The CG 44301
In March 1963, Coast Guard Station Chatham took delivery of a brand-new kind of lifeboat. The CG 44301 was the first production boat of the 44-foot motor lifeboat: a steel hull with nine watertight compartments, twin diesel engines, and a design that would roll itself back upright if a wave knocked it over. Bernard Webber, coxswain of the famous CG 36500, helped evaluate the new design.
The 44301 crossed the Chatham bar on hundreds of missions until 1971, then went on to the Cape Cod Canal, an overhaul in Maryland, and years training coxswains at the National Motor Lifeboat School in Washington State. In 2002 the Coast Guard went looking for the best-kept 44-footer left in the fleet, and trucked the 44301 all the way back across the country to Chatham.
She worked the Chatham bar for seven more years. When she was retired at Station Chatham on May 8, 2009, she was the first of her class built and among the last still in service. Since 2016 she has stood on display at the station, beside Chatham Light, where you can see her today.
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