USS Bay Spring (AT-60)

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USS Bay Spring (AT-60)
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Class:        BAY SPRING (AT-60)
Design:        EFC 1035
Displacement (tons):        426 gross, 775 displ.
Dimensions (feet):        150.0' oa, 141.3' pp x 27.7' x 14.1' mn
Original Armament:        None
Later armaments:        --
Complement:        37 (1929)
Speed (kts.):        12
Propulsion (HP):        850
Machinery:        Vert. triple expansion, 1 screw

Construction:

AT	Name	Acq.	Builder	Keel	Launch	Commiss.
60	BAY SPRING	28 Sep 21	Providence Engg., City Is.	24 Dec 18	1919	10 Nov 21

Disposition:

AT	Name	Decomm.	Strike	Disposal	Fate	MA Sale
60	BAY SPRING	25 Aug 44	16 Sep 44	3 May 46	WSA	3 May 46

Class Notes:
On 5 Dec 17 CNO wrote to the Chairman of the Shipping Board concerning the Navy's critical need of tugs and trawlers both abroad and at home and stated that even with the tugs laid down and planned by the Navy the demand would greatly exceed the supply. At the end of December the Shipping Board, which also needed tugs, began contracting for 150-foot steel seagoing tugs of its design 1035 and by September 1918 it had ordered 104 of these tugs. EFC Design 1035 was based on the commercial tug W. B. KEENE, which had been built by the Staten Island Shipbuilding Co. in 1913. In early 1918 the Navy began plans to build more seagoing tugs, and on 4 Mar 18 an internal Bureau of Construction and Repair memo assessed three available designs: the Shipping Board's Design 1035, the Navy's SONOMA (Tug No. 12) and the tugs then being built for the Navy by the American Shipbuilding Company as Nos. 19-20. Special attention was given to Design 1035, but its freeboard in deep load condition of 30 inches amidships and 9.5 feet forward was considered to be very small for real seagoing use. This design also lacked a towing machine and had accommodations for only a merchant crew. The memo concluded that for naval purposes the SONOMA or No. 19 types would give more satisfaction than the Shipping Board design as these tugs had greater freeboard, better towing equipment, ample bunker capacity, and room for the accommodation of personnel. The Navy opted for the No. 19 design, for which both general and detail plans were available, for its new tugs which became AT 21-45 (q.v.).

After the war the Shipping Board cancelled 58 of the Design 1035 tugs and completed the other 46. The Board had difficulty finding commercial buyers for these 46 tugs and some were still on its hands in the mid-1920s. BAY SPRING was the next to last of the ten Design 1035 tugs delivered by Providence Engineering Corp. of Providence, R.I., an engine builder that had subcontracted the hulls to Kyle & Purdy on City Island, New York.

During the war the Navy had designated for "distant service" the best of the seagoing tugs that it had purchased or requisitioned from the merchant marine and had sent some of them to bases in France and England. On 30 Nov 19 it loaned to the Shipping Board one of these, GOLIAH (ID-1494, see the World War I temporary tugs page). The Shipping Board maintained a stock of machinery spares and ships' equipment at Falmouth, England, and it stationed GOLIAH there to assist disabled ships into port. During fiscal year 1921 GOLIAH showed gross earnings of over 40,000 pounds for towage and salvage operations, half of what outside towage firms would have charged. In the fall of 1921 the Navy and the Shipping Board agreed that the Navy would transfer GOLIAH outright to the Shipping Board and in return the Shipping Board would transfer to the Navy one of its new Design 1035 tugs that was looking for a buyer, BAY SPRING. The transfers took place on 28 Sep 21 for BAY SPRING and 7 Oct 21 for GOLIAH. The Navy acquired more Design 1035 tugs between 1936 and 1943, these are listed here separately as the CAHOKIA (AT-61) class.

The hull number AT-60 was assigned to BAY SPRING on 5 Oct 21 and she was commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 10 Nov 21. In December 1921 she proceeded to Key West for towing duty in the 7th Naval District. An armament of 2-3pdr guns was reserved for her at Key West but not installed. Reassigned in mid-1926 to the 4th Naval District, she arrived at Philadelphia on 15 Aug 26 and was decommissioned there on 23 Nov 26 and laid up.

On 7 Oct 40 the name of the long-inactive tug was cancelled and she was redesignated as a non-self propelled gate craft, YNG-19. She was delivered to the Kensington Shipyard and Drydock Co. of Philadelphia two days later to begin conversion. The newly configured district craft was towed back to the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 24 Jan 41 and was placed in service on 31 Jan 41. Assigned on 22 Jan 41 to duty with the local defense forces of the 4th Naval District and armed with 1-.30 cal MG, YNG-19 operated as a gate vessel for the boom defenses approximately 50 miles off the Delaware Capes. She was reassigned to the 1st Naval District on 1 Dec 42 and was towed to her new duty station by WANDANK (AT 26), YNG-19 performed her work at Boston until placed out of service on 25 Aug 44. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in September 44 and sold in May 1946.

Ship Notes:

AT	Name	EFC	Notes
60	BAY SPRING	1353	Ex merc. BAY SPRING (ID-4417A, completed ca. Mar 20.). Decom. as tug 23 Nov 26. To YNg-19 7 Oct 40, in service 31 Jan 41, out of service 25 Aug 44. Sold by WSA to Barnett Shipping Co., New York for $3,000. To O. C. Webster of George Town, Cayman Is. 1949, scrapped in Jamaica 1958.