USFS Teal

Coolidge & H. C. Hanson designed Teal and Kruse & Banks constructed her at North Bend, Oregon, in 1927.[2] Her 2-inch (5.1 cm)-thick hull was made of Port Orford cedar.[2] Her deckhouse contained her captain′s stateroom, which was located just aft of her wheelhouse, as well as her radio room, the crew's mess, the galley, a dining saloon, and a head, and most of these spaces were connected by self-sealing doors with high thresholds that led out onto her side decks.[2] Her accommodations were considered excellent for the time;[2] her crew's quarters consisted of two staterooms in her forecastle, while two three-berth staterooms below decks aft made up her passengers′ quarters.[2] She was powered by a 150-horsepower (110 kW) six-cylinder Washington-Estep diesel engine[2] and had a 340 rpm water-lubricated B. F. Goodrich bearing.[2]

Although completed in 1927, Teal was not ready to begin her BOF duties until May 1928, when she departed Seattle, Washington,to head north for her first season as a BOF patrol vessel in Alaskan waters.[2] She established her annual pattern of operations, which involved conducting salmon fishery patrols in Cook Inlet and the Gulf of Alaska off Southcentral Alaska each summer, patrolling off Southeast Alaska each autumn, and spending each winter at Seattle to undergo repairs and overhaul.[2] She typically logged 11,000 nautical miles (20,000 km; 13,000 mi) on patrol each year.[2]

On 25 October 1928, Teal was among several BOF vessels tasked to assist in enforcing the provisions of the Northern Pacific Halibut Act of 1924, joining United States Navy ships and most of the rest of the BOF's Alaska Territory fleet in protecting populations of Pacific halibut in the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean, with her crew and other embarked BOF personnel granted all powers of search and seizure in accordance with the act.[2][3]

During the winter of 1932–1933, Teal underwent significant renovation during her annual upkeep period in Seattle, and during the winter of 1933–1934 she again underwent significant renovations at Seattle funded by a US$20,000 appropriation from the Public Works Administration.[2] During the mid-1930s, she began support of the tagging of herring each spring and of the inspection of salmon-spawning waterways in Southeast Alaska each autumn.[2] In the late 1930s, Teal shifted her annual autumn patrols from Southeast Alaska to the Prince William Sound area in Southcentral Alaska.[2] She spent most of September 1938 in Prince William Sound on stream inspection duties, and she did this again for seven weeks in the autumn of 1939.[2]