USS Carola IV

{{short description|Patrol vessel of the United States Navy}}

USS Carola IV, was a patrol ship of the United States Navy, built in 1885 by Culzean Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Maidens, South Ayrshire, Scotland, as the steam yacht Black Pearl. She was built for the Earl of Pembroke & Montgomery. In 1895 the yacht was sold to E B Sheldon of Chicago, Illinois, USA.{{cite web |title=Black Pearl |url=http://www.clydeships.co.uk/view.php?ref=5027 |website=Scottish Built Ships |publisher=Caledonian Maritime Research Trust |access-date=8 April 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220408090721/http://www.clydeships.co.uk/view.php?ref=5027|archive-date=8 April 2022}} and in 1900 she was purchased by Evans R Dick of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and renamed Elsa.{{cite news |title=Yachts Change Hands |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1900-03-14/ed-1/seq-5/ |access-date=8 April 2022 |work=The Sun |issue=LXVII, 195 |date=14 March 1900 |location=New York, NY |page=5|via=Library of Congress}}{{cite book |title=Yacht Register |date=1901–1902 |publisher=Lloyd's Register of British & Foreign Shipping |location=London |page=288}} She was later briefly named Haida and Columbine, but by mid-1910 was owned by Leonard Richards of New York City, Commodore of the Larchmont Yacht Club.{{cite news |title=Yachting: Larchmont Y. C. |url=https://archive.org/details/foreststream751910newy/page/61/mode/1up |access-date=8 April 2022 |work=Forest & Stream |issue=LXXV, 1 |date=9 July 1910 |location=New York, NY |page=61}}

In June 1917, she was purchased by the US Navy for World War I service. Commissioned in early July, she crossed the Atlantic to Brest, France, during that month and the next, voyaging by way of Dominion of Newfoundland and the Azores. After a brief patrol operation along the French coast, in October 1917 Carola IV was condemned as unseaworthy and reduced to harbor service as an accommodation vessel.{{cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Greg H. |title=The United States Merchant Marine in World War I : ships, crews, shipbuilders and operators |date=2017 |publisher=McFarland |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |isbn=9781476626727 |page=111 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qKOgDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA111 |access-date=8 April 2022}} She was employed in that capacity through the end of the Great War and for a year beyond. Carola IV was decommissioned in late December 1919.{{cite web |title=Carola IV |url=https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/c/carola-iv.html |website=DANFS |publisher=Naval History and Heritage Command, US Navy |access-date=7 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210512121224/https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/c/carola-iv.html |archive-date=12 May 2021}} The vessel was sold to a local Brest buyer.{{cite web |title=Carola IV (SP 812) |url=http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/170812.htm |website=NavSource Online |publisher=NavSource Naval History |access-date=7 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210509191449/http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/170812.htm |archive-date=9 May 2021}}

The ship was broken up in 1957.