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The hull number tells us the creation date of
the boat. It is 31RP7210. That indicates it was 31 feet long and the
10th boat built in 1972 by Uniflite, Bellingham, WA.
It was sold to the Navy and put into
operation at Special Boat Unit XI at Mare Island, CA.
Read about SBU-11. |
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PBR-7210 with SBU-XI, at Mare Island, showing her stuff. Images from
Jerry Popovitch, Mill Creek, WA. |
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Operation Northern Hawk, WA state. |
Over the course of time the hull was getting
water logged and weakened from so much training
use.
In 1986, during Operation Northern Hawk, in the Puget Sound there was a
collision with a Swift boat that seriously affected her operation. Later
in 1986 it was decided to replace the hulls of several of the boats. In
1987 the replacement hull arrived from Uniflite and all of the on-board
equipment was transferred over to the ?new? 210 hull. |
The tired 7210 hull was then acquired from
the Navy by General Propulsion in March 1995
where it sat in Desert Hot Springs, CA on the cradle for several years.
It had a square section of the port
stern corner cut out by the Navy to test materials. It was stripped of
all gauges, engines, electronics, weapons, well, everything.
The boat had been advertised on the Unifliteworld.com website for
several years. The original add still appears
HERE.
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In
April/May of 2004 the boat was discovered and in July 2004, Mike Granat from the Bellingham International Maritime Museum
acquired the hull, cradle and lifting cable hardware.
She was transported up to Padden Creek Marine, Bellingham Wa
in July of 2004 and was placed in one of the open work bays of the site
operated by Mr. Vic Duppenthaler. In August a Padden Creek Marine
employee, Mike Granat and Bob Brower began the hull and superstructure
restoration. By the middle of September it was ready for paint. |
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