Proceed to W. & A. Fletcher Shipyard, Hoboken, N.J., June 9, 1919. Place the vessel out of commission in accordance with orders enclosed herewith, and deliver the vessel to representative of the owner, Mr. J. P. Morgan. Have enclosed receipts in duplicate signed and return to this office.
(Signed) C. L. Arnold,
Captain, U.S.N.
(Enclosure.) The U.S.S. Corsair is hereby placed out of commission, June 9th, 1919.
Her owner surmised that the Corsair had been run to death and worn out in the Bay of Biscay, that she was to be regarded rather as a relic than a yacht; but in this Mr. Morgan was happily disappointed. The staunch ship was still fit to be overhauled and made ready for the peaceful and leisurely service of other days. In her old berth at Fletcher’s Yard she swarmed with artisans instead of bluejackets, and they found many things to be done besides restoring the furniture, fittings, partitions, and so on.
Copyright, 1899, by C. E. Bolles, Brooklyn
THE CORSAIR WHEN IN COMMISSION AS A YACHT BEFORE THE WAR
A stalwart man may tumble down three flights of stairs and escape without a broken neck, but he is bound to be considerably shaken up. This was painfully the case with a yacht which had been kept going month in and month out, the fires drawn from under her boilers only when she positively declined to make steam enough and was in a mood to protest against such unfair treatment. That December hurricane had been a bruising, almost fatal experience, and the repairs made at Lisbon could not be called final.
As a ship, however, the Corsair had strongly survived the ordeal, and soon she began to resume the semblance of a shapely, sea-going yacht. The graceful bowsprit was restored to the clipper stem, the deck cleared of gun mountings, and the overhang was no longer cluttered with the gear of the depth bombs. Chief Engineer Hutchison returned to his own engine-room, and there was clangor and clatter as gangs of mechanics repaired, replaced, and tuned up machinery which had been driven to the limit of endurance.
The Corsair’s steaming record in foreign service had amounted to 49,983.6 miles from June, 1917, to December, 1918, when she ceased cruising to spend her time in English ports and at Queenstown. The distance, by months, was as follows: