On 1 July 1918, the U.S. Congress appropriated US$20,000 to the BOF for the construction or purchase of a wooden-hulledmotor vessel capable of operating in the rough waters of the Bering Sea to replace its existing Pribilof tender,[3] the steamerUSFS Roosevelt.[4] The naval architecture firm of Lee and Brinton of Seattle, Washington, designed the ship, to be known as USFS Tern,[3] following the BOF's custom of naming its vessels assigned to operate in the waters of the Territory of Alaska after seabirds common in the region.[3]Tern was to be 70 feet (21 meters) long and have a heavy-duty 80-horsepower (60kW) engine, a cruising range of over 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 kilometers; 2,300 miles), a cargo capacity of 30 tons, and sleeping accommodations for 16 people.[3] The BOF advertised in Seattle for bids for the construction of Tern in 1918, but when the bidding period closed on 3 December 1918, the lowest bid was US$27,500, which was US$7,500 more than the Congressional appropriation.[3] The BOF advertised for bids in Seattle again, but when the bidding closed the second time on 8 January 1919, the lowest bid, $26,000, still was too high.[3]
The need to replace Roosevelt became more urgent on 17 January 1919, when the BOF assessed her as in need of major repairs,[4] and the Steamboat Inspection Service later confirmed it;[4] on 21 April 1919, an inspection at Bremerton, Washington, revealed extensive dry rot requiring an estimated US$186,000 in repairs, which the BOF deemed prohibitive.[4] The BOF advertised in Seattle for bids for the construction of Tern for a third time, only to find that when bidding closed on 12 May 1919, the lowest bid, US$28,800, again exceeded the Congressional appropriation.[3]Roosevelt was condemned on 4 June 1919.[4][3] On 11 July 1919, the U.S. Congress passed a deficiency act that appropriated an additional US$7,500 for her replacement.[3] The BOF scrapped plans to build Tern, and instead purchased the 88-foot (27-meter) motor schoonerIdaho in the summer of 1919 for US$26,000.
Nilson and Kelez had constructed Idaho in Seattle and launched her on 16 November 1913.[3] Employed as a commercial deep-water Pacific halibutfishing vessel, Idaho was well known in the area and regarded as seaworthy and capable of operating in the Bering Sea during voyages to the Pribilofs.[3] The BOF renamed her USFS Eider[3] and converted her for fisheries use by transferring most of Roosevelt′s movable equipment to her[3][4] before selling Roosevelt on 15 July 1919[4] and adding additional cabin space and a communications room.[3] The United States Navy installed a modern 0.5-kilowatt wireless system in her communications room and a 1-pounder gun on her deck so that could provide armed protection of fur sealrookeries.[3]
Service history
Bureau of Fisheries
Carrying several United States Government employees as passengers and a cargo of general supplies, United States Mail, and coal,[3] and with a crew of 13 – her master, first officer, second officer, engineer, assistant engineer, radio operator, and mess attendant and six seamen[3] – Eider departed Seattle on 26 October 1919 for her first voyage to the Pribilof Islands.[3] The Pribilofs lacked mooring facilities for her or any harbors, and so the BOF stationed her at Unalaska on Unalaska Island in the Aleutian Islands – at 250 nautical miles (460 kilometers; 290 miles) away, the closest port to the Pribilofs.[3] In addition to her voyages between Seattle, Unalaska, and the Pribilofs, Eider also transported passengers and supplies between the two main islands in the Pribilofs – Saint Paul Island and St. George Island – and to and between other communities on islands in the Aleutians and the Bering Sea.[3]
Eider made one of her voyages to the Pribilofs in January 1920, an impressive feat in an era when few vessels attempted to operate in the Bering Sea during the hazardous winter months.[3] In April 1920, she transported 1,312 sealskins and 938 fox skins from the Pribilofs to Unalaska, where they were loaded aboard the commercial steamer SS Victoria for transportation to Seattle.[3] Outbreaks of smallpox forced health authorities to place her in quarantine at Unalaska on 18 October 1920 and again on 10 November 1920,[3] but by then Eider had made 11 round trips between Unalaska and the Pribilof Islands and two voyages to King Cove on the southwestern tip of the Alaska Peninsula and had logged nearly 8,000 nautical miles (15,000 kilometers; 9,200 miles).[3] On 28 November 1920, she left Unalaska to undergo repairs at Kodiak on Kodiak Island, and during her return voyage to Unalaska at the end of 1920 received word that the mail boatPulitzer was missing near Chignik, Alaska;[3] after searching for Pulitzer and finding her disabled and in distress, Eider took her crew, passengers, and mail aboard and transported them southwestward to Unga and Unalaska.[3]
