The ship was one of 70 of her class built for the U.S. Navy. As the fleet tug USS Zuni, she saw action in World War II, including in the Marianas, Philippines, and Iwo Jima operations. After the war, she was transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard in 1946.
U.S. Coast Guard operational history
The bulk of Tamaroa′s U.S. Coast Guard career was spent patrolling, working in drug interdiction, and fisheries protection. She was the first Coast Guard cutter to arrive at the sinking ocean liner Andrea Doria in 1956. Tamaroa was involved in the landmark 1969 tort case, Ira S. Bushey & Sons, Inc. v. United States, 398 F.2d 167, which held the United States vicariously liable for the damage caused by Tamaroa to a drydock after an intoxicated U.S. Coast Guard seaman returning to his bunk aboard Tamaroa on 14 March 1963 opened drydock water valves, flooding and sinking the drydock and causing Tamaroa to list and slide off her blocks. In its ruling, the court found that an employer will be held liable under respondeat superior if the actions of the employee arise out of the course of his or her employment and cause damage. The court held that "the ship is liable for anything ship-connected persons cause it to do." Tamaroa is perhaps most famous for a rescue described in the 1997 book The Perfect Storm and depicted in the 2000 movie The Perfect Storm; on October 31, 1991, Tamaroa had been attempting to rescue the crew of the sailing vessel Satori the previous day when the cutter was diverted to assist the Air National Guard aircrew, she rescued four out of the five crewmen of a downed New York Air National Guard helicopter. The fifth aircrewman was never found and presumed drowned.
Decommissioning and disposal
After the Coast Guard decommissioned her in 1994, Tamaroa was donated to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York City. She was noticed tied up next to the museum ship in 1994 by a former crewman who began a campaign to restore her. After several unsuccessful attempts, the Zuni Maritime Foundation, a non-profit organization in Richmond, Virginia, formed. The foundation attempted to preserve the ship in an operational condition, and use her to educate the public. This ultimately proved unsuccessful. Having been tied up in Norfolk, Virginia, and environmentally cleaned, she was selected in 2016 for use as an artificial reef. Her sinking, originally scheduled for 30 October 2016, was delayed by rough seas and related issues. She finally was scuttled at 13:00 on 10 May 2017 in the Atlantic Ocean about 33 nautical miles from Cape May, New Jersey, to form an artificial reef. Her wreck is now part of the Del-Jersey-Land Inshore Reef.
