YORKTOWN, Va. — Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown’s Boat Forces Center is scheduled to retire the last 41-foot Utility Boat that served as a training platform for the base’s students, here Tuesday.
The 38-foot Special Purpose Craft – Training Boats have officially replaced the UTBs as the lead training vessels for TraCen Yorktown’s Boatswain’s Mate Apprentice School.
“The 38 is the replacement for the 41 at Yorktown for training the new boatswain’s mates,” said Lt. Christopher Rosen, of the Boat Forces Center at TraCen Yorktown. “They are much easier to maintain because they have outboard engines instead of the inboard diesel jet pumps. It’s also specifically made to be a floating classroom. It has multiple chart plotters and we are hoping to see better training with the updated electronics compared to the 41, which is nearly forty years old. The 38 also has a much larger cabin with seating for eight, instead of seating for two, and updated environment controls. So when it’s a 110-degrees in August, we’re still out there training. We won’t lose training because it’s too hot or too cold out.”
