By Gerald A. McGill

The 82’ WPBs were very seaworthy but with the weapons added for Vietnam (five .50 caliber machine guns, one 81 millimeter mortar and a locker holding 5,000 rounds of .50 caliber ammunition on the main deck), they tended to roll significantly when the seas were off the beam.  Many times the crew members having dinner down below had to lift their plates while eating to keep the food from sliding off.

The 82’s were built for law enforcement and search and rescue missions in harsh conditions such as the North Atlantic and the Gulf of Alaska.  In the couple of years of their existence before going to Vietnam, the craft were repeatedly praised for their foul weather endurance.

A typical report came from a cutter entering the North Carolina coast at Cape Fear in 35 knot winds and 15 to 20 foot seas which broached and lay on her starboard side (a 90 degree roll) for about 20 seconds before snapping upright. 

In those days the crew was all enlisted men and the officer-in-charge was a Chief Boatswain Mate.  The Chief wrote in the log about the roll concluding with, “Everything OK.  These boats are well built and could probably weather almost anything.”

I didn’t know this story at the time but on more than one occasion I assured a Point Welcome crew member, usually a younger seaman, that these boats would not turn over.

Up to January 1964 when deployed to Vietnam, the boats were identified only by number.  Upon deployment they were given names after points of land in the U.S.

It was cutter 82329 that had the 90 degree lay down off North Carolina.  She became the Point Welcome.