She was based at Petersburg, Alaska and Port Angeles, Washington and was responsible for law enforcement, search and rescue, and maritime defense.

Their design is based on the British Vosper Thornycroft 33 metres (108 ft) patrol boats and have similar dimensions.

Anacapa is a B-class ship and thus has heavier bow plating to prevent hull cracking in heavy seas, among other enhancements.

[11] Nonetheless, patrols of the disputed waters continued and on June 22, 1995 Anacapa seized the Canadian fishing vessel Chi Dona 300 yards north of the border.

On August 11, 1993 a boarding party from Anacapa removed 15 illegal immigrants working aboard the fish processing ship Ocean Pride.

[15] In July 1996 Anacapa rescued the four-man crew of the capsized fishing vessel Baranof Queen.

[16] While assisting the local fishing fleet may have been the norm, Anacapa participated in a wide range of search and rescue missions.

For example, on January 20, 1990, a week after her commissioning, Anacapa responded when the Canadian tanker Frank H. Brown went aground in Wrangell Narrows and spilled 57,600 gallons of gasoline into the waterway.

[17] In December 2008 Anacapa sailed to the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland for a major renovation under the Mission Effectiveness Program.

It had been washed away from its mooring in Aomori Prefecture, Japan by the March 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and had drifted, unmanned for more than a year across the Pacific Ocean.

The Coast Guard concluded that it was safer to sink it deep water rather than let it continue to drift and possibly become a hazard to navigation or the environment.

After a shipyard repair period in Ketchikan,[24] she sailed to Port Angeles, Washington to replace her sister ship USCGC Cuttyhunk, which had suffered irreparable hull damage.

[29] Anacapa earned the Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Commendation for her work between May 20, 1996 and May 20, 1997 and the Special Operations Service Ribbon for her participation in Arctic Shield 2013.