For several weeks in the autumn of 1921, Eider underwent a major overhaul at Kodiak in which her hull was sheathed with ironbark, her deck railings were modified, the floor of her forecastle was raised, her rudder was reriveted, her main engine was overhauled, a new bilge pump was installed, and her cabins, companionway, bulkheads, and heads received additions and modifications and new lockers were installed.[3] In December 1922, Eider came to the assistance of the vessel Lister, which had run ashore at Cape Makushin on Unalaska Island, 40 miles (64 kilometres) from Unalaska.[3]
Eider arrives in port covered with ice.
On 24 March 1923, Eider arrived in Seattle to have her original gasoline engine replaced with a 140-horsepower (104kW), 6-cylinder Atlas-Imperial solid-injection, reverse-gear diesel engine.[3] Her new engine was more efficient and proved to be very reliable in the coming years, and with it Eider averaged 8.75 knots (16.2km/h; 10.1mph) during the summer of 1923, an improvement over the 8 knots (15km/h; 9.2mph) she could make with her old engine.[3] Beginning in 1923, BOF employees embarked on Eider for several weeks each summer to inspect the salmonfisheries at various canneries and spawning streams; BOF employees who made these deployments aboard her included Dr. Charles H. Gilbert, Willis H. Rich, and Dennis Winn.[3] Following a 1923 Executive Order, Eider began guarding the sea otters and migratory fur seal herds in the Territory of Alaska.[3] During the winter of 1923–1924, she found and assisted the missing vessel Viking.[3]
In 1924, Eider supported the first aerial circumnavigation of the world, achieved by United States Army Air Service aviators in four Douglas World Cruiser airplanes who took off from the naval air station at Sand Point in Seattle on 6 April 1924 and proceeded westward.[3] The Soviet Union had prohibited the aircraft from landing on its soil, necessitating stops in the Territory of Alaska and Bering Sea area as the aircraft bypassed Soviet territory.[3]Eider transported the advance personnel, supplies, gasoline, and lubricating oil needed to support the early stages of the trip to several locations in Alaska and the Bering Sea and provided the pilots with accommodations, meals, meteorological information, and moorings for the planes.[3] Ultimately, two of the original airplanes completed the trip successfully by arriving at Seattle on 28 September 1924, 175 days after departing Naval Air Station Sand Point.[3]
In 1929, Eider′s patrol duties grew again to include protection of the Pacific halibut in the northern Pacific Ocean.[3] She aided with the annual seal census in July 1929.[3] In September 1929, she lost her rudder and skeg (an extension of her keel from her stern) when she struck a rocky reef off St. George Island in the Pribilofs during a storm in fog, and she had to be towed to Juneau, Alaska, for repairs.[3]
In performing her Pribilof tender duties and other assignments between 1920 and 1929, Eider logged as many as 17,000 nautical miles (31,000 kilometers; 20,000 miles) a year.[3] Exposure to harsh weather and ice had taken a toll on her, and by the late 1920s she required overhauls and major repairs at an ever-increasing rate.[3] In 1928, the BOF suggested the construction of new Pribilof tender, larger and more powerful than Eider, for voyages in the Bering Sea,[3] This ship, USFSPenguin, entered service in May 1930.[5] With Penguinin commission and assuming duties as the BOF′s Pribilof tender, the BOF reassigned Eider to annual fisheries patrol duty in the more protected waters around Kodiak,[3] although she also continued to transport passengers and supplies to various settlements and BOF stations in the Territory of Alaska.[3]
