Yachts

President Hoover last week ordered out of commission the U.S.S. Mayflower to save $300,000 annual maintenance and to send nine officers and 148 men back to regular naval duty. Scotch built in 1896, she was purchased by the U.S. from the estate of Ogden Goelet for $480,000 for Spanish War service. President Roosevelt first used her as an official yacht, as did all his successors. President Hoover is no yachtsman.

A fortnight ago Secretary of the Navy Adams ordered scrapped or sold his official yacht, the 31-year-old Sylph. Bought for $50,000 in 1898, she is now too decrepit to repair. Secretary Adams has yachts of his own.

A third famed official yacht is the Apo, assigned to the Governor-General of the Philippines. She, too, was without an official user last week, owing to the departure of Statesman Stimson for the U.S. (see col. 2). As the Amelia she was built in Scotland for King Carlos of Portugal when his son Manuel was a dashingly amorous prince. Many were the joyrides aboard her for the late, luscious actress Gaby Deslys (real name : Madeline Caire, 1884-1920). Manuel first espied Gaby in a disrobing act in a London music hall. Her baby-blue eyes went straight to his heart. He gowned her and be jeweled her from the Portuguese treasury, took her cruising on the Amelia, of which a notable appointment was a royal bed eight feet wide. Later Gaby danced in the Folies Bergeres, toured the U.S. with many a huge and fluttery fan, smiled at wisecracks about Manuel and died in Paris of a throat infection following influenza. The Amelia was sold to U.S. Oilman Henry Clay Pierce who renamed her the Yacona. In turn he disposed of her to the U.S. for use in the Philippines where she was given her third name, Apo, after the Islands' highest mountain.