USCGC ''Mohawk'' (WMEC-913) is a 270'

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mu ...

Famous-class medium endurance cutter. She was launched on September 9, 1989 at Robert Derecktor Shipyard Incorporated of

Middletown, Rhode Island Middletown is a town in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 17,075 at the 2020 census. It lies to the south of Portsmouth and to the north of Newport on Aquidneck Island, hence the name "Middletown". History Vario ...

and commissioned in March 1991. She is the third cutter named for the

Mohawk nation The Mohawk people ( moh, Kanienʼkehá꞉ka) are the most easterly section of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. They are an Iroquoian-speaking Indigenous people of North America, with communities in southeastern Canada and northern N ...

, a tribe of Iroquoian Indians from the

Mohawk Valley The Mohawk Valley region of the U.S. state of New York is the area surrounding the Mohawk River, sandwiched between the Adirondack Mountains and Catskill Mountains, northwest of the Capital District. As of the 2010 United States Censu ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Service history

''Mohawk'' is the thirteenth and last of the 270 foot Famous class cutters. Built by the former Robert E. Derecktor Shipyards of

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but i ...

, Mohawk was christened on September 9, 1989. Since the time of her commissioning in March 1991, she served the Coast Guard in a wide variety of missions including

Search and Rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

, Maritime Law Enforcement, and Alien Migrant Interdiction Operations. ''Mohawk'' has been responsible for the rescue of more than 5,000 Haitian, Cuban, and Dominican Republic migrants and has supported as many as 756 migrants on deck at one time. ''Mohawk'' has also seized more than 20,700 pounds of

illegal drugs The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent the recreational use of certain intoxicating substances. While some drugs are illegal to possess, many governments regulate th ...

. This, as well as ''Mohawk''s role in several search and rescue cases and numerous boardings to enforce the United States national laws, has earned ''Mohawk'' two Unit Commendations, the Joint Meritorious Service Award and two Humanitarian Service Awards. ''Mohawk'' is homeported in Key West, Florida. On 13 January 2010, the ''Mohawk'' was ordered to assist in the humanitarian relief efforts following the

2010 Haiti earthquake A catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest department, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's ca ...

. In 2016, ''Mohawk'' completed a major MEP overhaul that was supposed to take 3 months but took almost two years in Baltimore, MD.

In June 2022, ''Mohawk'' escorted the fast response cutters USCGC ''John Scheuerman'' (WPC-1146) and USCGC ''Clarence Sutphin Jr.'' (WPC-1147) across the Atlantic Ocean on the way to their home port of Manama, Bahrain. She provided at-sea refueling services for the smaller, shorter-range vessels.

Resources

*An

HDTV High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the ...

documentary called ''A Day in the Life of the Mohawk-''
A Day in the Life of the Mohawk
' shows the Famous-class cutter patrolling the United States south coastal region in February and March 1999.

References

External links

United States Coast Guard Atlantic Area Cutters - CGC Mohawk
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mohawk (WMEC-913) Ships of the United States Coast Guard Famous-class cutters Ships built in Middletown, Rhode Island 1989 ships 2010 Haiti earthquake relief