''YP-26'' was a former
U.S. Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, multi ...
wooden
patrol boat which saw later duty with the
U.S. Navy until destroyed in a 1942 accident.
History
To combat the smuggling of alcohol during
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...
following passage of the
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress, designed to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment (ratified January 1919), which established the prohibition of alcoholic d ...
, the United States Coast Guard ordered 203 purpose-built 75-foot wooden-hulled patrol boats in the 1924. These became known as the
"Six-Bitters", from the
slang term "six bits" meaning 75 U.S. cents. They were unnamed and numbered CG-100 through CG-302. "Their top speed was about 12 knots. Their 8 man crews consisted of a Chief Boatswain's Mate, or a Warrant Boatswain as OIC, along with two lower rated BM's, two Seaman and an engine room crew of a Chief Motor Machinist's Mate, and two lower rated MM's."
Originally delivered by the Gibbs Gas Engine Co.,
Jacksonville, Florida, in 1925, one of 20 of the design produced by the yard, as ''CG-252'', the vessel became excess to Coast Guard needs when ratification of the
21st Amendment repealed Prohibition in December 1933, and a number of the class were turned over to the U.S. Navy. ''CG-252'' was transferred in 1934, redesignated a
Yard Patrol vessel, becoming ''YP-26''.
Beaching
On Saturday night, 9 November 1940, while serving as a
Naval Reserve training ship, ''YP-26'' was beached inside the breakwater at
Port Washington, Wisconsin, after striking a submerged rock in a storm, reported Lieut. Edward W. Crandall, of
Great Lakes naval training station, on 10 November. "The crew of 14, including Ensign Harl Day, who captained the ship, waded ashore in three feet of water and spent the night in a hotel."
Demise
Transferred to duty in the
Panama Canal Zone
The Panama Canal Zone ( es, Zona del Canal de Panamá), also simply known as the Canal Zone, was an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the Isthmus of Panama, that existed from 1903 to 1979. It was located within the terr ...
by 1941, ''YP-26'' was destroyed by an explosion of an unknown cause, while hauled out on the
marine railway at
Cristóbal, Colón
Cristóbal is a port town and corregimiento in Colón District, Colón Province, Panama. The corregimiento has a population of 49,422 as of 2010. The town is located on the western edge of Manzanillo Island, on the Atlantic side of the Panama ...
, on 19 November 1942.
U.S.S. Savage
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:YP-26
Ships built in Jacksonville, Florida
1925 ships
Patrol boats
Patrol vessels of the United States Navy
World War II auxiliary ships of the United States
Maritime incidents in November 1942
Yard patrol boats of the United States Navy