ARA Punta Alta (Q-63)
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USCGC ''Red Birch'' (WLM-687) is a coastal buoy tender that was designed, built, owned, and operated by the United States Coast Guard. She was launched in 1965 and initially homeported at San Francisco. Her primary mission was maintaining 160 aids to navigation in San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bays, and in the San Joaquin River. ''Red Birch'' also brought supplies to the Farallon Island lighthouse. In 1976 the Coast Guard reassigned her to
Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
, where she spent the rest of her career. There she maintained over 300 aids to navigation including several lighthouses. Her secondary missions included search and rescue, light
icebreaking An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters, and provide safe waterways for other boats and ships. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller ...
, law enforcement, and
marine environmental protection Marine environmental protection is one of the eleven missions of the United States Coast Guard (USCG). Protecting the delicate ecosystem of oceans is a vital Coast Guard mission. The Coast Guard works with a variety of groups and organizations to ...
. At the end of her Coast Guard career she was transferred to the
Argentine Navy The Argentine Navy (ARA; es, Armada de la República Argentina). This forms the basis for the navy's ship prefix "ARA". is the navy of Argentina. It is one of the three branches of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, together with the ...
, which renamed her ARA ''Punta Alta''. She remains in active service as a buoy tender in Bahia Blanca.


Construction and characteristics

''Red Birch'' was built at the
Coast Guard Yard The United States Coast Guard Yard or just Coast Guard Yard is a United States Coast Guard operated shipyard located on Curtis Bay in northern Anne Arundel County, Maryland, just south of the Baltimore city limits. It is the largest industrial fac ...
in Curtis Bay, Maryland. Her keel was laid down on 6 July 1964. She was launched on 19 February 1965. The ship was christened by Mrs. William Mailliard, wife of U.S. Representative
William S. Mailliard William Somers Mailliard (June 10, 1917 – June 10, 1992) was an American banker and World War II veteran who was member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California from 1953 to 1974. Early life William S. Mailliard was born on June 1 ...
. He was the ranking Republican member of the United States House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, which had jurisdiction over the Coast Guard budget. His California district included waterways which would be serviced by the new cutter. ''Red Birch''s initial cost was $2,181,506. She was the third Red-class ship built. Her hull was built of welded steel plates. The ship was
long overall __NOTOC__ Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, and ...
, with a
beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...
of , and a draft of . Her shallow draft and flat bottom was required for her work along the edges of dredged channels, but this hull form made her harder to maneuver and more prone to rolling. Her hull was reinforced for light icebreaking. She displaced 471 tons with a light load, and 572 tons with a full load. The ship had two
Caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sym ...
D398A 12-cylinder diesel engines rated at each. These drove two four-bladed
controllable-pitch propellers In marine propulsion, a variable-pitch propeller is a type of propeller with blades that can be rotated around their long axis to change the blade pitch. Reversible propellers—those where the pitch can be set to negative values—can als ...
which were in diameter. Red-class ships had a maximum speed of . She had a bow thruster for increased maneuverability. This was driven by a power take-off from the
starboard Port and starboard are nautical terms for watercraft and aircraft, referring respectively to the left and right sides of the vessel, when aboard and facing the bow (front). Vessels with bilateral symmetry have left and right halves which are ...
propulsion engine. ''Red Birch''s tanks held of diesel fuel. This gave her a range of at , or at full speed. There were three engine control stations, two on the bridge wings and one in the pilothouse. Her buoy deck featured a crane with the ability to lift 10 tons, which could be controlled from two different stations just below the bridge deck. The cranes' hydraulics were driven by a power take-off from the port propulsion engine. Her buoy deck had of working space. The ship had a crew of 6 officers and 31
enlisted Enlisted may refer to: * Enlisted rank An enlisted rank (also known as an enlisted grade or enlisted rate) is, in some armed services, any rank below that of a commissioned officer. The term can be inclusive of non-commissioned officers or ...
sailors. Crew quarters were air-conditioned, a notable improvement in comfort at the time.


U.S. Coast Guard service

''Red Birch'' was placed in "commission, special" status at a ceremony at the Coast Guard Yard on 7 June 1965. Rear Admiral Joseph Scullion, Comptroller of the Coast Guard, was the featured speaker at the event. ''Red Birch'' sailed from Curtis Bay to San Francisco through the Panama Canal. She reached her new homeport of San Francisco on 26 July 1965. She was based at the Coast Guard base on Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay. She replaced USCGC ''Columbine'' there. She was placed in full commission at a ceremony on 17 September 1965. During her years in San Francisco, a number of the floating buoys in the shallow parts of ''Red Birch's'' area were replaced by fixed marks. This reduced the need for a vessel of her capabilities. On 1 June 1976, her homeport was officially changed to Baltimore, Maryland. The bulk of her time was spent at sea tending her buoy fleet and a number of lighthouses, or moored, maintaining the ship and training the crew. Maintaining her buoys included verifying that they were in their charted positions, replacing lights and batteries, cleaning off marine growth and bird guano, and inspecting and replacing their mooring chains and sinkers. In 1979, ''Red Birch'' had the honor to set the "Star-Spangled Buoy" which marked the spot where
Francis Scott Key Francis Scott Key (August 1, 1779January 11, 1843) was an American lawyer, author, and amateur poet from Frederick, Maryland, who wrote the lyrics for the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner". Key observed the British bombardment ...
observed the bombardment of Fort McHenry which inspired the
Star-Spangled Banner "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from the "Defence of Fort M'Henry", a poem written on September 14, 1814, by 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the bo ...
. She repeated this job in May 1998 as her last mission before she was decommissioned. On occasion, she was assigned a variety of other missions, as described below.


