USC&GS Taku

USC&GS Taku was a United States Coast and Geodetic Survey survey ship in service from 1898 to 1917. She was the only Coast and Geodetic Survey ship to bear the name.

USC&GS Taku
History
United States
Name: Taku
Namesake: Taku Inlet in southeast Alaska
Builder: George Kneass, San Francisco, California
Cost: $11,844.35 (USD)
Completed: 1898
Commissioned: 1898
Decommissioned: 1917
General characteristics
Type: Survey ship
Length: 70.6 ft (21.5 m)
Beam: 23.8 ft (7.3 m)
Draft: 8.4 ft (2.6 m)
Propulsion: Steam engine

Taku was built by George Kneass at San Francisco, California, at a cost of $11,844.35 (USD) in 1898. The Coast and Geodetic Survey placed her in service that year. She spent her Survey career in the Pacific, primarily in the waters of the Territory of Alaska.

On July 15, 1898 Taku arrived "in disabled condition" at St. Michael, Alaska while the new steamer Yukon was being assembled. Urgent repairs to Taku slightly delayed assembly of Yukon. On July 30 she was seaworthy and Taku sailed at 2 p. m. on August 1, 1898 with a field party first to erect signals and do triangulation on St. Michael and Stuart Islands after which she departed for the mouth of the Kwiklok[Note 1] for regular survey work.[1]

Tragedy struck Taku's crew in 1910 when a member of her crew, Seaman H. Fitch, drowned when a small boat under sail was upset in Cordova Bay, Alaska.

Taku was retired from Coast and Geodetic Survey service in 1917.

Notes
  1. One of the outlets in the Yukon delta, now spelled Kwikluak (Geographic dictionary of Alaska)

References
  1. U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (1899). Report Of The Superintendent of the Coast And Geodetic Survey Showing The Progress Of Work From July 1, 1898 To June 30, 1899. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 213, 231.
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