About the Boat - CG 40300 Served 33 Years on Plum Island, and is Up For Sale
- FOPPI
- Apr 2
- 6 min read
Mary Beth Volmer - President of Friends of Plum & Pilot Islands
I received a call from the current owner of the historic U.S. Coast Guard Motor Lifeboat CG 40300 that was stationed at the Plum Island Coast Guard Station. He is an avid collector and asked if we would be interested in purchasing her. I had a take a breath first and then tell him that no, as much as we’d like to – sadly, we’re unable to. I gave him some other resources to check into, hoping that we could keep her on the Great Lakes.
He sent me a great amount of information that I found quite interesting. He placed her on the National Register of Historic Places on September 27, 2021, in New York, under the provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. This was quite a feat as normally only stationary objects are placed on the Register. Her period of significance is 1940-1979.
National Register of Historic Places Registration
The U.S. Coast Guard Motor Lifeboat CG 40300 is nationally significant under Criterion C for its role in the evolution of twentieth-century marine engineering design as the Coast Guard’s first steel, all electric-welded, motor lifeboat, that served as the prototype for later steel lifeboat designs. The experimental design of the CG 40300 set the stage for the end of the all-wood lifeboat era and the beginning of the new era of steel motor lifeboats. Designed by naval architect Alfred Hansen, this pioneering vessel was built in 1940 at the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland, remained in service for a remarkable 39 years and continues to serve as a Coast Guard Auxiliary vessel today, though privately owned.
She was initially numbered 5357 and renumbered to 40300 in 1943 as part of a Coast Guard wartime change of the vessel numbering system. CG 40300 was intended to be the first of a new class of steel motor lifeboats replacing the then standard 36-foot T-series wooden motor lifeboats.
CG 40300 is a self-righting and self-bailing steel hull motor lifeboat that is 40 feet in overall length (LOA) and 36-foot 6-inch length at waterline (LWL), 10-foot 6-inch overall beam. She has a 9-foot 8.5-inch beam at waterline, a 3-foot 9-inch draft; a displacement of 25,890 lbs., a 3-inch x 4-inch steel bar keel, a 250-gallon fuel tank, no masts or sails; a forward steering position; radio-equipped, and engine controls in the cockpit.
CG 40300 has electrically welded galvanized steel framing, decks, and superstructure and an electrically welded galvanized steel hull of full displacement design, a type of design that is not intended to plane. Planing boats raise to the top of the water to reduce drag for increased speed, but as a displacement boat CG 40300 will remain in the water at her static waterline. The boat has six watertight compartments and a longitudinal system of framing. All seams are butt welded; cabin and engine room spaces are cork insulated.
The boat has a single, large self-bailing cockpit amidships, with forward deckhouse holding equipment and the engine and aft (rear) watertight deckhouse known as the survivor’s cabin. Locating the survivor’s cabin in the aft section reduces trim (running angle) problems that were experienced by previous designs when the compartment is fully loaded. She has a transom stern rather than double-ended bow and stern design.
The steel plating is 0.25 inches thick compared with a more usual 0.125 inches thickness, making the construction extraordinarily heavy. The galvanized steel construction was a major departure from the previous wooden boats. The hull is reinforced with five watertight bulkheads and longitudinal stringers that are much closer together than the normal practice. This is a vessel designed for the most rugged service. CG 40300’s physical arrangement was also a departure from the established practice. The helm was moved forward and the survivor’s cabin was moved aft. The engine room has been placed under the helm.
As the Coast Guard’s first steel motor lifeboat, there were concerns that the mass of steel would interfere with the magnetic compass. To mitigate this possibility the area around the helm was built of EvendurTM, a non-magnetic silicon bronze metal. The yard displayed great skill in welding steel to bronze, something that would be difficult even with today’s technology.
The Coast Guard Yard was very experienced in welded steel construction for various parts of ships and boats such as the bronze welded pilot house and the steel engine bed of the wooden 52-foot motor lifeboats built in 1935 but had never built a steel motor lifeboat before and as far as is known, had never welded a complete hull of any kind. Nevertheless, they managed to build a welded steel motor lifeboat that remained in service for 39 years, longer than any other single engine motor lifeboat in Coast Guard history.
After a brief service at several lifeboat stations along the East Coast, the CG 40300 was transferred to the Great Lakes where she served at the Plum Island Lifeboat Station on Lake Michigan, Wisconsin. She was eagerly greeted there, because her steel hull enabled her to work well in light ice conditions. She became the boat of choice there and got rave reviews by many who used it. However, some didn’t like the center pilot station that obscured rescue vision, and claimed the ride was ‘strange.’ Others weren’t ready to accept the steel construction and preferred the traditional use of wood.
In addition to rescue work, she carried supplies to the lighthouses on Plum Island and Pilot Island on Lake Michigan. The Plum Island Coast Guard Station was manned from April to December. After that, the boat would be docked at a port on the larger Washington Island of Lake Michigan, with one Coast Guardsman whose primary role was to maintain the batteries and lamps of the lighthouses on Plum and Pilot Islands during the winter months using CG 40300, a mission made possible by the boat’s ice breaking capabilities. The winter ice was assured on Lake Michigan and ice also meant the ferry from Washington Island to the Door Peninsula would need help to make the crossing. To date, no other Coast Guard motor lifeboat has ever been authorized to actually break ice, they can only operate in broken ice. When the need arose, CG 40300 served as the ice breaker for the ferry route. Sometimes the ice would become too thick for the wooden ferry even after being broken by CG 40300. At those times, if there was an urgent need, CG 40300 became the ferry of last resort.
Though the CG 40300 was a one-of-a-kind prototype, her service was typical as a Coast Guard motor lifeboat, i.e., search and rescue of people and vessels in trouble. Search and rescue missions very often involved going out in dangerously bad weather with rough seas – a task for which the sturdy steel CG 40300 proved well-suited. David Robb, a Coast Guard service member stationed at Plum Island in the mid-1960s recounted one such dangerous mission while serving on the CG 40300. A 40-foot-wide by 90-foot-long barge, heavy laden with a crane, two bulldozers, construction equipment, and 50 barrels oil, came loose from its towboat and was caught in very rough seas with winds gusting 25 to 35 knots. When Robb questioned how a 40-foot, single propeller lifeboat could save a heavy barge, the Chief Boatswains Mate told him, ‘Look, sailor, you volunteered for the Coast Guard. No one drafted you. Someone out there needs help and there’s no one else to call. We have to out. We don’t have to come back.’
Having served for 39 years, much longer service than any of the 36-footer wooden boats, CG 40300 was taken out of service in 1979. Her career consisted of three years of sea trials at various stations on the East Coast, 33 years at Plum Island and the port at Washington Island in the winter, and three years at the Escanaba, Michigan Aids to Navigation Station.
In 1983 she was transferred through the GSA to the Eastern Upper Michigan Transportation Service at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and used as a utility boat and for ice breaking. Even after 39 years of excellent service, she was in exceptionally good condition.
If, just by chance, you’d like CG 40300 to return home let us know and we’ll connect you with her current owner.
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