The tender sailed for the east coast in November 1940, passing through the Panama Canal and arriving at her new home port of New London, Connecticut, at the end of that month. There, she joined the growing numbers of warships in the Atlantic following the September 1940 "destroyers-for-bases" deal between the United States and Britain. The agreement, which transferred 50 "overage" destroyers to the Royal Navy in exchange for 99-year leases on bases in the Western Hemisphere, allowed American forces to move into particularly important islands in the West Indies. Over the next year, naval engineers and civilian contractors set up a network of seaplane and naval bases to protect the approaches to the Panama Canal.