USC&GS Drift was a United States Coast Survey schooner built in 1876 specifically to anchor in offshore waters to undertake current measurements. She was transferred to the United States Lighthouse Board on May 20, 1893 to become the lightship Light Vessel # 97 or (LV-97) on the Bush Bluff station until retirement and sale in 1918 to become the W. J. Townsend which was scrapped in 1945.

USC&GS George S. Blake, in service 1874–1905, is, with the U.S. Fish Commission steamer Albatross, one of only two US oceanographic vessels with her name inscribed in the façade of the Oceanographic Museum, Monaco due to her being "the most innovative oceanographic vessel of the Nineteenth Century" with development of deep ocean exploration through introduction of steel cable for sounding, dredging and deep anchoring and data collection for the "first truly modern bathymetric map of a deep sea area."