Carrabasset, 1924
WAT-55
Carrabasset: a stream in Franklin and Somerset Counties, Maine.
Builder: Staten Island Shipbuilding Company, Port Richmond, New York
Length: 155' 10"
Beam: 30'
Draft: 17' 6 1/2"
Displacement: 1,133 tons
Cost: $220,845 (estimated)
Launched: 12 June 1919
Commissioned: 13 October 1924 (USCG)
Decommissioned: 26 July 1946
Disposition:
Machinery: Triple-expansion steam engine; 2 Scotch boilers; 1,800 HP; single propeller
Performance:
Maximum Speed: 13 knots
Economic/Cruising Speed: 9.3 knots; 5,300 mile range (1945)
Complement: 44
Electronics: SF detection radar (1945)
Armament: 2 x 1-pounders (1924)
1 x 3"/50; 2 x 20mm/80 (1945)
Cutter History:
The Carrabasset was built of composite construction for the Navy as one of the Bagaduce-class auxiliary fleet tug. She was launched on 12 June 1919 by Staten Island Shipbuilding Co., Port Richmond, New York and was commissioned on 30 June 1920, Lieutenant (junior grade) G. O. Augustine in command. She reported to Train, Atlantic Fleet. From 10 September to 21 November 1920, Carrabasset sailed between New York, Charleston, and Norfolk on towing duty. Early in 1921 she sailed to the Caribbean for that year's fleet concentration and large scale maneuvers of ships from both Atlantic and Pacific. Returning to Norfolk 26 April, she alternated service with battleships off Hampton Roads, and with fleet units at New York. Service along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean, highlighted by her rescue of Arethusa (AO-7) on 21 January 1922, continued until she was decommissioned at Norfolk 27 March 1922. she was transferred to the Treasury Department for use by the Coast Guard 24 May 1924.
She served at Norfolk, Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina, and New York on towing duty as one of three ocean-going tugs operated by the Coast Guard, through the 1920s and was then stationed at Port Everglades, Florida, in the mid-1930s and Curtis Bay, Maryland prior to World War II.
During the war, she was assigned to the Eastern Sea Frontier and operated out of Norfolk, Virginia. She was decommissioned on 26 July 1946.
Sources:
Cutter History File. USCG Historian's Office, USCG HQ, Washington, D.C.
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Vessels,
Donald Canney. U.S. Coast Guard and Revenue Cutters, 1790-1935. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995.
Robert Scheina. U.S. Coast Guard Cutters & Craft of World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1982.
U.S. Coast Guard. Record of Movements: Vessels of the United States Coast Guard: 1790 - December 31, 1933. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934; 1989 (reprint).