Coast Guard
Motor Life Boat CG36500




Still going strong after 56 years 60 years

I received an email from Richard C. Ryder, USN, retired, with comments on my Motor Life Boat website. He informed me that he is a volunteer with the Orleans Historical Society near Chatham, Massachusetts and most importantly that they have a fully operational 36-footer, CG36500, in the water and almost as good as the day she was launched. This was hard to fathom, as even though there are some still in excellent condition, they are preserved undercover as a static display. I requested from Richard any information and pictures of 36500 that I could use on this website. He graciously honored my request, so here it is.

Before getting into that, here is an update from Richard on April 22, 2002 …

The 36500 boat is being readied for another season on the water. She has been hauled out for three weeks or so while we work on her in a large shed. She is some rugged! Her hull is still fair and as stout as ever. Big news is that on May 15th, the original crew of 4, and one of the survivors of the Pendleton rescue, will be in Chatham, Mass. for a cruise around the harbor.

There will be a private meeting of the enlisted guys at Chatham station with Bernie Webber and his crew. The honorary coxswain will be Senior Chief Boatswain Jack Downey, one of the most respected Officers in Charge ever at the Chatham Lifeboat Station. My dad, who fished out of Chatham for 56 years, related as how one morning he was crossing the Chatham bar before daylight, and there was Chief Downey's crew, standing by, getting the feel of the sea conditions at the bar and what it was like to operate a boat in the dark. How else would you be ready to operate under such conditions if you never experienced them? That kind of dedication is what earns the respect of the guys who earn their living on the water.

On Saturday the 18th of May, there will be a 47 from Station Provincetown, the 36500, a CG helo, and a breeches buoy demo all at Rock Harbor in Orleans. This is being encouraged and promoted by Captain Russ Webster, Commander of Group Woods Hole.


And another update from Richard on June 20, 2006 …

The 36500 is doing extremely well - back in the water and underway for another great season. She will celebrate 60 years on 11 July this year.

You can also visit CG36500's own website.


Now back to the original story …

Click on photo to see larger image

CG36500 was built in 1946 at Curtis Bay, Maryland Coast Guard Yard, as all 36s were, and stationed at the Chatham, Massachusetts Coast Guard Lifeboat Station. Like most 36s, it had an active and glorious career with many rescues. But this was a Gold Medal boat that I'll explain later. It was taken out of service in 1968 after being re-engined from a Sterling gas engine to diesel. It was replaced by the new and improved 44 foot twin diesel, all steel Motor Life Boat. It, like the other 36s, had outlived its usefulness. There isn't much fanfare when this occurs, even though to many Coasties, it is a sad day. Most were destroyed, but some got saved for display at museums and historical societies.

The Cape Cod National Seashore at that time obtained 36500 for preservation, but due to usual reasons of funding, etc., it just sat outside for some 13 years and deteriorated in the weather. In 1981 the Orleans Historical Society of Orleans, Massachusetts took interest and proceeded with negotiations to have it transferred to them. They were successful and it became theirs in the fall of 1981. What they got was a deteriorated shabby boat, but it had not been vandalized and underneath the many coats of chipping paint and rotting canvas, was a sound boat.

36500 was placed in a warehouse in Orleans and the work began. TV and newspaper stories came out regarding the boat with the result of literally hundreds of volunteers and thousands of dollars donated. Volunteers removed paint, restored brass parts and the GM 4-71 diesel engine was removed and overhauled. Some parts that were missing had to be re-manufactured to original specs. It was a mess and required lots of volunteer labor.

After six months and countless hours of labor and new paint, a sparkling, fully-restored boat appears through the doors of the warehouse on its way for a ceremonious launching. A beauty if there ever was one. Since that day, 36500 has been fully maintained and is removed from the water each spring for general maintenance and upkeep. It is fully operational and travels each year to various ports for celebrations and ceremonies with Coast Guard Auxiliary and society members operating it.

36500 is a Gold Medal boat made famous by its crew of four in the February 18th, 1952 rescue of 32 survivors of the ill-fated tanker Pendleton, during a tremendous 70 knot northeastern storm. The four Coasties took 36500 out in this wild storm in what seemed an impossible mission. One must remember that they have to go out. The seasoned crewmen, if not before, were soon to be. They each received the Gold Life Saving Medal for getting to the scene under almost impossible conditions and heroically rescuing the 32 crewmen from the Pendleton just before it was broken apart by the Atlantic Ocean. They returned to the Chatham Station with the 32 rescued crewmen to a hero's welcome.

One would have to read the full story of this rescue to really appreciate what Coast Guardsmen are capable of doing. It wouldn't have been possible without the durability of the 36-foot motor life boat. With a good crew, it can do the impossible and it does come back. Stories similar to this are part of the history that makes the 36 the best and most famous of all Coast Guard rescue boats. Am I prejudiced? You bet. And there are many thousands of people who owe their lives to this boat and the heroic crewmen who took them out to do their duty of savings lives under the worst conditions that mother nature can throw at them.

I do hope that all who read this will give thanks not only to CG36500 and the crewmen who manned this boat, but to the Orleans Historical Society membership and all the volunteers who brought 36500 back to life and maintain it. It has been my pleasure to tell this story and I personally thank Richard G. Ryder for making it possible. He is the grandson of 30-year veteran Surfman to Warrant Bos'n (L) Richard E. Ryder of the USLSS/USCG.


The Gold Life Saving Medal
Rarely awarded except to those risking
their own lives in order to save others
from the perils of the sea


CG 36500 Celebration

In the realms of Coast Guard history, this is a first. A half century after a heroic rescue, the same crew on the same boat at the same place departed on a ceremonious mission. The following article and photos tell the story.

