USS Scarpe (SP-713)

Career (United States)
Name: USS Scarpe
Namesake: Previous name retained
Builder: W. S. Burgess, Marblehead, Massachusetts
Acquired: 1 May 1917
Commissioned: 1 May 1917
Fate: Returned to owner 16 May 1919
Notes: Operated as private motorboat Scarpe until 1917 and from 1919
General characteristics
Type: Patrol vessel
Length: 36 ft (11 m)
Beam: 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m)
Draft: 2 ft 6 in (0.76 m)
Speed: 15 miles per hour[1]

USS Scarpe (SP-713) was a United States Navy patrol vessel in commission from 1917 to 1919.

Scarpe was built as a private wooden motorboat of the same name by W. S. Burgess at Marblehead, Massachusetts. On 1 May 1917, her owner, F. F. Fields of Brockton, Massachusetts, loaned her to the U.S. Navy for use as a section patrol boat during World War I. She was commissioned as USS Scarpe (SP-713) the same day with Ensign B. C. Watson, USNRF, in command.

Assigned to the 1st Naval District in northern New England, Scarpe served on patrol duty for the rest of World War I and for a short time after its conclusion.

Scarpe was returned to Fields on 16 May 1919.

Notes

  1. ^ The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships at http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/s7/scarpe.htm and NavSource Online at http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/170713.htm give Scarpe's speed as 15 miles per hour, implying statute miles per hour, an unusual unit of measure for the speed of a watercraft. It is possible that her speed actually was 15 knots. If 15 statute miles per hour is accurate, the equivalent in knots is 13.

References