Vanadis (ship, 1908)
 The Ianara (formerly Vanadis ), painted by Luca Papaluca (1890–1934)
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The Vanadis was a steam turbine powered yacht that was built by A. & J. Inglis in Glasgow in 1908 and existed under different names until 1938. "Vanadis" is an epithet of the goddess Freya from Norse mythology , which came from the Vanen family of gods .
description
The Vanadis was commissioned by Cornelius Kingsley Garrison (CKG) Billings (1861-1937) from New York . The eccentric wealthy industrialist was the owner of a large estate with the villa "Tryon Hall" on the Hudson Heights . He owned his own racing stable with what was then the fastest trotter mare in the world called "Lou Dillon" and was a lover of fast sailing ships with which he regularly took part in regattas .
The plans for his new luxury yacht Vanadis were drawn up by the American naval engineer Clinton Hoadley Crane (1873-1958), one of the three owners of the company "Tams, Lemoine & Crane" in New York. The ship was built in the renowned Pointhouse shipyard of the A. & J. Inglis brothers on the Clyde in Glasgow, Scotland. In addition to the royal yacht Alexandra for the English King Edward VII , the Vanadis was the second large turbine yacht that this shipbuilding company built.
The steel- built yacht, around 85 meters long, had three screws and had additional schooner rigging . Unusual for the time, it was powered by steam turbines. At full speed she was 16.5 knots . In order to be able to take part in their maiden voyage from Glasgow to New York, their designer Clinton Crane traveled to Glasgow especially. After its launch on January 23, 1908, it monitored and perfected its propulsion system in numerous test runs on the Clyde in order to further increase the performance of the turbines. In June 1908 the ship was transferred to New York and handed over to the owner.
The Vanadis received an extremely luxurious interior for the time with fine woods, carpets and expensive fabrics. As the first ship to belong to the posh New York Yacht Club , it had an electric elevator that connected the decks. Billings and his wife lived on the ship. Her private area included, among other things, two large bedrooms with bathrooms and eight accommodations for her guests, with whom she went on long pleasure trips on the yacht. In 1913, at the request of the American ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau , Billings went on a business trip to Constantinople , where Billings impressively displayed his financial strength as a US investor with his luxury yacht.
Ship models
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As was customary with wealthy shipowners, CKG Billings also had expensive models of its yacht made. On May 1, 1910, the New York daily newspaper The Sun published a detailed, illustrated report on the two perfectly reproduced Vanadis models that the New York shipbuilder HE Boucher had built over several months for several thousand dollars on behalf of CKG Billings. One of them was 6 feet (1.83 m) long and made it possible to see the interior of the ship in the form of a longitudinal section . The model showed all decks with their technical and cargo spaces as well as the living areas with the smallest details in true-to-scale representation. Details right down to the pillows on the beds, the mirrors on the chests of drawers, upholstery fabrics, types of wood in the furniture and the size of the built-in machines corresponded exactly to the equipment of the large yacht. On the other side was the “harbor view” of the ship, which an artist had helped to create.
Ship accident in 1915
In June 1915, the Vanadis was involved in a spectacular ship accident on Long Island Sound . On the evening of June 14, 1915, in thick fog, the luxury yacht rammed the 250-person liner steamer Bunker Hill from the side. The bowsprit of the Vanadis bored into the middle of the other ship, where the guests had just gathered for dinner in the dining room.
Two men died in the accident and two other passengers were injured. A man who had been thrown from the Bunker Hill by the force of the impact could still be brought on board the Vanadis , but died there from his serious injuries. The Bunker Hill reached with a large hole in its side later that night sure their pier . Billings and his wife, who had been on the Vanadis voyage home, were unharmed; however, the yacht's bowsprit was badly damaged. The accident was reported in national newspapers.
Other owners and names
After the shipwreck, CKG Billings no longer enjoyed his ship and sold it in 1916 to the investor Morton Freeman Plant (1852-1918), who in turn sold it to Russian hands after a short time, although the national shipping authority would have liked to prevent this sale. From June 5, 1917, it was used by the Russian Navy under the name Poryv . In September 1917, an article appeared in a newspaper with eyewitness accounts by Russian sailors about a fire and subsequent sinking of the Poryv , which turned out to be a hoax . Another newspaper later reported that the Poryv was located in England because the Russians had sold it to the Royal Navy .
