Patrol vessel of the United States Navy
The first USS "Manatee" (SP-51) was an armed motorboat that served as a United States Navy patrol vessel from 1917 until sometime shortly after World War I.
"Manatee" was built in 1915 for Lawrence F. Percival of the Corinthian Yacht Club of Boston as a wooden-hulled, gasoline-powered private motorboat of the same name designed by Samuel H. Brown of Marblehead, Massachusetts and built by Graves Yacht Yard of the same city. Percival sold the boat to J.B. Fallon in Fall of 1916. The U.S. Navy acquired her for World War I service from her owner, J. B. Fallon, on 21 April 1917, and commissioned her as patrol boat "USS Manatee" (SP-51) on 23 April 1917.
"Manatee" was assigned to "distant service" in European waters, where she supported a flying boat detachment through the end of World War I.
Records of "Manatee"'s status after the Armistice with Germany of 11 November 1918 are lacking, but she presumably returned to the United States for decommissioning and disposal. As of 1 July 1920 her name no longer appeared on the Navy List.
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