In the spring of 1934, Eider began patrol work to protect fur seal herds migrating northward along the coast of Washington near Neah Bay. Between February and April 1936, she took part in a Works Progress Administration stream improvement project in the Territory of Alaska′s Juneau and Wrangell districts. In 1938, biologists embarked on Eider conducted a tagging experiment to measure the travel times of fish.[3]
Fish and Wildlife Service (1940–1942)
In 1939, the Bureau of Fisheries was transferred from the United States Department of Commerce to the United States Department of the Interior,[6] and on 30 June 1940, it merged with the Interior Department's Division of Biological Survey to form the new Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) as an element of the Interior Department.[7] Via this reorganization, Eider became part of the fleet of the new FWS as US FWS Eider in 1940.[3] She continued her operations in Alaskan waters.[3]
The United States entered World War II on 7 December 1941, and in 1942 the U.S. Navy requisitioned Eider for war service, designated her as a yard patrol boat, and renamed her USS YP-198.[3][8] As of 15 May 1942, YP-198 was assigned to the Thirteenth Naval District Inshore Patrol, based at the Northwestern Sector Section Base at Seattle.[9] On 29 May 1942, the Navy transferred YP-198 to the United States Coast Guard,[3] which converted her into a harbor fireboat.[3]
After the conclusion of the war, the Coast Guard transferred YP-198 back to the Navy on 26 October 1945.[3] The Navy, in turn, struck her from the Naval Register on 20 March 1946[8] and transferred her back to the Fish and Wildlife Service.[3]
Fish and Wildlife Service (1946–1949)
Once again known as US FWS Eider, the vessel returned to service in the Fish and Wildlife Service fleet. In October 1946, she transported a search party to Shuyak Island n the northern part of the Kodiak Archipelago in an unsuccessful attempt to locate a missing U.S. Navy enlisted man.[3] At some point later in the 1940s, the FWS declared Eider to be surplus property.[3]
United States Geological Survey
In January 1949 a United States Geological Survey (USGS) geologist, G. D. Robinson, acquired Eider for use in studying volcanos and geology in and around the Aleutian Islands.[3]Eider provided USGS geologists conducting this research with their first dedicated transportation to and from the Aleutians since 1946.[3] In 1951, her engine was replaced with a 500-horsepower (373kW)General Motors diesel engine.[3] She supported USGS research in the Aleutians until October 1954, when the USGS declared her to be surplus property.[3]
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands
In 1955, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands acquired Eider for use in providing support for medical and dental personnel in the Marshall Islands.[3] At some point during this service, she became disabled and sank while under tow for repairs.[3]
Related Research Articles
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service, also known by the acrnonyms USFWS or FWS, is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people."
The United States Fish Commission, formally known as the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, was an agency of the United States government created in 1871 to investigate, promote, and preserve the fisheries of the United States. In 1903, it was reorganized as the United States Bureau of Fisheries, sometimes referred to as the United States Fisheries Service, which operated until 1940. In 1940, the Bureau of Fisheries was abolished when its personnel and facilities became part of the newly created Fish and Wildlife Service, under the United States Department of the Interior.
USS Edithena was a United States Navy patrol vessel in commission from 1917 to 1919 that saw service during World War I. Prior to her U.S. Navy service, she operated as the private motor yacht Edithena from 1914 to 1917. After the conclusion World War I, she served as the fishery patrol vessel USFS Widgeon in the fleet of the United States Bureau of Fisheries from 1919 to 1940 and as US FWS Widgeon in the fleet of the Fish and Wildlife Service from 1940 to 1942. During World War II, she returned to U.S. Navy service from 1942 to 1944 as the yard patrol boat USS YP-200. By 1947 she had returned to private ownership, first as Edithena and during the 1970s and 1980s as the fishing vessel Ila Mae.
