Milford chronicle., 1904-11-18
COST OF RUNNING A YACHT
Mr.. AstOr's Monthly Bill In Summer
Probably FOOts Up s25,OOO.

Mr.. AstOr's Monthly Bill In Summer
Probably FOOts Up $4,000.
The cost of running a steam yacht
necessarily varies with its size, says
Rene Bache in the Philadelphia Satur-
day Evening Post. A sixty footer may
be kept in commission for $500 a
month, not counting food supplies.
For $50 footer the monthly expense
would be $1,000 perhaps. But when
it comes to a pleasure craft like Pier
pont Morran's Corsair, 304 feet on the
water like, or John Jacob Astors
Nourmahal, which is even bigger, the
outlay is enormously greater. 1t costs
about $4,000 a month to run the Cor
sair, and it is probable that Mr.. As
tors bills for the Nourmahal in the
summer time amount to not less than
$4,000 every thirty days. The pay
roll of the officers and crew of such a
vessel which is a good sized steam
ship, will touch $4,000 or possibly So
600 a month.
A first class steam yacht carries a
crew of fifty or more men. The Aphro-
dite, owned by Colonel Oliver H.
Payne, requires sixty-two. There must
be three cooks, steward, two assist
ant stewards and six or seven men
who serve as "chambermaids" and
walters. The Nourmahal also has a
couple of stewardesses, for the con-
venience of lady guests on board.
Thirty sailors draw pay at the rate
of $50 a month, the captain gets 5000
a month-Howard Gould pays his cap
tain $4,000 a year-and two mates are
at $T5 and $50 respectively. |
The chief engineer draws SIPS, the as !
sistant engineer $100 and am oiler $50 |
a month. To these must be added |
four firemen at $40 a month and four
stokers at the same wages. OF course
the chief cook is likely to be a French
chef at $4O0 OF $500 a month.
Such a boat consumes twenty tons
Of coal a day, and at that rate, if kept
going five months in the year, she
will burn up something like 5000 tons,
the item of fuel alone coming to S10,-
900 for the season. For the rest of the
year she is laid up in u basin at an ex-
Dense of 5000 a month, and the clean
ing and painting she has to undergo
cost pretty penny. 1t takes two
weeks and an expenditure of $1,000 to
ay her up and a couple of months and
5000 to put her into commission
lgain.
From these figures it is easy to uD-
lerstand where the money goes for a
team yacht, though it should be real
zed that bills for food supplies mot
eckoned in the above account are
imply huge, especially when much en-
is done. Anybody would be
Interested to know what it cost Corne-
nus Vanderbilt on his recent trip
broad to entertain Emperor William E
n board his yacht and to meet on an
pprOpriately sumptuOus scale certain
ther social obligations which were
imposed upon him by his intimacy
nth the great ones Of the earth. Very
Ossibly he did not get off for less than
100000 for a few weeks amusement
Not a few rich men nowadays prefer
liling yachts, because of the superior
ccOmmOdations which they afford.
here is more comfort to be had, they
ssert, in a 100 foot schooner than in
200 foot steam yacht. Such a schoon-
; costs only about $4,000 and has a
ew Of twenty-five, with eighteen be-
re the mast. Whereas a steam yacht N
largely occupied by machinery and
'al, which take up nearly the whole
the middle portion of the vessel, in
schooner the entire body Of the craft
available for living purposes. Even
sloop sixty or seventy feet long and
sting $4,000 perhaps will carry six
eight cabin passengers very cozily.