Shipbucket

Hello everyone,

Today I bring to you my rendition of the USCGC Blackthorn, an Iris class buoy tender of the US Coast Guard. She was one of 39 180 ft tenders built during WWII, and originally served in the Great Lakes during the initial years of her service with the USCG. She was then moved around the country for homeport, going from San Pedro, CA to Alabama, and then Texas. However, in 1980 she was undergoing an overhaul in Tampa, FL and upon completion was due to reach Galveston until the 28th of January when she collided with the tanker Capricorn. Damage was initially only to her hull, but an anchor from the tanker fell on the small tender and ripped a hole in the port side. Blackthorn was still afloat, but to add insult to injury, as the ships moved away from each other the chain attached to the anchor pulled the small tender onto her side and caused her to capsize.

27 out of the 50 crewmembers survived the collision, and Blackthorn was raised from the seabed to conduct an investigation. It was found that the captain of the tender was primarily responsible, and many changes were made in the USCG to prevent further accidents like this. Blackthorn was scuttled later and now is an artificial reef in the Gulf of Mexico.

I hope that I have not missed anything on this drawing, and I'll be happy to fix anything you notice before it is uploaded! (sorry to eswube for the mistakes i've made recently!)

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Very nice and interesting)

Very nice work!

A wonderful Tribute to my fallen family.

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"It is better to type nothing and be assumed an ass, than to type something and remove all doubt." - Me