She was purchased by the American explorer and aviator, Lincoln Ellsworth, for his 1933 Antarctic expedition, refitted and sheathed with oak and armour plate, and renamed Wyatt Earp after the marshal of Dodge City and Tombstone, Arizona.

On return to Sydney in January 1940, she was laid up pending future employment, but was reactivated and moved to Port Adelaide in South Australia, where she served with the Examination Service until late 1943.

Before her disposal, the Minister for the Navy received a request in March 1945 from the South Australian Branch of the Boy Scouts Association, that the ship be made available for Sea Cadet training.

After loading, including an OS2U Kingfisher amphibian of the Royal Australian Air Force, Wyatt Earp left from Nelson Pier, Williamstown on 19 December 1947 and proceeded to Hobart.

A later change of ownership had her called Natone, and under this name she plied the east Australian coast until wrecked in a storm near Double Island Point, Queensland, on the night of 23–24 January 1959.