Search and rescue

On 1 October 1965, the freighter ''Louisiana Maru'' and the train ferry ''Las Palmas'' collided east of Treasure Island. ''Red Birch'' went to the accident scene to escort the ships back to port. In November 1967, ''Red Birch'' was dispatched to a collision off Martinez, California between S.S. ''Vanderbilt Victory'', and S.S. ''Columbia''. ''Red Birch'' recovered the bodies of two men who drowned when their boat capsized in San Francisco Bay in December 1972. ''Red Birch'' recovered a car that broke through a barrier on the
Antioch Bridge The Antioch Bridge (officially the Senator John A. Nejedly Bridge) is an automobile, bicycle, and pedestrian bridge in the western United States. Located in northern California, it crosses the San Joaquin River- Stockton Deepwater Shipping Channe ...
and sank to the bottom of the San Joaquin River in 1972. The driver was not found. A US Navy
Huey helicopter The Bell Huey family of helicopters includes a wide range of civil and military aircraft produced since 1956 by Bell Helicopter. This H-1 family of aircraft includes the utility UH-1 Iroquois and the derivative AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter series ...
crashed in San Francisco Bay in March 1976. ''Red Birc''h used her 10-ton crane to recover the wreckage from the bottom.


Marine environmental protection

The ''Arizona Standard'' and ''Oregon Standard'', two tankers owned by
Standard Oil of California Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...
, collided in San Francisco Bay on 18 January 1971. ''Red Birch'' was dispatched to the scene and reported that over 200,000 gallons of
bunker oil Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil, marine fuel oil (MFO), bun ...
had already spilled into the bay from ''Oregon Standard''. ''Red Birch'' brought containment boom to the scene. USCGC ''Walnut'' and ''Red Birch'' tested a High-Seas Oil Containment Barrier off Point Conception in 1972. 16,000 gallons of soybean oil were skimmed off the ocean in two-and-a-half hours.


Winter operations

''Red Birch'' was used for light icebreaking in the
James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...
, Nanticoke, and Wicomico Rivers. This was an important mission in that a number of communities relied on heating oil, gasoline, and fuel oil for power plants delivered by barges on these waterways. The
Surry nuclear power plant Surry Power Station is a nuclear power plant located in Surry County in southeastern Virginia, in the South Atlantic United States. The power station lies on an site adjacent to the James River across from Jamestown, slightly upriver from Sm ...
was shut down briefly in January 1977 when the James River, its source for cooling water, froze. ''Red Birch'' was sent to break up the ice so the plant could restart its operations. Her icebreaking was sometimes used to free ships that had been frozen in. Large buoys in freshwater rivers where ice conditions are difficult can be damaged, sunk, or dragged off-station by the movement of the ice. In the fall, ''Red Birch'' replaced 94 such buoys with smaller seasonal buoys which were less susceptible to ice damage. In the spring, she swapped these out for the larger summer buoys.


Public engagement

The Coast Guard offered tours of ''Red Birch'' on several occasions including: *Armed Forces Day open house in May 1967 *"Operation Coast Guard 1982" in Baltimore's inner harbor. *Port of Baltimore Festival in 1989 *Coast Guard Bicentennial in 1990 *Maritime Festival at Havre de Grace in 1996 *Open House in
Chesapeake City Chesapeake City is a town in Cecil County, Maryland, United States. The population was 736 at the 2020 census. The town was originally named by Bohemian colonist Augustine Herman the Village of Bohemia — or Bohemia Manor — but the name was ...
in 1997 *Open House at the Naval Academy in 1998 In October 1972, ''Red Birch'' was host to Princess Christina of the Swedish royal family for a San Francisco Bay tour.


Awards and honors

''Red Birch'' earned a
Meritorious Unit Commendation The Meritorious Unit Commendation (MUC; pronounced ''muck'') is a mid-level unit award of the United States Armed Forces. The U.S. Army awards units the Army MUC for exceptionally meritorious conduct in performance of outstanding achievement or s ...
in 1976 and another for her icebreaking during January 1977.


Decommissioning and transfer

''Red Birch'' was decommissioned on 12 June 1998. She was replaced in Baltimore by the USCGC ''James Rankin''. Under the
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 The Foreign Assistance Act (, et seq.) is a United States law governing foreign aid policy. It outlined the political and ideological principles of U.S. foreign aid, significantly overhauled and reorganized the structure U.S. foreign assistance pr ...
, surplus military equipment could be transferred to other countries through the Excess Defense Articles program to support U.S. foreign policy objectives.  ''Red Birch'' was transferred to the Argentine Navy through this program after her decommissioning by the U.S. Coast Guard. This transfer was part of a comprehensive program to improve the Argentine Navy's ability to interdict illicit drugs and their precursor chemicals.


Argentine Navy service

On 9 July 1998, at a ceremony at Curtis Bay, the ship was reflagged and became ARA ''Punta Alta'' (Q63). On 30 May 2000 she commenced active duty with the Argentine Navy. She is homeported at the Puerto Belgrano Naval Base. ''Punta Alta'' is classed as a "multipurpose ship." Her primary mission is to maintain approximately 75 buoys that mark the channel to the ports of Bahia Blanca, but she has been called upon for a number of different missions. In 2014 an RBS 70 surface to air missile was fired from ''Punta Alta'' as part of a training exercise. ''Punta Alta'' trained with a number of other Argentine Navy ships in preparation for the summer 2022-23 Antarctic campaign.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Red Birch Red-class coastal buoy tenders 1965 ships Zárate-class auxiliary ships Ships built by the United States Coast Guard Yard Auxiliary ships of Argentina Ships built in Maryland