Service History
Soon after commissioning, Sylph was assigned to the Washington Navy Yard, where she served as a yacht for the President and other high officials. President McKinley was the first President to use her. In 1902, she began alternating with first Dolphin then Mayflower as the President's yacht, and she also served the Secretary and Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the same manner. President Theodore Roosevelt frequently cruised in Sylph to his summer place at Oyster Bay, New York, and President William Howard Taft used her for excursions off the New England coast during the summers of his term.
More often, Sylph cruised up and down the Potomac River, near Washington, D.C.. She went on sightseeing excursions in Chesapeake Bay and to George Washington's home at Mount Vernon, Virginia, on the Potomac just below Washington. Among her famous passengers, the yacht numbered the King of Belgium and the Crown Prince of Sweden.
Woodrow Wilson was the last President to use Sylph as the presidential yacht. After his term of office, she operated from the Washington Navy Yard for the Secretary and Assistant Secretary of the Navy and often marked pleasure cruises to Mount Vernon with patients of the Naval Hospital embarked. On 24 January 1921, she was called upon to carry the body of the late minister of Sweden down the Potomac and through the over Chesapeake Bay to Hampton Roads.
Sylph continued in special service at Washington throughout her career. On 17 July 1921, she received the alphanumeric designation, PY-5. She continued to cross the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers until 19 November 1928, when she moored at the Washington Navy Yard to remain for the rest of her career.
Read more about this topic: USS Sylph (PY-5)
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