was pretty much just an admin GRU), we got ALOT of 71 stuff from them.

We got a 40 boat outa milwaukee(I wanna say the hull number was 458, but for the life of me I can't remember) that didn't run and we had to tow it over, the power was gutted. We had to get these things running and up to some standard of use as they all went to (usually) the City of Chicago for them to use fire, police, park & rec, canal patrol, whatever.

Anyways, long story short, we had this 40 boat whose power when we got 'em was essentially nothing more than 2 blocks and 2 cranks(not even liners), and ALL KINDS of 71 parts. So we went to work during a cold, icy, snowy Michigan winter in the boathouse(for the most part GL stations essentially shut down during the winter) with this 40 boat and a ton of parts.

I don't remember all we did but we used "N" pistons, advanced timing gear train, and 4 valve heads. And I think we eventually ended up with N80 injectors.We went thru them massive GM boxes as well. Two of us spent a week playing with them governors polishing up everything in 'em with crocus cloth and "tweaking" them.

The first shakedown cruise was all MK's and we were all pretty pensive to say the least. It was a little less than even money if they were gonna "Go or they were gonna blow". We run a break in at the dock and then we went for a ride. Afta about an hour of just cruisin, we pinned them things and I don't remember what RPM's we got to, maybe 2400??, but the freaking thing actually started to chine walk and that was it for us!! And the thing set up a harmonic in the hull none of us had ever experienced ona 40 boat before.

We rode it around a couple more times but we never nailed it again, but the thing would pull some pretty impressive "holeshots" for being a 40 boat. Couple weeks later whoever from Chi-town was getting it sent a crew, we blessed 'em, gave them a whole bunch of spare R/W impellers, and told 'em to "take it easy".

Musta held together cause several months later, thru our Chain-of-Command, we got a very nice thank you and letter of appreciation from the city of Chicago.

Had alot of fun playing with the "53's" on the 44MLB as well(Was prior USN spent almost 3 years playing with "53's"). Couldn't do much in the way of hull speed with them 44's, but ya sure could get 'em to bark and crank up fast.

Good times for sure with a blast on the learning curve, the "ojt" at the unit served well down the road. Course these days we probably both would get thrown out(along with many more) for the crap we did back then.

Welcome aboard-JRC

[Zoomer]

From what I remember is that the 671's with the two valve head had a standard rpm of 1,800 with a max of 2,200 for absolute Max Pro.  The 671's with a four valve head had standard rpm of 2,000 rpm and an absolute Max Pro at 2,500 rpm.

[boatmanmark]

Thats also a good story JRC. One thing about those 71s, you could sure mix and match a bunch of parts. I think the most fun was watching a new fireman set the rack on them and then try to hook up the link to the govenor. They almost always got it stuck and got her screamin at the dock! Amazing what you could do over the winter.

[pachesma]

Hell, we had a "FNG" MK3 turn the buffer screw ona 71 all the way in and then start it, put the governor "in irons" and actually ended up bending the  pin on the differential lever.We had another MK put a governor on and he somehow got the operating forks on the wrong side of the quill shaft, that was interesting.

My absolute favorite though, was the one done by one of our New MK1 EPO's. A gov on ona the 53's in the 44 was just all wore out(these things, no crap, had over 30K hours on 'em) and we couldn't get the hunt out of it no matter what. According to the EPO it was the fault of all us incompetent MK's and he was gonna show us" how ta do it", so down into the engineroom he goes with a 53 service manual. Off comes the top of the gov, and into it the MK1 goes. Adjust this, adjust that, wheres the damn feeler gauges, he's havin at it. He's in there for awhile and we hadn't heard it run  so me and the MK2 saunter down there and pop our heads into the hatch. The EPO got his finger on the go button and just as the MK2 starts to say "No, don't do that", the EPO pushes the button and it fires. The EPO had apparently neglected to read that box in the tune up section of the manual that said in fat black bold print DO NOT put the clevis back into the rack until after you started it and made sure everything was more or less in sync. Soon as it lit off it went to full fuel and stayed there, and then took off. Valve covers off, it was raining "9250" in the engine space. The EPO, looking like he was about to meet God, hit the damn overspeed trip, which did nothing but accelerate the amount of L/O going into the combustion chamber for the thing to consume. The F/O shut-offs were thankfully right inside the engineroom hatch and the MK2 shut 'em down which starved it enough to unwind her some, wedged a big screwdriver into the gov linkage and were able to get her back offa full fuel and shut her down, but she was toast. Literally, never smelled nothing so burned up smelling in my life.

But the EPO kinda did us a favor, we ended up with 2 brand new 6V-53's outa it. Our F/O dilution had been offa the charts on both of them the prior 6 months. Wasn't totally the EPO's fault, he was kinda new at the unit, hadn't seen a 2 cycle Detroit ina while and I guess he thought he remembered more than he actually did, and I guess hadn't paid enough attention to the documented history of these two. He actually made Chief shortly afta this and got sent to the DIST ENG office!!!

But I'll NEVER forget the look on his face when he hit the go button and that thing took off!!-JRC

[Zoomer]

With all that lube oil vaporized and in the air, you're lucky there was no fire

That was a funny story though

And just who was stuck soogying all that lube oil off the bulkheads and everything else?

[boatmanmark]

Now that is a classic! I can hear the 53 roar'in away and the 9250 flyin! Rule number 1: never but never start up a newly set rack with the clevis pin in! Yep those GM could rack up some hours. I had a Chief that used to stink his finger in the bilge water, taste it and then with a straight face say there was fuel in the water and to check the engines out! That oil analysis never seemed to get it right. You could send new oil out of the can to them and they would find something wrong but say to resample!

[pachesma]

With all that lube oil vaporized and in the air, you're lucky there was no fire

That was a funny story though

And just who was stuck soogying all that lube oil off the bulkheads and everything else?

Well, we all did in a way. This "charlied" the boat and if I recall correctly it was early summer so the 44's capabilities weren't immediately needed, I think the beast stayed "OOC" in Charlie status for a couple months while we repowered her. So we got to give the empty engine spaces a nice field day and paint out. Ya remember the sound-proofing they used in the engine spaces right, That perforated waffle?? Well, every once and awhile you'd be in the engine spaces doing something leaned over and you'd feel a drip on the back of yer neck or get a blotch on the back of yer shirt, which was; of course, some more of that 9250 coming down to visit ya. And you were forever wiping a spot or 2 of it off of the deckplate between the engines, or offa a valve cover, or the top of the silencer assembly-JRC