page_title: USS Matagorda (AVP-22)
section_title: United States Coast Guard service
hierarchical_section_title: USS Matagorda (AVP-22) / United States Coast Guard service
caption_attribution_description: English: United States Coast Guard cutter USCGC Matagorda (WAVP-373)
context_page_description: USS Matagorda was a United States Navy Barnegat-class seaplane tender in commission from 1941 to 1946 that saw service in World War II. After the war, she was in commission in the United States Coast Guard as the cutter USCGC Matagorda, later WHEC-373, from 1949 to 1967.
context_section_description: Barnegat-class ships were very reliable and seaworthy and had good habitability, and the Coast Guard viewed them as ideal for ocean station duty, in which they would perform weather reporting and search and rescue tasks, once they were modified by having a balloon shelter added aft and having oceanographic equipment, an oceanographic winch, and a hydrographic winch installed. After World War II, the U.S. Navy transferred 18 of the ships to the Coast Guard, in which they were known as the Casco-class cutters.
  The Navy loaned Matagorda to the Coast Guard on 7 March 1949. The Coast Guard converted her into a weather-reporting ship and commissioned her as USCGC Matagorda (WAVP-373) on 8 June 1949.
  Matagorda's primary duty during her Coast Guard service was to serve on ocean stations to gather meteorological data. While on duty in one of these stations, she was required to patrol a 210-square-mile (544-square-kilometer) area for three weeks at a time, leaving the area only when physically relieved by another Coast Guard cutter or in the case of a dire emergency. While on station, she acted as an aircraft check point at the point of no return, a relay point for messages from ships and aircraft, as a source of the latest weather information for passing aircraft, as a floating oceanographic laboratory, and as a search-and-rescue ship for downed aircraft and vessels in distress, and she engaged in law enforcement operations.
  Matagorda was stationed at Boston, Massachusetts, from her commissioning on 8 June 1949 until 1954. She was used for law enforcement, ocean station, and search and rescue operations in the Atlantic Ocean.
  In 1954 she was transferred to Honolulu, Hawaii, and took up duties in the Pacific Ocean similar to those she had performed in the Atlantic.
  On 26 January 1956, Matagorda delivered clothing from Washington Intermediate School in Honolulu to an orphanage in Japan.
  In August 1960, Matagorda towed the disabled fishing vessel Wild Goose II.
  On 12 January 1965, Matagorda stood by the disabled Liberian tanker Saint Helena 1,000 nautical miles (1,900 km) northwest of Midway Atoll; Saint Helena had sustained hull damage due to heavy seas and was in danger of breaking in two. Matagorda herself sustained damage; she was relieved by the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Bering Strait (WAVP-382) on 13 January 1965 and proceeded to Hawaii, via Midway, in heavy seas.
  In mid-September 1965, Matagorda escorted the disabled Liberian merchant ship Londias to Honolulu.
  On 27 February 1966, Matagorda transferred 12,000 US gallons (45,000 L) of water to the disabled merchant ship Union Success and took her under tow until relieved of towing duties.
  Matagorda was reclassified as a high endurance cutter and redesignated WHEC-373 on 1 May 1966.
caption: USCGC Matagorda (WHEC-373) on 21 November 1966, before the Coast Guard's adoption of the "racing stripe" markings on its ships.
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