USCGC Crawford (WSC-134)
USCGC "Crawford" (WSC-134), was a United States Coast Guard "Active"-class patrol boat in commission from 1927 to 1947. She was named for William H. Crawford, (1772–1834) who was appointed in 1816 as Secretary of the Treasury by President James Madison and he continued under President James Monroe through 1825. "Crawford" was the seventh vessel commissioned by the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service and the Coast Guard named after the former secretary. She served during the Rum Patrol and World War II performing defense, law enforcement, ice patrol, and search and rescue missions. Construction and commissioning. "Crawford" was built  by American Brown Boveri Electric Corporation at Camden, New Jersey and she was commissioned as USCGC "Crawford" (WSC-145) on 21 February 1927. She was the seventh of the "Active"-class patrol boats to be commissioned, which were designed for trailing the "mother ships" that supported the smuggling boats of "rum-runners" during Prohibition. The "Active"-class ships were also referred to unofficially as the "Buck & a Quarter" class in reference to their length. Patrol duties during the Depression. "Crawford" had been designed specifically for prohibition enforcement service and assumed Rum Patrol duty 27 March 1927 with a temporary home-port of Sault  Sainte Marie, Michigan and later a permanent station on 28 September 1927 at Two Harbors, Minnesota. Her routine consisted of picketing liquor laden "mother ships" and preventing them from offloading prohibited cargo to smaller contact boats that were used to deliver liquor to shore. With the end of prohibition, she assumed a more traditional role of a Coast Guard cutter, that of search and rescue, law enforcement, merchant vessel inspection, and defense training. In 1937, "Crawford" was assigned the home-port of Buffalo, New York. In mid-1941 "Crawford" was converted for use to service aids-to-navigation due to a  shortage of buoy tenders but was later transferred to U.S. Navy control with patrol duties out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and reconfigured as a sub-chaser. World War II service. "Crawford" performed patrol duties out of Philadelphia but was later transferred to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she performed wartime anti-submarine patrols and convoy escort duty with the Navy Caribbean Sea Frontier Squadron. On 5 June 1944 she is credited with the rescue of survivors from a sunken merchant vessel. On 30 June she took in tow the torpedoed tanker SS "Unimak". Post-war service. "Crawford" was reassigned duties out  of the Tenth Coast Guard District in June 1945 was released from Navy service on 1 January 1946. "Crawford" was decommissioned on 15 August 1947 and was donated to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 28 November 1955. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. After "Crawford" was transferred to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution she underwent a renovation at Munro Shipyard at Boston, Massachusetts to increase her fuel capacity. She worked in both North and South Atlantic Ocean waters and was mainly used for working on hydrographic stations, long line fishing studies and in surveying sites for Texas towers. R/V "Crawford" made a total  of 175 cruises for Woods Hole. Her capacity was 17 crew and 9 scientists. In 1970 she was sold to the University of Puerto Rico. Later history. On 13 May 1986 stopped the M/V "Sun Bird" in Seventh District waters and her boarding team discovered of marijuana hidden aboard. The boarding team then located the vessel's builder's plate and learned that the "Sun Bird" was the decommissioned "buck-and-a-quarter" cutter "Crawford". The former cutter and her 14-man crew were taken into custody. A newspaper article describing the incident noted: See also. Rum Patrol USCGC