To combat the smuggling of alcohol during Prohibition following passage of the Volstead Act, the United States Coast Guard ordered 203 purpose-built 75-foot wooden-hulled patrol boats in the 1924.

"[3] Originally delivered by the Gibbs Gas Engine Co., Jacksonville, Florida, in 1925, one of 20 of the design produced by the yard,[4] as CG-252, the vessel became excess to Coast Guard needs when ratification of the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition in December 1933, and a number of the class were turned over to the U.S. Navy.

[1] On Saturday night, 9 November 1940, while serving as a Naval Reserve training ship, YP-26 was beached inside the breakwater at Port Washington, Wisconsin, after striking a submerged rock in a storm, reported Lieut.

"The crew of 14, including Ensign Harl Day, who captained the ship, waded ashore in three feet of water and spent the night in a hotel.

"[5] Transferred to duty in the Panama Canal Zone by 1941, YP-26 was destroyed by an explosion of an unknown cause, while hauled out on the marine railway at Cristóbal, Colón, on 19 November 1942.