SOUTH OF BEAVERTAIL -- Just after 11:30 one warm Sunday morning, the Coast Guard cutter Tiger Shark pulls over the fishing boat Damariscotta for a routine safety inspection.

In the Tiger Shark's cabin, the crew grabs its boarding gear: body armor, Sigsaur P229 40-caliber pistols and lifevests. They check and double check their weapons and hand out live ammunition. The smell of sunscreen and bleach and the ocean mix with the aroma of onions and peppers coming up from the galley. Lunch was about to be served.

"We could be going to the head, going into a meal or going to sleep," Petty Officer 2nd Class Glenn Browning, 24, from North Carolina, says as he pats down the Velcro on his bulletproof vest. "That's always when we get the call to do this."

The boarding team loads into the Tiger Shark's small boat, a Zodiac, which is lowered off the stern of the cutter. The team of five motors off toward the fishing boat.

Up on the bridge, Lt. j.g. Grant Thomas tries to keep the cutter close to the Damariscotta while zigzagging around other vessels that seem to have no regard for a Coast Guard ship on patrol. Thomas' movements are quick as he darts around the bridge; his orders -- spoken in a bouncing Kentucky drawl -- come in straight shots that don't waste words and are followed by long silences as he concentrates on the cutter's position and the status of his men on the Zodiac.

"The biggest thing is making sure they stay safe," Thomas says of the men doing the inspection. "I'll try to keep us as close as I can, but sometimes it gets tricky."

The 87-foot Tiger Shark, a Marine Protector class cutter commissioned in July 2005, is among the newest additions to the Coast Guard fleet, and Thomas is one of the fleet's newest skippers. Thomas, 28, has been a Coast Guard officer for more than three years, but this is his first command. It's the experience of a lifetime, Thomas says, but at the same time the responsibility is demanding and the stress sometimes intense.

"It's accountability," he says. "Being in charge, you take credit for the good and the bad. That's a lot of pressure."

The Tiger Shark has a crew of nine. They spend two weeks at sea, patrolling the waters between Boston and New York, checking up on the fishing fleet and conducting search-and-rescue missions. Based out of Newport -- specifically Goat Island -- Thomas says he and his crew have more autonomy than most cutters, the majority of which operate out of Coast Guard bases. But that also means more work, taking care of paperwork and other administrative tasks that are normally handled by base staff.

"It's unusual to have a cutter in a communal marina," Thomas says. "Most of the other cutters are co-located on a base and that means they save time on things like supplies and security clearances. For us that's in Woods Hole, so we have to do a lot of it ourselves. . . . I try to instill in these guys that this is our ship. I mean it's the taxpayers', but we are taking care of it and we want to leave it better than we found it."

Thomas said he joined the Coast Guard after looking into different branches of the military during college. A graduate of Sewanee: The University of the South, in Tennessee, Thomas thought about becoming a doctor but realized that medicine was not his calling. Instead, he worked as a firefighter and EMT while studying political science. After graduation he spent a year in Washington, D.C., working for the International Fire Chief Association before signing on for Coast Guard Officer Candidate School.

"Everyone I talked to about the Coast Guard had nothing but good things to say about it," he said. "It just fit."

Thomas' first assignment was as a deck officer on the Coast Guard cutter Bear, a 270-foot ship that patrolled for drug trafficking in the Caribbean. Jumping right into the work, Thomas led 35 boardings in two years. One of those boardings, he said, turned up a ton and a half of cocaine on a fast boat coming from Colombia. The street value of the cocaine was more than $40 million, he said.

"There is a lot of pressure in that environment not to mess up and to make the right decisions," Thomas says. "When you are going out there with machine guns and choppers overhead, it's a good test of being put in a stressful situation."

Thomas says luck and his work on the Bear led to his command. In March 2005, he headed to New Orleans to pick up the Tiger Shark, which had just been built, at a cost of $3.5 million. The cruise from New Orleans up to Rhode Island, he said, was one of the most memorable of his time in the Coast Guard, because the weather was so bad.

"We got pretty banged up on that trip," Thomas says.

Conducting search-and-rescue missions and enforcing fishing regulations are not as glamorous as going after drug dealers, but Thomas said he doesn't doubt the importance of his work.

"They either love us or hate us," Thomas explains about the Coast Guard's relationship with fishermen. "When they are in trouble, we're the first ones they call. Other than that, they don't want to hear it."

The rules and regulations governing fishing boats are so complicated, Thomas says, that he and his crew often have to confer with Coast Guard officials in Boston.

But keeping those fishermen safe by enforcing regulations, Thomas says, is what makes the job rewarding.

"It's a good feeling," he says,"knowing that what we are doing out there really makes a difference."

Also being stationed in Newport, and its vast fleet of sailboats, creates factors that he would never anticipated.

"Sailboats in theory have the right of way," Thomas says. "And they will take full advantage of this, cutting us off whenever they can. If we did hit one? Well, that would mean a lot of paperwork and typically it wouldn't be good for me being captain of the boat."

No matter what Thomas has done in the Coast Guard, he has been proud of the performance of his crew and the service they've provided. In the spring, when three University of Rhode Island students were missing in the frigid waters of Narragansett Bay, Thomas' crew was called in to conduct nighttime searches.

State authorities had been on the water all day looking for the students and needed to be replaced, and the Tiger Shark was the only ship available -- even though its engines were in the midst of an overhaul. The ship's two 1,500 horsepower diesel engines were in pieces when the crew was given the order to head out. Thomas and his crew were able to get their ship running and out on the Bay in only a few hours.

"It was an amazing thing," Thomas says.

When Thomas joined the Coast Guard, he says, he intended to spend a only few years in the service. But he's considering becoming a lifer. "There so many different opportunities here," he says. "There are so many different things you can do and places you can go."

But when he thinks about his more than 60-hour workweeks, it does get a little draining. "Sometimes," Thomas says, "I feel as if I'm married to this ship."

Boat specs

Make and model: Marine Protector class Coast Guard cutter

Length: 87 feet

Capacity: 9 enlisted, 1 officer

Engine: Two MTU 1,500-h.p. diesels.

Cost: $3.5 million

Best boating moment: Reassembling the ship's engines in less than three hours after getting orders to take part in the search for three lost University of Rhode Island students.

Worst boating moment: Travelingfrom New Orleans to Rhode Island through stormy seas. "We got pretty banged up on that trip," says the Tiger Shark's skipper, Lt. j.g. Grant Thomas.

EXTRA: Browse previous stories in this series, find useful resources for mariners and share your boating adventures, at:

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