Ruby E

Ruby E, ex-USCGC Cyane (WPC-105), a 165' Thetis-class ('B-class') Coast Guard cutter; built Lake Union Dry Dock & Machine Works, Seattle; launched 30 Aug 1934; commissioned 25 Oct 1934. Served most of her career out of Ketchikan, Alaska, including Bering Sea Patrol (1937-38) and WWII anti-submarine/search-and-rescue patrols and convoy escort under the Northwestern Sea Frontier. Decommissioned 1 Aug 1950; sold to Birchfield Boiler, Tacoma, 7 Dec 1954 for $8,156. Became a fish-processing vessel, then a salvage vessel renamed Ruby E; seized in a bank repossession and eventually donated to the Wreck Alley program. SINKING DATE - genuinely unresolved, not just uncertain: the U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office's own official cutter-history page states she 'was sunk as an artificial reef on June 18, 1989' - this is about as primary a source as exists. But multiple independent, richly detailed accounts (California Wreck Divers, California Diving News's named-participant narrative naming project coordinator Al Bruton, and wreckedinmyrevo.com's own detailed hour-by-hour narrative of the sinking) all say July 18, 1989, with specific times (sea cocks opened 10:00 AM, stern went down around 3:30 PM). Finding the primary source did not settle this - if anything it sharpens the conflict, since a federal government record disagrees with a cluster of independent-seeming, detailed civilian accounts. Do not present either date as settled; a contemporaneous 1989 San Diego newspaper article is the only source likely to resolve it. Sank without explosives; hidden sealed compartments delayed sinking for hours until lifeguard-supplied pumps were used. Landed upright, bow pointing north. Rests at ~85 ft (wheelhouse top ~50 ft); coordinates per one source: 32°46'02"N, 117°16'36"W (unverified against a primary chart).