Shortly after 8 a.m. recently, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Hollyhock and her crew, surrounded by fishing boats under an overcast sky, pulled away from the Algonac pier, embarking on a buoy-tending mission that would set a record for the ship.
The schedule included working 17 buoys, which would break the ship’s previous record of 14. Work included pulling winter buoys, or marks, and replacing them with summer buoys and placing summer buoys where other winter marks had previously been removed, The Times Herald reported.
To help facilitate some of the work, the Hollyhock’s Aids To Navigation, or ATON boat, was deployed with several crew members to handle some of the smaller buoy work that wouldn’t require it be removed from the water, such as installing or removing a light.