of . She carried sufficient fuel for a cruising radius of at full speed. She was schooner-rigged, and carried of canvas consisting of a foresail, a mainsail, and an inboard jib. She had fresh water tanks with a combined capacity of , enough to last her crew and passengers a month, and an icebox capable of holding a week′s worth of frozen foods. Her shallow draft allowed her access to a wide variety of small harbors and inlets, and her relatively wide beam gave her stability and provided ample room for her passengers on her deck. Townsend later sold Raeo to W. Schall. As a motor yacht, Raeo was home-ported in the New York City area. U.S. Navy service, 1917–1919 In 1917, the United States Navy purchased Raeo from Schall for US$10,500 for use as a section patrol boat during World War I. She was commissioned as USS Raeo (SP-588) on 19 May 1917. Assigned to the 2nd Naval District in southern New England and based at Newport, Rhode Island, Raeo carried out patrols through the end of World War I on 11 November 1918 and into 1919. Under an executive order dated 24 May 1919 addressing the disposition of vessels the Navy no longer required, Raeo was among several vessels designated for transfer to the United States Bureau of Fisheries (BOF). Raeo was transferred to the BOF on 17 October 1919 and stricken from the Navy List on 21 October 1919. U.S. Bureau of Fisheries The Bureau of Fisheries renamed the vessel USFS Kittiwake and placed her in service at the BOF station at Gloucester, Massachusetts, where she performed fish culture work. After undergoing repairs and an extensive overhaul carried out by the crew of the BOF fisheries science research vessel during August and September 1922 at the BOF station at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, Kittiwake departed Woods Hole and proceeded to Norfolk, Virginia, where she arrived on 3 November 1922. She was loaded aboard a U.S. Navy vessel at the Norfolk Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, and transported to Seattle, Washington, where she arrived in the spring of 1923. At Seattle, a new Union diesel engine was installed aboard her. With her new engine, Kittiwake proceeded to the Territory of Alaska to begin service as a BOF fishery patrol vessel in the summer of 1923, initially operating in the Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound districts on the coast