The Coast Guard announced Wednesday the release of its Top 10 video compilation for 2011, highlighting the year’s most compelling cases.

The Coast Guard also announced its 2011 Video of the Year contest in which the public is invited to vote for their favorite video. The contest is open to voting through Jan. 13, 2012.

Through Dec. 31, the Coast Guard’s official blog, the Coast Guard Compass, will publish one of the Top 10 videos each day including commentary from a service member who participated in the mission.

Each day of the contest people can vote for their favorite videos by choosing “Like” on the Coast Guard’s Facebook page or on the Coast Guard’s YouTube 2011 Videos of the Year playlist.

The Top 10 video compilation includes:

• A Coast Guard Air Station Houston helicopter crew rescue of a man who was trapped March 5 on the rocks near the South Padre Island jetty.

• A helicopter crew from Air Station San Diego’s March 2 rescue of a 77-year-old man and his dog from a disabled, adrift sailboat southwest of San Diego.

• Coast Guard crewmembers assisting Moody Garden’s Aquarium and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration July 14 in the release of eight endangered Kemp’s Ridley and two Loggerhead turtles into the Gulf of Mexico.

• Crewmember training July 13 with Coast Guard Station Merrimack River, Mass.

• The crew of the Coast Guard cutter Henry Blake maintaining aids to navigation in the Puget Sound area.

• The first Caribbean Sea interdiction of a cocaine smuggling, self-propelled, semi-submersible vessel Sept. 17 by the crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Mohawk.

• The Oct. 7 rescue by an aircrew from Air Station Barbers Point of a pilot who had to ditch his Cessna airplane in the ocean 13 miles northeast of the Big Island, Hawaii.

• The March 20 rescue of a family of four, including a six-month-old baby and a dog, from their disabled sailboat by Coast Guard and Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol crews.

• An Air Station Astoria rescue July 7 of an injured climber near the North Head Lighthouse outside Ilwaco, Wash.

• Helicopter familiarity training for law enforcement canines, conducted May 24 with various law enforcement agencies in Alameda, Calif.

Video of each case, as well as the Top 10 video compilation, is available for viewing and download from the Coast Guard visual information site.