USS Raeo (SP-588) was a United States Navy patrol vessel in commission from 1917 to 1919. Prior to her U.S. Navy service, she operated as the motor passenger vessel Raeo from 1908 to 1917. After the conclusion of her U.S. Navy career, she served as the fishery patrol vessel USFS Kittiwake in the United States Bureau of Fisheries fleet from 1919 to 1940 and as US FWS Kittiwake in the Fish and Wildlife Service fleet from 1940 to 1942 and from 1944 to at least 1945, and perhaps as late as 1948. During World War II, she again served in the U.S. Navy, this time as the yard patrol boat USS YP-199. She was the civilian fishing vessel Raeo from 1948 to 1957, then operated in various roles as Harbor Queen from 1957 to 1997. She became Entiat Princess in 1998 and as of 2009 was still in service.
The second USS Calypso (SP-632) was a United States Navy patrol vessel in commission from 1917 to 1919. She originally operated as the private motorboat Calypso from 1909 to 1917. After the conclusion of her U.S. Navy career, she served as the fishery patrol vessel in the United States Bureau of Fisheries fleet from 1919 to 1940 as USFS Merganser and in the Fish and Wildlife Service fleet as US FWS Merganser from 1940 to 1942.
US FWS Pribilof was an American refrigerated cargo ship in commission in the fleet of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) from 1964 to 1970 and, as NOAAS Pribilof, in the fleet of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration′s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) from 1970 to 1975. She ran a cargo service between Seattle, Washington, and the Pribilof Islands – the last of the United States Government "Pribilof tenders" to carry out this function – and also made USFWS and NMFS research cruises in the Pribilofs.
US FWS Penguin II was an American refrigerated cargo ship in commission in the fleet of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service from 1950 to 1963. She ran a cargo service between Seattle, Washington, and the Pribilof Islands, and also delivered provisions to Aleut communities on the Alaska Peninsula and in the Aleutian Islands. Prior to her fisheries service, she was the United States Army cargo ship U.S. Army Lt. Raymond Zussman (FS-246).
USFS Penguin was an American cargo liner in commission in the fleet of the United States Bureau of Fisheries from 1930 to 1940 and, as US FWS Penguin, in the fleet of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 1940 to 1950. She ran a passenger-cargo service between Seattle, Washington, and the Pribilof Islands, and provided transportation between the two inhabited Pribilofs, Saint Paul Island and St. George Island. She also carried passengers, supplies, and provisions to destinations on the mainland of the Territory of Alaska and in the Aleutian Islands. She occasionally supported research activities in Alaskan waters and the North Pacific Ocean.
US FWS Dennis Winn was an American cargo liner in commission in the fleet of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service from 1948 to 1960. She frequently provided a passenger and cargo service to and from the Pribilof Islands, and also carried passengers and cargo to and between other communities and FWS stations in the Territory of Alaska. Prior to her fisheries service, she was the United States Army cargo ship U.S. Army Lt. Walter J. Will (FS-244).
MV Brown Bear was an American research vessel in commission in the fleet of the United States Department of Agriculture′s Bureau of Biological Survey and Alaska Game Commission from 1934 to 1940 and in the fleet of the United States Department of the Interior′s Fish and Wildlife Service from 1940 to 1942 and from 1946 to 1951, under the control of the University of Washington from 1952 to 1965, and in commission in the fleet of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service from 1965 to 1970 and of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration′s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) from 1970 to 1972.
SS Roosevelt was an American steamship of the early 20th century. She was designed and constructed specifically for Robert Peary′s polar exploration expeditions, and she supported the 1908 expedition in which he claimed to have discovered the North Pole.
