escorted four disabled vessels and assisted in two medevacs. A few of Acushnets more noteworthy cases during that time frame include the following: in 1960, it salvaged the 300-ton USCGC General Greene which had been driven one hundred yards ashore in high winds. One of her more dramatic cases in Portland included the rescue of the entire crew of ten people from the disabled seagoing dredge Cartagena, which was adrift in seas and winds off of Cape Cod on Christmas Day, 1961. In May 1963, Acushnet salvaged a crashed Coast Guard helicopter off Duxbury Beach, Massachusetts. The fall of 1967 took Acushnet south, where the cutter rescued a Cuban refugee from a distressed pleasure craft south of Key West, Florida. Redesignated as an oceanographic ship - 1968 to 1971 Redesignated an oceanographic ship, WAGO-167, on July 8, 1968, and assigned to oceanographic, meteorological, and polar operations, she commenced duties as a research support ship. During fiscal year 1970, she underwent conversion during which alterations were made to her hull and scientific equipment, and research and storage spaces were added at a shipyard in San Diego, California. As part of the National Data Buoy Project of NOAA Acushnet spent three years attached to the Office of Naval Research and the Scripps Oceanographic Institute in San Diego, California. Her primary mission on eleven extended deployments through June 1971, the cutter aided in positioning buoys. While serving as a WAGO, Acushnet assisted in only one rescue case a medevac in 1970. Caribbean service – 1971 to 1990 In July 1971, Acushnet transferred to the Gulf Coast; and, based at Gulfport, Mississippi, she continued her oceanographic work with the National Data Buoy Center, this time aiding the Mississippi Test Facility. On August 24, 1971 Acushnet, affectionately known to the crew a "NOAA's Ark", arrived in Gulfport with 64 crew and a 100-ton buoy that was towed from San Diego as its first new support assignment. Once established in Gulfport, Acushnet continued to play a diverse and important role in the search-and-rescue mission. In the fall of 1973 the cutter played a major role in the Key Largo fire south of New Orleans opposite the town of Phoenix. Acushnet was again called to respond after a collision on the Mississippi River. Acushnet and the cutter Dependable were presented the Coast Guard Unit Commendation for extinguishing a fire on the tanker Key Trader after it collided