Zizania (Tender)
1917-1919
The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel at the time of her transfer from the Lighthouse Service.
(Tender: displacement 575; length 161'0"; beam 27'0"; depth of hold 12'0"; draft 6'9" (mean); complement 27)
Zizania—a steel-hulled twin-screw lighthouse tender—was built at Baltimore, Md., by Ramsey & Son, for the United States Lighthouse Service and launched on 12 November 1888. Transferred to the War Department by an executive order dated 24 April 1917, then subsequently reassigned to the Navy, Zizania served during the Great War as a tender to section patrol craft operating in the First Naval District. When control over the Lighthouse Service on 1 July 1919 reverted to the Department of Commerce, Zizania’s name was stricken from the Navy List.
Based at Portland, Maine, she resumed duty tending lighthouses along the New England coast and remained so employed until January 1925 when her name was dropped from the list of Lighthouse Service vessels and she was sold.
The former lighthouse and patrol craft tender retained her name as she next operated as a freighter, registered to James A. Ross of Boston, Mass., in 1925. After then serving as a day fishing boat out of Boston in the early 1930’s, Zizania was seized by U.S. Marshals on 17 August 1933 for libel, then sold on 13 January 1934 at a marshal’s sale. Homeported at Boston under the house flag of Pan-American Shippers, Inc. (1938), Zizania carried cargoes of fruit from Miami, Fla., to northern ports, then was acquired by the Panamanian-flag San Maria Timber Co. in April 1940.
Acquired by the War Shipping Administration (WSA) at Miami, Fla., at 4:00 p.m. on 20 August 1942, from Pan-American Shippers (who had apparently reaquired the vessel) Zizania operated as a salvage vessel with the Philadelphia Derrick & Salvage Corp., being turned over by the WSA to that entity under a general agency agreement at Philadelphia, Pa., at 1:01 a.m. on 9 January 1943.
Zizania returned to the U.S. Navy, being purchased at 2:30 p.m. on 9 August 1943 at Norfolk, Va., being placed in service there soon thereafter. Renamed Adario on 26 August 1943, she was designated as a net tender (tug class) YNT-25, and spent the remainder of World War II operating at the Net Depot, Naval Operating Base, Norfolk, under the control of the Commandant Fifth Naval District. Redesignated as a medium harbor tug, YTM-743, on 4 August 1945, Adario was placed out of service on 17 April 1946. Her name was stricken from the Navy Register on 1 May 1946, and she was transferred to the WSA on 21 January 1947 for final disposition.
Raymond A. Mann and Robert J. Cressman
14 April 2021
