The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1905-08-05
When: captain of industry who i'm

When: a captain OF industry who in
cludcs yachting among his diversions
AS most of them, of course, do
1mns ;afoul of wheat deal or some
other unfortunate obstruction in the
stock market, his first step in the
way of retrenchment is either to get
rid of his steam yacht or to refrain
from putting it into commission, for
one or more seasons
He may be interested in a racing
stable; he may own a string of motor
cars a. mile long, and if the cropper
in Wall street has been sufficiently
SEVERE all these things have to be
sacrificed, too, H:but-the steam yacht
goes first 1t goes first because it is
the most expensive plaything that
man has ever produced.
More. money can be expended upon
a big steam yacht in given period
than UPON anything not an absolute
utilitysthat has: yet been devised. This
appliesr' to the. <yacht in itself-coal,
crew, :maintenapce and the like. When
one begins to consider other expenses
involved, such as entertaining, lux
uries of varioiS kinds, wines and 9TH
er frills, the facts well nigh stagger
the imagination. OF the Investigator
and render the storied extravagances
of Caius Caligula the tamest sort of
reading ever:s after. 1t has been
stated that J. Pierpont Morgan. spends
$4,000 each season for the cigars
smoked aboard the. -Corsair. A we'll.
known yachtsman made this remark
last season at Newport, and there is
no reason to doubt his assertion. 9th
er expenses, gagged accordingly, give
one the impression that the Corsair
each season must cost her owner a
pretty penny.
Some years ago, when steam yachts
were not of the high type of the pres
ent and when the term multi-million-
a4re had hardly come into general
use, very prominent man of wealth
ventured the remark that he did not
see how it was possible for any man
to spend more than 100000 a year
unless he literally threw his money
away. Later he purchased large
steam yacht. 1t cost him $4,000 a
year just to run it. The Newport le-
Eend has it that this man one day,
seated on the porch OF the reading
room, qualified his statement very
materially by adding unless he owns
a steam yacht"
On the last cruise of the New York
Yacht club there were some twenty
large steam yachts, which were esti-
mated by a We]lknOWn yachtsman as
being valued in the aggregate at over
$4,000, 900, and in cup year, when a
vastly greater number :, of steam
yachts are in commission than in any
ordinary year C'off year," yachtsmen
call years in which there is no race
for the Americas cup), the variols
harbors touched by the New York
Yacht club squadron have framed
marine picture roughly estimated as
worth $8,00o,O00.
1t is safe to assume that the sea-
sons expenses of the Corsair run
way past the hundred thousand dollar
mark, and the same may be said of
such large yachts as COL, Payne's
Aphrodite, Howard Gould's Niagara,
John Jacob Astor's Nourmahal, H. H.
Rogers Kanawha, William X. Van
derbilt's new turbine yacht Virginia,
and score of others. Not one of
these yachts cost a cent less than
100000 to build, and in most cases
the cost was even greater. That is
the first expense, of course-the cost
of construction. The cost of main
tenance comes after.
Take the Corsair, since we began
with her. She registers nearly if not
quite 600 tons and burns more than
40 tons of coal a day when: steamine
along at anything like a fair rate of
speed. Put the present price of coal
at 81 per ton-it t1uctuates, but 81 is
a fair average-and that makes, say,
3100 daily for propulsive power. She
carries a crew of fifty-eight men, in
Guiding the captain, first and second
mates, carpenters, stewards-cabint
and bedroom-one pantryman, four
cocks, including the chef; chief en-
gineer and three assistant engineers,
three oilers, from twelve to eighteen