USS Vester (SP-686) was a United States Navy patrol vessel and minesweeper in commission from 1917 to 1919. Vester was built as a wooden-hulled commercial freight boat of the same name at Boothbay, Maine, in 1876. On 24 May 1917, the U.S. Navy acquired her from her owner, the Delaware Fish Oil Company, for use as a section patrol boat during World War I. She was commissioned on 2 June 1917 as USS Vester (SP-686) with Ensign J. T. H. Anderson, USNRF, in command.