The John Witherspoon is the newest fast response cutter in Alaska’s growing fleet. Two similar cutters are set to arrive in Kodiak as part of a major expansion of the Coast Guard’s presence on the island.
The crew lived on the John Witherspoon for a few months, travelling from the Bollinger Shipyard in Louisiana to Kodiak. Katelynn Lane, the ship’s executive officer, said the crew’s putting extra effort into keeping the boat clean ahead of the public tours.
“We actually had a little practice run tour just a little bit ago with some of the Cypress members to just kind of get the crew used to walking folks around and having them talking about various things throughout the ship,” she said.
Lane also used to serve on the Cypress, a Kodiak-based buoy tender, before being stationed on the John Witherspoon. The crew have already started to make the new boat home, with small animal toys as decorations like a clownfish on the helm.
Lane’s warm up tour last week included a sneak peek of the cabin, modernized navigation and communication tech, the galley, and a smaller response boat on board – affectionately dubbed “the Teaspoon.”
“She is named the Teaspoon because that is what John Witherspoon used to call his folks on board,” she said. “So they were all the teaspoons and we felt it was aptly named.”
The boat is named for the first African American to command a Coast Guard base and the second to command a cutter. He died in 1994.
The crew is also younger than most, Lane is in her mid-20s herself.
The cutter hasn’t been commissioned yet, so the crew is eager for the tours and to get down to business as soon as next month.
“We’re really looking forward to the opportunity to thank all the folks who are involved in getting us here, but we’re looking forward to what comes after,” she said. “That’s the operational time and getting out there and doing the job.”
Civilian tours of the John Witherspoon are on Saturday from 1 to 4:30 p.m. at the City of Kodiak’s Pier 2. It will be officially commissioned on April 3.
