Velero III was a motor vessel built for George Allan Hancock at Craig Shipbuilding, Long Beach, California, with the intention of using the vessel for both business and research. Hancock was a donor to the University of Southern California with Velero III eventually becoming R/V Velero III in research associated with the university and a sculpture of the vessel appears on the Hancock Institute for Marine Studies at U.S.C. The ship was purchased for war use by the Navy on December 15, 1941 and being commissioned as the USS Chalcedony designated PYC-16 on weather duty for the Hawaiian Sea Frontier.