USS Talbot (TB-15)

USS Talbot (TB-5), underway, circa the early 1900s.
History
United States
Name:	Talbot
Namesake:	Lieutenant John G. Talbot
Ordered:	10 June 1896 (authorised)
Builder:	Herreshoff Manufacturing Co., Bristol, RI
Laid down:	8 April 1897
Launched:	14 November 1897
Commissioned:	4 April 1898
Decommissioned:	18 June 1940
Renamed:	Berceau, 11 April 1918
Reclassified:	as YFB-3, 17 July 1920
Struck:	18 July 1944
Identification:	TB-15 Hull symbol:YFB-3
Fate:	sold for scrap, 18 July 1944
General characteristics
Class and type:	Talbot-class torpedo boat
Displacement:	46 long tons (47 t)
Length:	99 ft 6 in (30.33 m)
Beam:	12 ft 6 in (3.81 m)
Draft:	3 ft 3 in (0.99 m) (mean)
Installed power:	1 × Normand boiler 850 ihp (630 kW)
Propulsion:	vertical triple expansion engine 1 × screw propellers
Speed:	21.5 knots (39.8 km/h; 24.7 mph) 21.15 kn (24.34 mph; 39.17 km/h) (Speed on Trial)
Complement:	16 officers and enlisted
Armament:	1 × 1-pounder (37 mm (1.46 in)) guns 1 × 18 in (460 mm) torpedo tubes (2x1)

The first USS Talbot (Torpedo Boat No. 15/TB-15/YFB-3) was a torpedo boat in the United States Navy. The ship was named in honor of US Navy lieutenant John Gunnell Talbot.

Talbot was laid down on 8 April 1897 at Bristol, Rhode Island, by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Co.; launched on 14 November 1897; and commissioned on 4 April 1898, Lt. (jg.) William R. Shoemaker in command.

Talbot cruised down the coast, making calls in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina before arriving at Havana, Cuba, on 2 August. She reported to the flagship and received mail for the blockading squadron. At 2100 hours that evening, while en route to Key West for coal, she sighted the dark hull of a ship off the port bow. Talbot signalled and stopped her engines, but was still rammed by the tug USS Uncas. The bow of the tug penetrated one foot into the torpedo boat's coal bunker, bending in two frames and crushing the side plating to below the water line. The tug towed Talbot to Piedras Cay where temporary repairs were made the next day to enable the damaged ship to proceed to Key West.

Talbot reached Key West on the 5th and got underway 10 days later for New York. She arrived at the New York Navy Yard on 6 September and was ready for sea again in early October. The torpedo boat was then assigned to the US Naval Academy for duty supporting midshipmen training, mooring at Annapolis on 10 October. On 11 June 1899, Talbot moved to Norfolk to participate in a one-year evaluation of experimental fuel oils. At the completion of this test program, she resumed her duties at the Naval Academy.