Democratic messenger. [volume] (Snow Hill, Md.) 1869-1973, 1904-11-05
COST or RUNNING A YACHT
Mr.. Astor's Monthly Bill In summer
Probably Foots Up S25,OOO.

mr. AstOr'S MOntuiy bill IN summer
Probably FoOts Up S25.OOO.
The cost of running steaIa yacht
necessarily varies with its size. says
Rene Bache i'm the Philadelphia Satur-
day Evening Post. y sixty footer may
be kept in commission for $500 a
month. not counting food supplies.
For 100 footer the monthly expense
would be $1,000 perhaps. But when
It comes To pleasure craft like Pier
pont Morgan's Corsair. 30i feet on the
water line. or John Jacob Astor's
Nourmahal. which is even bigger. the
outlay is enormously greater. IL costs
about $20.00O Il 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 good sized steam
ship, will touch $4,000 or possibly So
600 month.
A first class steam yacht carries a
crew of fifty or more men. The Aphro-
dite owned by Colonel Oliver Ii.
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 month"; the captain gets 500
a month-Howard Gould pays his cap
tain 5000 year-and two mates are
employed ut $40 and $50 respectively.
The chief engineer draws S125. the as
month. To these must be added
four firemen at $40 a month and four
stokers mt the same wages. or course
the chief cook Is likely TO be French
chef at $iO0 or $500 month.
Such n boat consumes twenty tons
of coal day. and ut 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 S1O.-
Coo for the season. For the rest OF the
year she is laid up In n basin ut an ex-
pense of $500 month. and the clean
ing and painting she has TO undergo
cost pretty penny. 1t takes two
weeks AMI an expenditure of $1,000 to
lay her up and couple of months and
5000 TO put her into commission
again.
From these figures il Is easy to un-
derstand where the money goes for a
steam yacht. though ii should be real
lied that bills for food supplies mot
reckoned i'm the above account are
simply huge. especially when much en-
PERTAINING is done. Anybody would be
interested to know what it cost Corne-
Illus Vanderbilt on his recent trip
abroad to entertain Emperor William
on board his yacht and to meet on an
appropriately sumptuous scale certain
other social obligations which were
imposed upon him by his intimacy
with the great ones of the earth. Very
possibly heidi not get off for less than
$1O0.OOO for II few weeks amusement.
Not few rich men nowadays prefer
sailing yachts. because of the superior
accommodations which they afford.
There is more comfort to be had, they
assert. i'm 100 foot schooner than in
a 300 foot steam yacht. Such schoon-
er costs only about $4,000 and has a
crew of twenty-five. with eighteen be-
fore the mast. Whereas steam yacht
is largely occupied by machinery and
coal. which take up nearly the whole
of the middle portion of the vessel in
a schooner the entire body of the craft
is available for living purposes. Even
n sloop sixty or seventy feet long and
costing $4,000 perhaps will carry six
or eight cabin passengers very cozily.