USCGC Marcus Hanna (WLM-554) is a Keeper-class coastal buoy tender of the United States Coast Guard.

Secondary missions include marine environmental protection, light icebreaking, search and rescue, and security.

[1] On 22 June 1993 the Coast Guard awarded the contract for the Keeper-class vessels to Marinette Marine Corporation in the form of a firm order for the lead ship and options for thirteen more.

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

[11] Marcus Hanna, 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.

[14] On 28 January 1885, Hanna was stationed at the Cape Elizabeth Light near Portland, Maine, when the schooner Australia ran up on the rocks nearby in a furious snowstorm.

Hanna risked falling into the sea himself as he clambered down the ice-covered rocks to get close enough to throw a line to the two men.

On 4 July 1863, then a Union Army sergeant fighting in the siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana, Hanna ran through Confederate fire to bring water to troops sweltering in their rifle pits.

The coast of northern New England is prone to difficult weather that requires extra maintenance of the buoys that are assigned to Marcus Hanna.

Marcus Hanna swaps some large summer buoys for small ice-resistant ones in the fall and then reverses the process in the spring.

[19] The bulk of Marcus Hanna's year is spent at sea tending its buoys, or in port maintaining the ship.

In February 2007, Marcus Hanna was dispatched to search for the fishing vessel Lady Luck, which had triggered a distress signal 12 miles off Cape Elizabeth.

[21] In April 1999 Marcus Hanna discovered a 3-mile long oil slick at the mouth of the Kennebec River and identified a suspect vessel.

[22] Marcus Hanna drilled with the Vessel of Opportunity Skimming System in March 2010 as part of an oil spill exercise.

[23] In June 2013 the ship sailed to St. John, New Brunswick to participate in a joint United States/Canada oil spill recovery training exercise.

[24] The Coast Guard provides security on the East River in New York City when the United Nations General Assembly meets.

Marcus Hanna, and USCGC Katherine Walker, another First District buoy tender, have both exercised in the area.