They were supposed to resemble the Coast Guard shield when viewed from the air. I was an engineer in Yorktown and a crew of three of us took a 31 footer from RTC Yorktown to Cape May in January or February, 1975. Long, COLD trip and as the junior person on the boat, I was the one who got to break the ice off the bow!
These early production 31 footers had Cummins diesel engines and weighed almost 1000 pounds more that 31005 through 31009. As a result they were held then released to TRACENs on east and west coast ( Alameda, Cape May, Yorktown) 31005 through 31028 were re-engined in 1979 with Detroit 6-53s. Most were out of service by the mid 80s. I have 2 of them 31012 and 31014
Guest
24-Jun-2008 02:55
These 31 Foot Utility boats were out about the same time as the 41 footers were coming into their own. At Port Safety Station Baltimore we had a couple. Having become used to the Steel 30's, Plastic 30's, and, my favorite, the indestructable Steel 40 footers, the 31 footer gave me an uncomfortable "separate but warm" feeling. The head room was never right. Rumor (and memory is pretty good here) was that in NYC Harbor, one of them grabbed a wave with that short bow, went head-over-heels and killed a couple of the crew. Response of the COGARD at that time was to transfer them to the Reserves as a trainer with incredibly strong restrictions on the weather usage. Eventually, they were all gone. It was weak, the swallow-tail made them really bad to back-up, and they couldn't do ice in the Chesapeake Bay. TScheidel (cmscompliance@yahoo.com)
