Charlevoix, Mich. - On June 7, 2006, the Coast Guard’s final 180-foot WLB-class sea-going buoy tender, USCGC ACACIA (WLB 406), will be decommissioned in an official ceremony at Station Charlevoix at 10 am EDT.

The ACACIA is one of 39 180-foot seagoing buoy tenders built for the United States Coast Guard between 1942 and 1944. ACACIA was commissioned on September 1st, 1944 in Duluth, Minn., and was one of the latter tenders built during the Second World War. The cutter is named after the original Coast Guard Cutter ACACIA that was sunk by a German U-boat off the British West Indies on March 17, 1942, and has been stationed in Charlevoix, Mich., since 1990.

ACACIA’s area of operation extends from Chicago on the southern shores of Lake Michigan to Alpena on Lake Huron, where the ship and crew perform aids to navigation duties, search and rescue of lost or disabled vessels, and icebreaking assistance during the cold winter months. ACACIA assisted innumerable ice-bound commercial vessels and maintained the vital waterways of the Great Lakes for over six decades, and now, after 62 years of distinguished Great Lakes service, her final crew will walk down the gangway one last time and the cutter’s commissioning pennant will be lowered. ACACIA will sail to Chicago at the end of the month, and will remain on the Great Lakes as a museum in the Chicago area.

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