The 40-year-old Jarvis, the first Coast Guard cutter ever commissioned in Hawaii, made its final entrance into Honolulu Harbor Saturday morning, plying the waters under a light drizzle.
The 378-foot ship, which has called Honolulu its homeport all its life, returned from a final monthlong mission patrolling the Hawaiian island chain, including the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
The Coast Guard will decommission the high-endurance cutter as it makes way for a new, more capable fleet of national security cutters and because of the increasing cost of maintaining the aging ships. The cutter Morgenthau, homeported in Alameda, Calif., will replace the Jarvis.
“She’s been in service for 40 years,” said Rear Adm. Charlie Ray, who boarded the ship earlier Saturday to greet the returning crew and sailed into the harbor with them. “These young men and women join a long, blue line of men and women who have sailed this ship, who have protected the state and the citizens of Hawaii.”
Coast Guard members aboard the Jarvis have performed duties ranging from law enforcement to search and rescue. The Jarvis has traveled from the cold waters of the Bering Sea to the eastern Pacific and is valued for its multi-mission capabilities, Ray said.
In 2009 the Jarvis’ crew seized a self-propelled, semi-submersible vessel in the Eastern Pacific containing more than five tons of illegal narcotics. The cutter also coordinated search-and-rescue efforts this year that saved two people in an aircraft crash off Palau.
The Jarvis — named for Capt. David H. Jarvis, who led an expedition to rescue 300 whalers stranded off Barrow Point, Alaska, in 1897 — was commissioned Aug. 4, 1972.
Seaman Charlie Murphy, 24, of Michigan, said in his
11⁄2 years aboard the Jarvis “you definitely soak up the history,” listening to stories of older Coast Guard members while getting as far south as waters off Australia and porting in Panama, visiting eight to 10 countries.
Jarvis commanding officer Capt. Richard Mourey said of Saturday’s historic occasion, “There is a bit of sadness that comes with the loss of the ship.
“We call ships ‘she’ because we naturally have an affinity to the platform. It’s tough to let go of any relationship. There’s always a definite affinity or attachment for a crew to any ship.
“Before this trip they were still scrambling to make repairs — big repairs to get it out in its top condition. They were not acting at all like it was not going to be around anymore.”
The Jarvis won’t be heading to the scrapheap just yet, Mourey said. No decisions have been made yet, but the ship may be sold to a foreign military or coast guard, he said.
