USS Acushnet (AT-63)

Acushnet at Norfolk Navy Yard, 8 September 1941.
History
United States
Name:	USRC Acushnet
Namesake:	Acushnet, Massachusetts
Builder:	Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., Newport News, Virginia.
Launched:	16 May 1908
Sponsored by:	Miss Alayce Duff
Reclassified:	USCGC Acushnet, 28 January 1915
Fate:	Transferred to U.S. Navy, spring 1917
United States
Name:	USS Acushnet
Acquired:	spring 1917
Fate:	Returned to U.S. Coast Guard, 22 September 1919
United States
Name:	USCGC Acushnet
Acquired:	22 September 1919
Fate:	Transferred to Navy, 30 May 1936
United States
Name:	USS Acushnet (AT-63)
Acquired:	30 May 1936
Commissioned:	1 September 1936
Reclassified:	Fleet Tug Old (ATO-63) 17 July 1944
Decommissioned:	14 December 1945
Struck:	8 January 1946
Fate:	Transferred to the Maritime Commission for disposal, 12 December 1946
General characteristics
Displacement:	860 tons
Length:	152 ft (46 m)
Beam:	29 ft (8.8 m)
Draft:	18 ft 9 in (5.72 m)
Propulsion:	steam
Speed:	12.5 knots (23.2 km/h; 14.4 mph)
Complement:	38
Armament:	two 1-pounders

Acushnet — a steel-hulled revenue cutter — was launched on 16 May 1908 at Newport News, Virginia, by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co.; sponsored by Miss Alayce Duff; and commissioned at Baltimore on 6 November 1908. She saw service as a United States Revenue Cutter Service cutter, a U.S. Navy fleet tug, and as a U.S. Coast Guard cutter. She was taken out of service 8 January 1946.

USRC Acushnet was assigned to the Revenue Cutter Service station at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, with her cruising grounds to encompass Buzzard's Bay, Nantucket Shoals, and adjacent waters. Departing the Revenue Cutter Service Depot at Arundel Cove, South Baltimore, on 8 November 1908, Acushnet reached her home port on the 27th.

Over the next decade, Acushnet operated out of Woods Hole and ranged the middle and northeastern seaboard of the United States, occasionally visiting the Depot at Arundel Cove, Curtis Bay; the towns of New Bedford and Marblehead, Massachusetts, New London, Connecticut, and Norfolk, Virginia. She patrolled regattas — including Ivy League contests between Harvard and Yale — and represented the Revenue Cutter Service at such events as the International Yacht Races at Marblehead and the Cotton Centennial Carnival at Fall River, Mass., in June 1911. In addition, due to her robust construction, the ship performed yearly "winter cruising" in the bitterly cold sea lanes of the North Atlantic to assist ships and mariners in distress. During the first decade of her service, the Coast Guard Act became law on 28 January 1915 joining the Lifesaving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service to form the United States Coast Guard.