USCGC Ida Lewis (WLM-551) is the lead ship of the United States Coast Guard Keeper-class of Coastal Buoy Tenders.

Launched in 1995, she has spent her entire career maintaining navigational aids near her homeport of Newport, Rhode Island.

The contract for the detailed design and construction of the ship was awarded on 22 June 1993,[2] and the keel was laid in August 1994.

The featured speaker at the christening ceremony was Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Robert E. Kramek.

[9] Rather than building the ship from the keel up as a single unit, Marinette Marine used a modular fabrication approach.

[6] The ship has two Caterpillar 3508 DITA (direct-injection, turbocharged, aftercooled) 8-cylinder Diesel engines which produce 1000 horsepower each.

Keeper-class ships were the first Coast Guard cutters equipped with Z-drives, which markedly improved their maneuverability.

This gives Ida Lewis the ability to hold position in the water even in heavy currents, winds, and swells.

Ida Lewis, as all Keeper-class ships, has a strengthened "ice belt" along the waterline so that she can work on aids to navigation in ice-infested waters.

Higher grades of steel were used for hull plating in the ice belt to prevent cracking in cold temperatures.

[15] After her launch and sea trials, Ida Lewis sailed down the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway to reach her homeport of Newport in the fall of 1996.

Ida Lewis' primary mission is to maintain 374 fixed and floating aids to navigation from Long Island Sound, New York to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.