USS Privateer (SP-179), later YP-179, was an armed motorboat that served in the United States Navy as a patrol vessel from 1917 to 1930.

Privateer was built for R. A. C. Smith as a civilian motorboat of the same name in 1917 by the Gas Engine and Power Company and Charles L. Seabury and Company at Morris Heights in the Bronx, New York.

Privateer was assigned immediately to the 3rd Naval District, headquartered in the New York City area, where she served on section patrol for most of World War I.

On 28 July 1919 she was assigned to Squadron 19, 3rd District Naval Force, where she remained until January 1930, one of only a small number of World War I section patrol craft retained for lengthy postwar service.

She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 7 March 1930 and transferred to the United States Shipping Board on 30 June 1930.