The Gyatt, a Gearing (DD 710) class destroyer, weighed 2425 tons (3300 tons fully loaded), had a length of 390 feet six inches, a beam of 40 feet ten inches and a maximum draft of 19 feet. This class destroyer was the USS Sumner (DD 692) class extended by fourteen feet to allow for additional fuel storage and consequently greater range. However, the extension reduced the overall speed for the Gearing class destroyers by approximately three knots per hour, to an estimated 35 knots. The two classes of destroyers (Gearing and Sumner) were so similar that the designers did not bother to change the frame numbers. Instead, they assigned letters to the frames added amidships. The crew for this class destroyer was eleven officers and 325 enlisted men.

The original armament on the Gyatt consisted of three twin 5-inch 38 caliber guns, two quad 40mm guns, two twin 40mm guns, ten 20mm guns, two sets of five 21-inch torpedoes, six K-guns for 300 pound depth charges and two stern racks for 600 pound depth charges. In place of the aft set of five torpedoes, the Gyatt and many others of the Gearing class received a third quad 40mm gun. In later years, various weapons were removed and others added, such as the removal of the 20mm guns and the addition of hedgehogs in 1950, and the removal of the aft quad 40mm gun and aft 5-inch gun mount to allow for the addition of Terrier missiles in 1956.

The ship had four boilers and geared turbines that produced 60,000 horsepower and generated a speed in excess of 35 knots. It is understood that the Gyatt in late 1945 set a long distance speed record for destroyers of its class. The Gyatt maintained, for an extended period of time, a speed of 31.8 knots per hour. In 1946, on a run from Norfolk to Boston, the Gyatt was the only ship in Destroyer Squadron Four (DesRon 4) to sustain a speed of 38 knots that had been reached by the Gearing (DD 710), Greene (DD 711), and Bailey (DD 713).