USCGC Sedge (WAGL-402/WLB-402) was an Iris-class 180-foot seagoing buoy tender operated by the United States Coast Guard.

She served in the Pacific during World War II and in Alaska during the rest of her Coast Guard career.

Sedge was built at the Marine Iron and Shipbuilding Company in Duluth, Minnesota for the United States Coast Guard.

While her overall dimensions remained the same over her career, the addition of new equipment raised her displacement to 1,025 tons by the end of her Coast Guard service.

Similarly, her bow was reinforced and shaped to ride over ice in order to crush it with the weight of the ship.

After commissioning, Sedge was assigned to Honolulu, Hawaii, but she served across the Pacific during World War II tending buoys and fleet moorings in Guam, Okinawa, Anguar, Midway, Pearl Harbor, and Shanghai.

[2] The end of World War II in 1945 created intense pressure from conscripted members of the armed forces and their families for rapid demobilization.

[5] The ship was recommissioned at Seattle on 14 April 1950, and assigned to Kodiak, Alaska, replacing USCGC Cedar which was decommissioned.

[7][8][9] In the summer of 1956 Sedge was dispatched to Barrow, Alaska for icebreaking duties to allow cargo ships to reach the Arctic coast.

The cargo shipments Sedge enabled were related to the construction of the Distant Early Warning Line sites in Barrow and surrounding areas.

At 8:20 pm on 27 March 1964 Sedge grounded in Orca Inlet near Cordova when the water dropped 27 feet (8.2 m) between waves.

In April 1973 Sedge sailed for the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland for a major renovation.

[15] On 2 July 1987, the tanker Glacier Bay struck a submerged object in Montague Strait and spilled 125,000 gallons of oil.

The ship was en route to a refinery in Cook Inlet from Valdez, Alaska, when the incident occurred.

Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound spilling 10,800,000 US gallons (41,000 m3) of crude oil.

[19] In January 1989, a 280-foot (85 m) barge loaded with 2 million gallons of diesel fuel began sinking in high seas and stormy weather.

[5] The Coast Guard planned for an orderly replacement of its World War II-vintage buoy tenders, retiring the older vessels as new ships were launched.

To combat the shipment of stolen oil, the U.S. Security Assistance Program arranged to transfer four 180-foot buoy-tenders to the Nigerian Navy.

Kyanwa was part of Operation Tsare Teku, a Nigerian naval response to growing piracy, when it was launched in April 2016.

[25] She has been less effective than more modern ships because the small pirate vessels are considerably faster than the former buoy tender.