page_title: Owasco-class cutter
section_title: Icegoing design features
hierarchical_section_title: Owasco-class cutter / Design / Icegoing design features
caption_attribution_description: "USCGC Pontchartrain (WPG-70) on her first underway trial;" 3 August 1945; Photo No. 853; photo by Davis.
context_page_description: The Owasco-class cutter was a 255-foot cutter class operated by the United States Coast Guard. A total of thirteen cutters in the class were built, all named after lakes. Eleven were constructed by the Western Pipe & Steel Company at San Pedro, California, while the remaining two—Mendota and Pontchartrain—were constructed by the Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay, Maryland. Initially heavily armed for World War II service and designated patrol gunboats under the United States Navy designation system, the vessels were stripped of much of their armament shortly after the war, and in 1965 were redesignated high endurance cutters after the Coast Guard adopted its own designation system.
context_section_description: The 255-foot (78 m) class was an ice-going design. Ice operations had been assigned to the Coast Guard early in the war, and almost all new construction was either ice-going or ice-breaking.
  The hull was designed with constant flare at the waterline for ice-going. The structure was longitudinally framed with heavy web frames and an ice belt of heavy plating, and it had extra transverse framing above and below the design waterline. An enormous amount of weight was saved utilizing the technique of electric welding. The 250-foot (76 m) cutters' weights were used for estimating purposes. Tapered bulkhead stiffeners cut from 12" I-beams went from the main deck (4' depth of web) to the bottom (8" depth of web). As weight was cut out of the hull structure, electronics and ordnance were increased, but at much greater heights. This top weight required ballasting the fuel tanks with seawater to maintain stability both for wind and damaged conditions.
  The superstructure of the 255s was originally divided into two islands in order to accommodate an aircraft amidships, but this requirement was dropped before any of the units became operational. Following completion of the preliminary design by the Coast Guard, the work was assigned to George G, Sharp of New York to prepare the contract design.
caption: USCGC Pontchartrain (WPG-70).
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