USS Gwin (TB-16)


USS Gwin as ferryboat Cyane in 1922
Career (U.S.)
Namesake: Lt. Commander William Gwin
Ordered: 10 June 1896 (authorised)
Builder: Herreshoff Manufacturing Co., Bristol, RI
Laid down: 14 April 1897
Launched: 15 November 1897
Commissioned: 4 April 1898
Decommissioned: 30 April 1925
Renamed: USS Cyane, 11 April 1918
Reclassified: YFB-4, 17 July 1920
Struck: 30 April 1925
Fate: sold for scrap, 24 September 1925
General characteristics
Class and type: Talbot (TB-15)
Displacement: 46 tons
Length: 100 ft (30.480000 m)
Beam: 12 ft 6 in (3.81 m)
Draft: 3 ft 3 in (0.99 m)
Propulsion: 1 Normand boiler, 1-shaft vertical triple expansion engines, 850 ihp (626 kW)
Speed: 20 kn
Complement: 16 officers and enlisted
Armament: 1 × 1-pounder gun
2 × 18 in (457 mm) torpedo tubes

The first USS Gwin (Torpedo Boat No. 16/TB-16/YFB-4), was launched 15 November 1897 by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Co., Bristol, Rhode Island, and commissioned at Newport 4 April 1898, Lt, (j.g.) C. S. Williams in command.

She departed Newport 24 June, cruising down the eastern seaboard as far as Florida, thence on patrol off Cuba from 6 August to 14 August 1898 as America went to war with Spain. She returned north to Annapolis 31 August and served as cadet training ship for the US Naval Academy until placed in reserve at Norfolk on 10 July 1903.

Gwin remained in reserve until June 1908 when she began assisting in experimental torpedo work out of Newport, Rhode Island. This duty terminated 18 April 1914 when Gwin decommissioned for use as a ferryboat. On 11 April 1918 her name was changed to Cyane, and she was re-classified YFB-4 on 17 July 1920. Her name was struck from the Navy Register 30 April 1925 and she was sold for scrapping 24 September 1925.

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