Private Yacht
The steel-hulled, diesel-powered yacht Aras was laid down on 19 March 1930 by the Bath Iron Works; launched on 8 December 1930; and delivered to wood-pulp magnate Hugh J. Chisholm on 15 January 1931.
Aras displaced 1,805 tons fully loaded; with a length of 243 feet; 9 inches; a beam of 36 feet; and a draft of 14 feet. Her two Winton diesels generated 1,100 bhp, with a speed of 13.5 knots
The U.S. Navy acquired Aras on 24 April 1941, and renamed her Williamsburg. The former pleasure craft entered the Brewer Drydock and Repair Co., of Brooklyn, New York, on 23 June for conversion into a gunboat.
Read more about this topic: USS Williamsburg (AGC-369)
Famous quotes containing the words private and/or yacht:
“For it is a fire that, kindling its first embers in the narrow nook of a private bosom, caught from a wandering spark out of another private heart, glows and enlarges until it warms and beams upon multitudes of men and women, upon the universal heart of all, and so lights up the whole world and all nature with its generous flames.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I’ve given parties that have made Indian rajahs green with envy. I’ve had prima donnas break $10,000 engagements to come to my smallest dinners. When you were still playing button back in Ohio, I entertained on a cruising trip that was so much fun that I had to sink my yacht to make my guests go home.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)