light icebreaking. In her search and rescue role, she extinguished a fire aboard the scallop-fishing vessel Captain O. J. Riggs in 2009. Elm was dispatched to search for survivors of the replica HMS Bounty which was sunk by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. In her law enforcement role, Elm participated in repatriating Cubans attempting to reach the United States in 2007. Elm served as an icebreaker in the Hudson River and Chesapeake Bay. The Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. In May Elm was deployed to assist in the oil spill response, using her Spilled Oil Recovery System. She succeeded in skimming more than 500,000 gallons of oil during her six-month deployment, more than any other Coast Guard cutter. Elm was one of the ships that participated in Fleet Week celebrations at Port Everglades in 2006. In January 2018 Elm went into drydock at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore for a mid-life major overhaul. She left the yard on June 13, 2019. On July 15, 2019 Elm reached her new homeport, Astoria, Oregon, replacing Fir, which sailed for Baltimore for her own mid-life overhaul in June 2018. Fir's crew, already familiar with the operating area, took over Elm. In her new role, Elm is responsible for maintaining 131 floating buoys on the coasts of Oregon and Washington from the California border north to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and in the Columbia River east to Longview, Washington. She is stationed at Coast Guard Base Tongue Point. In the Spring of 2022 Elm also supported aids to navigation in Northern California, covering for USCGC Alder which sailed to the Coast Guard Yard for its own mid-life overhaul. Elm has cooperated with NOAA to maintain weather buoys on several occasions in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Pacific. References Ships of the United States Coast Guard Juniper-class seagoing buoy tenders Ships built by Marinette Marine 1998 ships