USFS Auklet was an American fishery patrol vessel that served in the waters of Southeast Alaska. She was in commission in the United States Bureau of Fisheries from 1917 to 1940 and in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as US FWS Auklet from 1940 to 1950.
USFS Murre was an American fishery patrol vessel that served in the waters of Southeast Alaska. She was in commission in the United States Bureau of Fisheries fleet from 1917 to 1940 and, as US FWS Murre in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fleet from 1940 to 1942. Murre and her sister ship USFS Auklet were the first vessels ever constructed for fisheries enforcement duties in Alaska.
USFS Crane was an American fishery patrol vessel that operated in the waters of the Territory of Alaska. She was in commission in the United States Bureau of Fisheries (BOF) fleet from 1928 to 1940. She then served as US FWS Crane in the fleet of the Fish and Wildlife Service from 1940 to 1960. After a brief stint in the fleet of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game during 1960, she was sold into private service, at various times named Crane, Brapo, Fishing 5, Belle, and Patricia during the 1960s and 1970s and then again Crane since 1978. She remained in service as of 2020.
USFS Teal was an American fishery patrol vessel that operated in the waters of the Territory of Alaska. She was part of the fleet of the United States Bureau of Fisheries (BOF) from 1928 to 1940. She then served as US FWS Teal in the fleet of the Fish and Wildlife Service from 1940 to 1960. After a stint in the fleet of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game from 1960 to 1966, she was sold into private service, and remained in operation as of 2016.
USFS Scoter was an American fishery patrol vessel that operated in the waters of the Territory of Alaska. She was part of the United States Bureau of Fisheries (BOF) fleet from 1922 to 1940. She then served as US FWS Scoter in the fleet of the Fish and Wildlife Service from 1940 to 1950. Before her United States Government service, she was the commercial purse seiner Clatsop. She returned to that name and to private ownership after the conclusion of her U.S. Government career.
USFS Blue Wing was an American fishery patrol vessel that operated in the waters of the Territory of Alaska. She was part of the United States Bureau of Fisheries (BOF) fleet from 1924 to 1940. She then served as US FWS Blue Wing in the fleet of the Fish and Wildlife Service from 1940 until at least 1951. Before her United States Government service, she was the commercial purse seiner August. In private ownership after the conclusion of her U.S. Government career she was renamed El Don.
USFS Red Wing was an American fishery patrol vessel that operated in the waters of the Territory of Alaska as part of the United States Bureau of Fisheries (BOF) fleet from 1928 to 1939. Before her fishery service, she operated under the control of the United States Department of Agriculture.
USFS Brant was an American fishery patrol vessel that operated in the waters of the Territory of Alaska and off Washington, California, and Mexico. She was part of the United States Bureau of Fisheries (BOF) fleet from 1926 to 1940. She then served as US FWS Brant in the fleet of the Fish and Wildlife Service from 1940 to 1953. She then operated commercially until she sank in 1960.
USFS Pelican was an American fisheries science research ship and fishery patrol vessel that operated along the United States East Coast and the United States Gulf Coast and in the waters of the Territory of Alaska. She was part of the United States Bureau of Fisheries (BOF) fleet from 1930 to 1940. She then served as US FWS Pelican in the fleet of the Fish and Wildlife Service – which in 1956 became the United States Fish and Wildlife Service – from 1940 to 1958. She served as a fishery patrol vessel while on loan to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife from 1958 to 1970, then briefly returned to the Fish and Wildlife Service's successor agency, the National Marine Fisheries Service. Her United States Government service ended when she was sold into private hands in 1972, and she remained extant as of 2018.
Bruhn, David D. Battle Stars for the "Cactus Navy": America's Fishing Vessels and Yachts in World War II. Berwyn Heights, Maryland: Heritage Books 2014. ISBN978-0-7884-5573-5
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United States
U.S. Bureau of Fisheries
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
United States Coast Guard
United States Geological Survey
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands
