Buoy Tender USCGC Fir (WLB-213) in Drydock

The USCGC Fir is a seagoing buoy tender built in Marinette, Wis., by Marinette Marine Corporation. The Fir was launched on Aug. 18, 2002, delivered to the Coast Guard on June 27, 2003, and commissioned into active service on Nov. 8, 2003. The present day Fir was the thirteenth WLB class Buoy Tender built of the sixteen in service. The Fir was named after the USCGC Fir (WLM 212), which was built for the U.S.

Lighthouse Service at Moore Dry Dock Company in Oakland, Calif., in 1939 and began working for the U.S. Coast Guard as well the Lighthouse Service that same year.

Spending its entire career along the Oregon and Washington coasts, the original Fir was a medium or “coastal” tender that re-supplied lighthouses and serviced buoys until it was decommissioned in 1991.