History Archive
HistoryCentral Est. 1996
US Navy · Motor Boats

Vidette

(MB: 1. 56'; b. 9'4")

Vidette—a wooden-hulled, sheathed launch built at Cowes, England, on the Isle of Wight—was apparently acquired by the Navy sometime in either late 1907 or early 1908. From then until either late 1910 or early 1911, she was utilized at Brooklyn, N.Y., at the New York Navy Yard as the commandant's barge. She then moved to Portsmouth, Va., to perform similar duty at the Norfolk Navy Yard through the end of World War I. Although one source lists the craft as being transferred to the Coast Guard on 3 May 1919, no record of her subsequent service has been found.

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