USS Apache (SP-729)

The third USS Apache (SP-729), later USS SP-729, was an armed motorboat that served in the United States Navy as a patrol vessel from 1917 to 1919.

Construction, acquisition, and commissioning
Apache was built in 1917 by Herreshoff Manufacturing Company at Bristol, Rhode Island, as the civilian motorboat Herreshoff No. 311 for Robert F. Herrick of Boston, Massachusetts, who named her Apache and intended to offer her to the U.S. Navy for use as a patrol vessel during World War I. The U.S. Navy acquired her from Herrick on 23 May 1917 with a scheduled completion date by Herreshoff of 12 June 1917. She was commissioned as USS Apache (SP-729) at Boston on 7 July 1917.

World War I
Apache served as a dispatch boat and local patrol boat at Boston, operating under the aegis of the 1st Naval District, through early October 1918, by which time her name had been changed to USS SP-729.

Due to an urgent need for craft such as SP-729 at Brest, France, an order dated 14 October 1918 went out from Washington, D.C., to Boston, directing the Commandant of the 1st Naval District to ready six section patrol boats -- USS Commodore (SP-1425), USS Cossack (SP-695), USS War Bug (SP-1795), USS Sea Hawk (SP-2365), USS Kangaroo (SP-1284), and SP-729—to be shipped to France as deck cargo along with spare parts to keep them operational. However, this proposed movement appears to have been cancelled, probably because of the armistice with Germany of 11 November 1918 that ended World War I and eliminated the need for more U.S. Navy patrol craft in Europe.

Postwar
Instead, SP-729 headed south via the inland waterway in December 1918, bound for Naval Air Station Pensacola at Pensacola, Florida, probably for duty as a crash boat.

Decommissioning and disposal
SP-729 was decommissioned at Key West, Florida, and stricken from the Navy List on 17 May 1919. She was turned over to the United States Coast Guard on 22 November 1919.

United States Coast Guard service
The Coast Guard renamed the boat Arrow on 16 December 1919 and she was commissioned into the Coast Guard as USCGC Arrow at Key West on 25 August 1921. Soon thereafter, the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Tallapoosa (WPG-52) towed Arrow to Tampa, Florida. While Arrow was serving at Tampa, she was reclassified as a harbor launch and renamed USCGC AB-2 on 6 November 1923. AB-2 later was found unfit for further Coast Guard service and was transferred to the United States Shipping Board on 18 March 1925 for disposal.