Gold Medal Lifeboat Crew
Returns to Chatham, 50 Years Later
by Alan Pollock, Cape Cod Chronicle




A timeless story of heroism and compassion was renewed last week when the famed CG36500 motor lifeboat pulled away from the Fish Pier, with its gray-haired Gold Medal crew at the controls. The event marked the fiftieth anniversary of what was arguably the most harrowing maritime rescue in the history of the United States Coast Guard.

To the sound of clicking camera shutters and applause, the wooden rescue boat edged away from the dock, sliding through calm waters toward the Chatham Bar. It was there, on February 18, 1952, that the crew of four and their cargo of 32 cold, wet refugees from the tanker Pendleton, nearly met their demise.

The story of the rescue has been told and retold, and has become a part of Coast Guard lore. A team of four seamen was hastily assembled that morning to take on an all-but-impossible rescue mission, without benefit of a larger, steel-hulled boat, high-tech equipment, or even a compass. Battling nearly 60-foot waves, high winds and snow, the crew remarkably found the stricken stern section of the Pendleton, and one-by-one, plucked the survivors from the heaving ship. All but one of the men, 300-pound Tiny Sayers, made it safely aboard the CG36500. The coxswain, Bernie Webber, later said it was a divine hand on the tiller that brought the battered rescue boat blindly through the Chatham break to safe waters. The story drew national media attention, and the crew was awarded the treasury department's Gold Lifesaving Medal.

And on May 15, 2002, Webber and his crew, Andrew Fitzgerald, Richard Livesey and Irving Maske, donned orange life jackets and descended the gangplank to the 36500 to make one last trip in the rescue boat. Escorted by three modern Coast Guard rescue craft, the Gold Medal boat went south to the lighthouse, giving photographers ample chance to record the historic moment, before returning to the fish pier.

The Coast Guard and the Cape Cod Maritime Research Association arranged for the crew to return to Massachusetts for the commemoration, and also managed to locate one of the men rescued from the Pendleton, Charles Bridges, who also attended. The following Monday, the five attended a luncheon at district headquarters in Boston, where they were feted by Coast Guard brass and by Congressman William Delahunt.

The next day, the group traveled to Chatham to attend an invitation-only dinner, and on Wednesday, after the boat trip, the crew was honored in a ceremony at Station Chatham.

In the invocation at that ceremony, Coast Guard chaplain Lt. Cmdr. T.A. Yuille praised the crew for "handling a secular mission in a sacred way," and said that their heroism has become a part of Coast Guard lore, motivating and inspiring generations of rescuers.

Capt. W. Russell Webster, chief of operations for the first Coast Guard district, called the Pendleton operation the "Mt. Everest of rescues." He said he has often been asked whether the Coast Guard would send men on such a perilous mission today.

"I tell them, yes, but we wouldn't be sending a 36-foot motor lifeboat with four people who hardly knew each other," Webster said. There have been countless other acts of heroism in Coast Guard history--including some at Station Chatham. When Webster was assigned to Group Woods Hole, a Chatham crew came to the aid of a boat on fire 15 miles off shore, rescuing the people on board just minutes before the boat was engulfed. "They, too, said it was just doing their job," Webster noted.

Even fifty years later, the Pendleton rescue is in the minds of the crew members. In the years after the rescue, Andrew Fitzgerald said he didn't think much about what happened that day in 1952.

"For years I didn't," he said. In fact, it was some time before he ever mentioned the rescue to his own wife, who wasn't aware of her husband's heroism. "It just wasn't something you'd talk about," Fitzgerald said.

And in an interview earlier this year, Bernie Webber said the Pendleton rescue changed the course of his career in the Coast Guard, generating both respect and animosity from his peers.

"People don't take too kindly to so-called heros," Webber said. "It kind of sets the pace for what the next guy has to do."

At the ceremony, Captain Webster said the commemoration is a celebration of heroism, and a celebration that all four crew members are alive to witness the anniversay.

"We also celebrate another kind of rescue today," he said, praising the Orleans Historical Society and its volunteers for painstakingly restoring the old rescue boat, the only one of its kind still in operation.

At the ceremony, a plaque was unveiled that commemorates the rescue. Later, the Gold Medal crew was given the opportunity to speak one-on-one with a group of enlisted Coast Guardsmen and women at Station Chatham, away from reporters and away from the station's officers. Later, the crew was driven to Orleans to take part in an open house at the historical society.

From the Cape Cod Chronicle

Click on photo to see larger image in a new window





May 2003 CG 36500 Update

A recent email from Richard G. Ryder, USN retired of the Orleans Historical Society reports that CG36500 motor lifeboat was launched on May 1st. She was removed from the water for a complete going-over during the winter. She is in really good condition and looks great, and is back at the Chatham Pier preparing for the return trip back to her berth at Rock Harbor in Orleans, Massachusettes. Many festivities and trips are again planned for this year as a tribute to the historically greatest motor life boats of the Coast Guard and the valiant crew who manned them.

The Orleans Historical Society and all the volunteers are to be congratulated for their care and devotion in preserving and maintaining the only 36-foot MLB that remains fully operational. All the former Coasties who crewed the 36s should be ever so grateful for what they are doing. I know that I am! Great job guys and gals ... and keep it up.

For the summer schedule to visit 36500, you can visit their website or contact Richard directly by email.


Any former Coastie who has a story of any rescue missions on a 36 foot MLB and would like to have it posted on this website, please email the information to me at dnelson@pasty.com. Pictures of the boat, crew, station, etc. would be great. A tribute to these crewmen and boats need not be forgotten or lost.

Created April 4, 2002 . . .  Last edited June 21, 2006

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