Victory’s Last Voyage

At about 2 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 17, the 52-foot motor lifeboat Victory left the boathouse at U.S. Coast Guard Station Yaquina Bay for the final time — nearly 65 years to the day of when she first arrived in Newport. The storied vessel did not leave under her own power but was towed behind a 47-foot motor lifeboat. She was accompanied by her sister ship, the Intrepid, which had been towed by another 47-footer to the Newport station from Coos Bay the prior afternoon.

In a briefing with about 15 Coast Guard members in the boathouse early Wednesday morning, an engineer noted that the Victory had not left the moorage since October 2020, when the 13th District commander placed it and its sister ships on restricted status.

For decades after arriving in Newport at the end of 1956, she was the station’s workhorse, capable of towing more than 750 tons and holding 40 survivors. She is self-righting and self-bailing and could motor through 50-foot seas in hurricane-force winds, and countless local fisherman and other mariners owe their lives to her crews over the past seven decades.

In recent years, the boat experienced frequent breakdowns and long periods out of service, as replacement parts for the Korean War-era vessel are no longer manufactured and must be custom built.

As the station prepared Tuesday to say goodbye and execute its mission of transporting the ships safely north to the National Motor Lifeboat School at Cape Disappointment, Wash., with some stops along the way, they added an improved vessel to the local fleet.

There are now three 47-footers in full-time service at the station, and one that recently received a major overhaul with upgrades to electronics, power plant, motor and crew accommodations will take the Victory’s moorage in the boathouse. The towing capacity of the aluminum vessels is significantly less than the Victory’s, about 150 tons, and they have a much shorter range.

The Coast Guard will now use multiple 47s and/or cutters for heavier vessels and longer hauls, Station Yaquina Bay Commanding Officer Ryan O’Meara said. “We had a case a few days ago where a 210-foot cutter pulled a boat from 180 miles out,” he said.

“The Victory was a powerhouse. She could go out in conditions that exceeded the 47’s limitations,” O’Meara said. He’s piloted the vessel during multiple tours at Yaquina Bay. “So she could go out in 25-foot breaks, where the 47 does 20 feet.”

The overhauled 47 is the first in service with the improvements, having already

Left the Victory is shown for the last time in the boathouse. Above the Intrepid being towed into Yaquina Station to undergo the same trip as the Victory. (Photos by Jeremy Burke)

undergone trials and subsequent modifications at Cape Disappointment. O’Meara said the boat still needed some maintenance on site before they begin trials with it at Yaquina Bay.

O’Meara said he wished the Victory could have embarked when it was easier for the public to attend. The early morning departure time was selected to suit the tides at the Columbia River. The Invincible, another of the four 52s being decommissioned, left Grays Harbor at 4 a.m. on its own power, and the fourth, the Triumph II, was already stationed at Cape Disappointment.

“It was really an honor to be here for that,” O’Meara said after watching the Victory swept seaward by the tow and tide. “I hope these guys appreciate that.” Some of the station’s members never had a chance to serve aboard her in the ocean, but all present seemed to recognize the gravity of the moment.

“The Victory was not only not a member of the community, she was like a member of the crew,” he said. “Everywhere you went, everybody knew the Victory, being the oldest boat in the fleet and the queen of the fleet. With her capabilities, she’s brought generations of crews back to the dock safely, so her leaving is not only a very big deal to the town, but it’s a very big deal to the Coast Guard and members who previously served at Yaquina Bay.”

The crews aboard the 47-footers, as well as two crew members on the Victory and one on the Intrepid, leapfrogged up the coast toward Washington State — one boat crew stopped at Depoe Bay and traded off with a crew from that station before returning to Newport, while the other continued until Tillamook, where others took up the tow.

O’Meara said the transit of the retired lifeboats to Washington involved every Coast Guard surf station on the Oregon coast except the most southern and the most northern. At Cape Disappointment, they’ll all be brought out of the water for maintenance and preservation. They are not yet decommissioned but on “lay-up status,” O’Meara said.