ASTORIA — One of the Columbia River’s storied rescue vessels made its final voyage March 24 when the 52-foot U.S. Coast Guard motor lifeboat Triumph II arrived in Astoria.

The Triumph was a star player in as many as 3,000 search and rescue cases between 1961 and 2021, operating out of Station Cape Disappointment. It will become the centerpiece of the new 24,500-square-foot Mariners Hall under construction on Marine Drive at the Columbia River Maritime Museum.

“It’s our boat,” museum Executive Director Bruce Jones, a retired Coast Guard captain, recently said in a recent interview. “Three of the other 52-footers worked the harbors of Newport, Coos Bay and Grays Harbor; but the Triumph was our rescue vessel at the mouth of the Columbia.”

In addition to the Coast Guard’s gift of the vessel — plus reconditioning and transporting it across the river — the effort owes much to local fundraising and volunteerism.

Former museum leader Jerry Ostermiller described the impetus to preserve the Triumph for posterity. “Its operators didn’t want to see it go because it’s had such a reputation for strength and power. Those 52-footers are almost like diesel tractors known for pulling boats that are in trouble across the bar. They’ve been discontinued, but they’re famous.”

Tom Molloy, a Coastie for 23 years, who now trains the trainers and supervises other analytics at the National Motor Lifeboat School, operated the Triumph for many years. He told Chinook Observer columnist Cate Gable, “When you’re on the Triumph you can feel it in the bones of the vessel — all the rescues and the lives saved. You know you’re riding a piece of history. It has the capabilities of a tank but it rides like a Cadillac. You felt safe and you can feel the pride and the beauty of it — all the care and maintenance that went into that boat.”

He continued, “I’ve forgotten a lot of the memories over time, but I know that for every rescue we went out on, you could feel the relief when the 52 was on the scene. That’s the boat everyone wanted to see. For a small fishing boat in trouble, you’d send out a 29-footer. For a larger vessel, maybe the 47-footer. But in big surf, you’d want the Triumph.”