Name Mohawk Name USC&GS Eagre Acquired Raised and purchased Length 43 m | Owner William T. Garner Namesake Eagre Launched 10 June 1875 | |
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Fate Sank on maiden voyage, 20 July 1876 | ||
USC&GS Eagre was a survey ship of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, originally the yacht Mohawk, which later served in the United States Navy as USS Eagre.
Ship history
The ship was built in Greenpoint, Brooklyn as the schooner Mohawk for the millionaire cotton merchant William T. Garner. At 140 feet she was the largest racing yacht of her generation. Garner, his wife, and crew were lost when the yacht capsized in a squall during her maiden voyage in New York Harbor on 20 July 1876 off Stapleton, Staten Island. The Mohawk was later raised at a cost of $25,000, and bought for the Coast Survey and renamed Eagre, taking its name from a term for a tidal bore, which is in turn derived from Ægir the Norse god of the sea.
In 1890 Eagre was part of a squadron of ships under the command of Lieutenant E.M. Hughes making the first systematic survey of the hazardous Nantucket Shoals along with the steamer A. D. Bache as flagship, the schooner Scoresby and the steam tender Daisy.
Eagre was eventually transferred from the Coast and Geodetic Service to the United States Navy on 31 July 1903, initially for use as tender to Franklin, the receiving ship at Naval Station Norfolk, and as training ship for apprentice seamen in the Chesapeake Bay area. These duties terminated in late 1906, and she remained at Norfolk until approved for use as a houseboat for enlisted men who were attached to the Norfolk Navy Yard. She was stricken on 10 September 1910 and sold.