After the First World War , the ship was acquired by Baron Hjalmar Constantin (de) Linder (1862–1921), then one of the richest men in Finland , who renamed it Finlandia .
The next owner in 1922 was the wealthy French top sailor Virginie Hériot , who six years later won the gold medal in sailing at the Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. In a biography of Hériot, the ship, which was navigated by the passionate sportswoman and was still called Finlandia , is described as a “floating palace” and as “un des plus beaux navires de l'époque” (German: “one of the most beautiful ships of the Epoch ”).
In 1925 the ship was bought by the English Lieutenant Commander Montague Grahame-White for his charter business and renamed Ianara .
After a final sale in 1935 and being used as a merchant ship , the ship was reportedly scrapped in 1938.
Trivia
The Vanadis was the subject of a 1911 resulting oil painting derived from Denmark painter Antonio Jacobsen. The picture with the title "The New York Yacht Club's steam yacht Vanadis at sea" achieved a price of over 10,000 US dollars at an auction at Christie's house in November 2013 .
In August 1924, CKG Billings bought a second Vanadis , which was even bigger, faster and more luxurious than its predecessor.
literature
- Erik Hofman: The Steam Yachts. An Era of Elegance. John de Graff, Tuckahoe 1970, ISBN 978-0-8286-0040-8 , p. 185 (English)
- Virginie Hériot: A bord du Finlandia. (Travel description, French)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Clyde Built Ships: Vanadis
- ↑ a b c d e f Steam Turbine VANADIS built by A & J Inglis Ltd in 1908 for CKG Billings, New York, Yacht. In: clydeships.co.uk. Retrieved January 8, 2017 .
- ^ The first name Vanadis , Wissen.de, accessed on April 2, 2016.
- ^ Montecito Journal Glossy Edition Summer Fall 2011, Report on CKG Billings. In: themjmag.com. February 2, 2016, accessed January 8, 2017 .
- ^ Steam Turbine Yacht Vanadis , In: The Engineer, February 21, 1908 edition, p. 97 (PDF file, English), gracesguide.co.uk, accessed January 8, 2017.
- ↑ Montecito Journal Glossy Edition Summer Fall 2011. In: themjmag.com. February 2, 2016, p. 81 , accessed on January 8, 2017 .
- ^ Model of TS Vanadis, longitudinal section , In: The Sun, May 1, 1910, p. 27, chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, accessed on April 24, 2016 (English).
- ↑ Yacht's bow thrust into the Steamer , The Watertown Re-Union, June 16, 1915 edition, nyshistoricnewspapers.org, accessed January 7, 2016 (PDF file)
- ↑ Aliens To Get Yacht Vanadis , The Sun, February 18, 1917, chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, accessed February 13, 2017 (English)
- ↑ Fate of the "Vanadis" , warsailors.com, accessed April 3, 2016.
- ↑ 65 Russian Survivors of Old Vanadis Here , New York Tribune of September 18, 1917, chroniclingamerica.log.gov, accessed on February 13, 2017 (English)
- ↑ Vanadis Survivors Arrive , The Sun, September 18, 1917, chroniclingamerica.log.gov, accessed on February 13, 2017 (English)
- ↑ Jp Debeaupuis: Virginie Heriot. In: histoire-vesinet.org. Retrieved January 6, 2017 .
- ^ Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen (Copenhagen 1850-1921 Hoboken, New Jersey), The New York Yacht Club's steam yacht Vanadis at Sea. In: christies.com. January 1, 1970, accessed January 6, 2017 .
- ↑ Montecito Journal Glossy Edition Summer Fall 2011. In: themjmag.com. February 2, 2016, p. 84 , accessed January 8, 2017 (English).
- ↑ René Moniot Beaumont: Histoire de la littérature maritime. La Découvrance, 2008, ISBN 978-2-84265-658-4 , p. 358 ( limited preview in Google book search).