USCGC Red Cedar (WLM-688) is a Red-class coastal buoy tender that was designed, built, owned, and operated by the United States Coast Guard.

Her primary mission was to maintain over 400 aides to navigation in Chesapeake Bay, Tangier Sound, the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James Rivers, and other nearby waterways.

[1] Her secondary missions included search and rescue, light icebreaking, law enforcement, and marine environmental protection.

At the end of her Coast Guard career in 1999 she was transferred to the Argentine Navy, which renamed her ARA Ciudad de Zárate.

Also attending the ceremony were Edward A. Garmatz, chairman of the committee, and Commandant of the Coast Guard Admiral Chester R.

Her shallow draft and flat bottom was required for her work along the edges of dredged channels, but this hull form made her harder to maneuver and more prone to rolling.

[9] The bulk of her time was spent at sea tending her buoy fleet and a number of lighthouses, or moored, maintaining the ship and training the crew.

[13] The Argentine bulk carrier Santa Cruz II collided with USCGC Cuyahoga on 20 October 1978 near the mouth of the Potomac River.

Red Cedar set a temporary buoy on the wreck to prevent ships from hitting the uncharted obstruction.

[15] The Hambrooks Bar Light in the Choptank River was repaired to preserve its historic value by Red Cedar during September 1991.

[17] Her icebreaking was particularly significant because a number of coastal communities were dependent on barges for the delivery of heating oil, gasoline, and fuel for power plants.

This transfer was part of a comprehensive program to improve the Argentine Navy's ability to interdict illicit drugs and their precursor chemicals.

She is assigned to the Escuadrilla de Ríos (River Squadron) and is homeported at the Zarate Naval Base near Buenos Aires.

[30] Ciudad de Zárate is classed as a "multipurpose ship" and has been used to provide health care and food distribution to remote river communities, training not only for the Argentine Navy, but also for the armed forces of Paraguay and Bolivia,[30] and buoy tending, not only in Argentina, but in neighboring Uruguay as well.

The campaigns provided primary care, dentistry, pediatric, gynecology, urology, cardiology, obstetrics, ophthalmology, and other medical services.