Sport: Yachting Millions

When William Kissam Vanderbilt sailed on his yacht Ara, a fortnight ago, on his first cruise around the world, he left behind a yacht-building orgy. More and bigger yachts are now being designed and built for U. S. tycoons than ever before. Herewith, the list with name of tycoon, cost of yacht, architect, builder:

Harrison Williams, $3,000,000, Cox & Stevens. It has not yet been decided whether this yacht will be built in the U. S. or in Germany. But it will be the biggest Diesel pleasure yacht in the world.

Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., $1,000,000, Cox & Stevens and John H. Wells, Inc., Pugsey & Jones at Wilmington, Del.

Fred J. Fisher, $1,000,000, Cox & Stevens and John H. Wells, Inc., Pugsey & Jones at Wilmington, Del.

An unnamed automobile executive, $1,000,000, Cox & Stevens and John H. Wells, Inc.

Max C. Fleischmann, $1,000,000, Cox & Stevens, Krupp works at Kiel, Germany.

Charles Franklin Kettering, $500,000, John Wells, Inc., Defoe works at Bay City, Mich.

Jules Seman Bache, $200,000, John H. Wells, Inc., Jacob’s Shipyard at City Island, N. Y.

Add these figures together and you have $7,700,000. And in ten years, another $7,700,000 will have been spent for the upkeep of these seven yachts.

Harrison Williams was the man who entertained the Prince of Wales on and around Long Island and showed him Wall Street. Mr. Williams has a volcano named after him in the Galapagos, whither he helped finance the expedition of William Beebe. Mr. Williams, too, has studied the ocean floor from his fine yacht Warrior, recently sold to George Whelan.

Born in Avon, Ohio, 55 years ago, and educated in the public schools, Harrison Williams has achieved, more thoroughly than 98% of his contemporaries, the titles of host, amateur scientist, clubman (20 of them), with all of which he is quaintly press-shy. His fortune has come from public utilities, which he developed, not as a sportsman but as a shrewd businessman, and which may now exceed a round hundred millions. He lives at Glen Cove, Long Island, and in the Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, town house of the late Elbert H. Gary, which he purchased last spring.

Charles F. Kettering, chief engineer of General Motors Corp., is personally supervising the building of the Kettering yacht. He has designed a device to synchronize electrically the two Diesel motors, a mercury stabilizer to replace the gyroscope, many another automatic and electrical control for comfort and convenience.

Architects. A good-sized yacht can be designed and built in five months. It takes a longer period when the yacht is U. S. designed and German built. The cost of building a yacht in Germany is 50% to 33% less than in the U. S., but there is a 30% tax on foreign-built yachts. U. S. architects are giving an increasing amount of business to U. S. shipyards because they have demonstrated their ability to build yachts more luxurious and equally as sturdy as German-built craft.*

At present, the U. S. yacht architects with the biggest contracts are Cox & Stevens and John H. Wells, Inc., both of Manhattan.

Cox & Stevens had previously designed E. H. Button’s Hussar, Mortimer L. Schiffs Dolphin, W. L. Mellon’s Vaga-bondia, and Vincent Astor’s Nourmahal (with Architect Ferris).

John H. Wells, Inc., designed yachts and commuting cruisers for F. Trubee Davison, L. Gordon Hammersley, Nelson Doubleday, Walter P. Chrysler, and a total of ten for the brothers Fisher of General Motors. Architect Wells designed his first yacht before he was graduated from Cornell in 1903.

* But Germany still gets some of the huge contracts, where the saving is great, such as Vincent Astor’s Nourmahal, flagship of the New York Yacht Club (TIME, Feb. 6).