In 1980 Boutwell conducted the largest at-sea rescue ever achieved, when she rescued more than 500 people from the burning cruise ship in the Gulf of Alaska. When the halibut fishing vessel Comet sank in the Bering Sea approximately northeast of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, after her engine room flooded, Boutwell rescued her crew of four after they had been in the water for only four minutes. In 1998, Boutwell made the largest high-seas drift net arrest in Coast Guard history.
