January 30, 1999
The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) cutter USCGC Anthony Petit (WLM-558) was officially launched into the Menominee River at the city of Marinette, Wisconsin. This 175-foot (53-meter)-long vessel was built by Marinette Marine Corporation, and the launch ceremony for her took place along one of that company’s docks. USCGC Anthony Petit which is part of the USCG’s Keeper class of a buoy tenders (vessels used to maintain navigational floating aids), was specifically constructed for service along the southeastern coast of Alaska.
At least 300 people showed up for the Saturday launch of USCGC Anthony Petit. “It Floats! Launch Thrills Crowd,” announced a headline in the next day’s edition of the Green Bay Press-Gazette. The public officials on hand for this event included Frank Murkowski, who served as a U.S. senator from Alaska between 1981 and 2002; and James Loy, a USCG admiral who was commandant of that uniformed services branch from 1998 to 2002.
The christening duties for this launch were handled by Murkowski’s wife Nancy, who broke a bottle of champagne against the cutter’s bow. Femi Cole, reporting for the Bay Press-Gazette, recounted what happened next. He wrote that the vessel “slipped down the metal rails like a child on a giant water slide and splashed into the river, sending a shower of waves and ice about 30 feet [9.1 meters] onto the dock just short of spectators.”
In his article, Cole also highlighted the overall enthusiasm of those attending that day’s festivities. He noted, “Moments before the launch, spectators seemed eager as they fidgeted, snapped photographs and engaged in excited conversations.” He further stated, “Heads craned toward the cutter, which sat propped atop a set of metal rods that would send it hurling into the Menominee River.”
Those spectators included Marinette resident Kurt Giulani, who expressed in effusive terms what was like to witness the launch. He said, “It kind of makes your adrenaline rush seeing all that metal in motion like that.” Heidi Seaman, a resident of the nearby city of Menominee, was similarly impassioned when describing her reaction to the launch. “When it started going down, I started to cry,” she said. “This is so awesome. Three-year-old Karl Schoegel, another Menominee resident, likewise made known his excitement about what transpired along the coast of Marinette that day. He was especially clear about his favorite part of the ceremony: “The splash.”
Following this launch, USCGC Anthony Petit underwent extensive testing over the next several months. After the completion of those sea trials, USCGC Anthony Petit began the voyage to her new homeport in Ketchikan, Alaska. That long journey included travel on both the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway and through the Panama Canal. Anthony Petit arrived at Coast Guard Base Ketchikan in January 2000.
USCGC Anthony Petit remains in service in that part of the world today. As a buoy tender, she is primarily used for maintaining a total of 274 navigational aids (both floating and fixed). USCGC Anthony Petit has also been deployed for search-and-rescue missions for vessels such as the charter boat Fishin’ Fool in 2002; the ferry Lituya in 2008; and the fishing ships Yvonne Denise in 2005 and Tsimshian Lady in 2017. The crew of USCGC Anthony Petit has also taken part in training exercises focused on oil spill containment.
USCGC Anthony Petit was named after a USCG chief boatswain’s mate who served as head keeper of the Scotch Cap Lighthouse on Unimak Island, part of the Aleutian Islands chain of southwestern Alaska. On April 1, 1946, Michigan native Anthony Lawrence Petit and four other USCG servicemen stationed there lost their lives during a tsunami that obliterated the lighthouse. (Those other men were Jack Colvin, fireman 1st class; Dewey Dykstra, seaman 1st class; Leonard Pickering, motor machinist’s mate 2nd class; and James Ness, seaman 1st class.)
At the time of the launch of the cutter bearing Petit’s name, Senator Frank Murkowski took time to praise this fallen USCG hero. Murkowski proclaimed, “Chief Anthony Lawrence Petit was just a man–an ordinary man — but his life and death offer a glimpse at the thousands of ordinary men and women who join the Coast Guard and serve their fellow citizens in extraordinary ways . . . We know that in the end, he died doing the job he loved; keeping the light burning for those in peril on the sea.”
Photo Credit: Jordanroderick (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)
For more information on USCGC Anthony Petit (WLM-558), please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USCGC_Anthony_Petit
Transportation History 
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