Akbar (S.P. 599)
1917-1919
The Navy retained the name carried by this small craft at the time of her acquisition.
(S.P. 599: tonnage 25 (gross register); length 75'6" (overall); beam 11'6"; draft 3'4" (mean); speed 22.0 knots (maximum), 17.4 knots (cruising); complement 11; armament 2 machine guns)
Akbar, a wooden-hulled, twin-screw motor boat built in 1915 at Camden, N.J., by the Mathis Yacht Building Co., was purchased by the state of Maine from her owner, George W. C. Drexel, Philadelphia, Pa.; then transferred under a loan by the state of Maine to the section commander at Bath, Maine. Purchased by the Navy on 17 May 1917, Akbar, given the identification number S.P. 599, was placed in commission on 31 May 1917, QM1c Robert A. Webster in command.
Following her commissioning, the vessel was assigned to the First Naval District. Akbar carried out harbor patrol duty in the Rockland, Maine, section until May 1918 when she was shifted to the waters of Portland, Maine. The former yacht served on section patrol duty in that area through the end of the Great War [World War I] in November 1918.
Akbar was decommissioned on 17 January 1919. Her name was stricken from the Navy Register on 2 October 1919, and she was sold on 2 January 1920 to F. Chester Everett, Malden, Mass.
Luann Parsons
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
15 September 2022
