Eleanor was the largest yacht ever built in the United States when she was launched in 1894. The people who owned, chartered, and sailed aboard her during her career as a yacht were among the richest and most powerful in the United States.
The ship was leased to the United States Navy during World War I. She was commissioned as the U.S.S Harvard. She was sent to the coast of France where she patrolled the approaches to ports receiving troops and supplies from America. While she saw no combat, she did rescue dozens of men from ships sunk by U-boats, and supervised German compliance with the naval terms of the surrender after the armistice.
After the war she was converted into a passenger ship and sailed among the Greek islands. Just after the start of the German invasion of Greece in April 1941 she was sunk by the Luftwaffe at Itea, Greece.
Construction and characteristics Eleanor was commissioned by Willam A. Slater of Norwich, Connecticut, scion of a wealthy textile manufacturing family. She was designed by naval architect Charles Ridgley Hanscom.
Eleanor was ordered on 29 July 1893, and her keel was laid on 5 October 1893. She was built by Bath Iron Works and launched in the Kennebec River on 7 May 1894. The ship was christened by Eleanor Slater, William Slater's 9-year old daughter, and the ship's namesake. Eleanor was delivered on 6 October 1894. The contract with Bath Iron Works for the ship was reported to be for $300,000, with the cost of art and other fittings running as much as another $150,000. She was the largest American-built yacht at the time of her launch.
Eleanor's hull and deckhouse was built of steel plates, riveted together. She was long overall, and long between perpendiculars. Her beam was , her depth of hold was , and her draft was 14 feet, 2 inches. Her gross register tonnage was 803.81 and her net register tonnage was 401.91. She displaced 1,136 tons. Here hull was built with eighteen watertight compartments.
Propulsion was provided by a single direct-acting triple-expansion steam engine. The engine had high, medium, and low-pressure cylinders of 18, 28, and 45 inches, with a stoke of 30 inches. The engine drove a single four-bladed bronze propeller 10 feet, 4 1/2 inches in diameter. Steam for the engine was produced by two coal-fired Scotch boilers, each 12 feet, 6 1/2 inches long by 12 feet, 5 inches in diameter. The ship only required one boiler to operate, the second providing redundancy in case of a failure. The engine produced 1,000 horsepower and could drive the ship at 14.5 knots. She had capacity for 280 tons of coal, which gave her an unrefueled range of 3,800 nautical miles.
Slater intended to sail around the world in Eleanor, so one of his requirements was that she be rigged with enough sail to continue this journey even if coal for her boilers was unavailable, or her engine failed. The ship was rigged as a three-masted barque. Her total sail area was . In a good breeze, she could reach 8 knots under sail.
Steam power also ran the electric generators aboard. As with the boilers, there were two generators in case one failed. Steam also powered the anchor windlass and steering gear.
Her fresh water tanks held . She had an ice-making plant, a 60-gallon per day fresh water distiller, and a steam laundry. Cabin heat was provided by steam radiators.
Eleanor carried seven tenders aboard: a 28-foot steam launch, a 25-foot naphtha launch, two 29-foot lifeboats, a 28-foot six-oared gig, a 20-foot dinghy, and a 20-foot catboat for pleasure sailing.
In 1897 her crew was reported to be 52 people, including a captain, first and second officers, physician, three engineers, a carpenter, four quartermasters, a boatswain, fifteen seamen, four firemen, two mess men, three oilers, six stewards, four cooks, a barber, two laundrymen, and two boys.
Given her proposed circumnavigation, some of which passed through dangerous waters, she was armed with two Driggs-Schroeder 1-pounder guns, a Colt electric Gatling gun, and small arms for the crew.
The deckhouse contained a dining room with sofas, a fireplace, and piano. A social hall, smoking room, pantry, galley, the laundry, and the captain's stateroom and dining room were also in the deckhouse. A stairway down from the social hall led to the main salon.
Berths for 32 crewmen were built in the forecastle on the forward berthing deck. Aft of the forecastle were staterooms for the petty officers. Further aft were two guest staterooms, and the officers' staterooms and dining room. Aft of the forward berthing deck were the boilers, coal bunkers, and engine room. The aft berthing deck contained two suites, including the owner's accommodations, just aft of the engine room bulkhead. Aft of the suites was the main salon which had its own fireplace and piano. Further aft were accommodations for the children's governess, nurse, and other female servants. Guest accommodations were luxurious, finished with a variety of hardwoods and marble.
Yachting history
William A. Slater ownership (18941898) Eleanor was the largest yacht ever built in America when she was launched, and the second costliest American yacht after Valiant, William K. Vanderbilt's steamer. She was conspicuous, and generated a wide range of reactions. To the people of Maine who built her at Bath Iron Works, she was an object of pride, a proof that their skill was equal to the British shipyards that were the world leaders at the time. In 2025, 131 years after her launch, the ship had her own page on the Bath Iron Works website. Much of the newspaper coverage of the time fawned over her luxurious appointments, describing her as "magnificent" and "palatial". Some commentary was critical of Slater and other millionaires for "burning money" on their "toys". Slater himself did not appear to address social issues regarding Eleanor, except as it regarded the ship's provenance. He insisted that the ship be built in America, even though it cost him more money.
Slater circumnavigation (18941896) Slater, his family, and a number of friends left New London, Eleanor's home port, for a round-the world cruise on 24 October 1894. Her first stop was the island of Madeira. She went on to Marseilles, Naples, Messina, Port Said, Suez, Aden, Colombo, Bombay, Penang, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Manila, Nagasaki, Yokohama, Honolulu, Hilo, and arrived in San Francisco on 23 July 1895.
Eleanor sailed from San Francisco to Tacoma, arriving on 1 August 1895. The Slater's and their guests skipped this voyage and traveled by train to Tacoma where they reembarked. From here the ship headed up the Inside Passage, stopping in Seattle, Port Townsend, Vancouver, Comox, Bella Bella, Prince Rupert, Wrangell, Port Alexander, Juneau, Sitka, and Glacier Bay. She arrived back in San Francisco, sailing direct from Victoria, on 13 September 1895.
The ship underwent a period of major maintenance while moored at Pier 9, the Broadway dock, in San Francisco. Her cruise went on to Monterey, Santa Cruz Island, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and then back to San Francisco. The Slaters left the ship in San Francisco and took the train back to Norwich, arriving on 28 November 1895.
Eleanor sailed south from San Francisco, without her owner, on 7 December 1895 to reach the Atlantic via the Strait of Magellan. She stopped at San Diego, Callao, Valparaiso, Montevideo, Pernambuco, and Saint Thomas, arriving back at New London on 10 March 1896, after a cruise of 42,406 nautical miles. After this two-year cruise, the ship returned to Bath Iron Works for dry-docking and major maintenance. William Slater's health declined, and so he did little more with his yacht.
Robert D. Ballentine charter (1896) Robert D. Ballantine, heir to the Ballantine Brewing fortune, chartered Eleanor for the 1896 summer yachting season. He used her to sail to various ports between New York and Martha's Vineyard, and to participate in the annual New York Yacht Club cruise. At the end of the season, the ship anchored in Manhasset Bay, New York.
Colonel Oliver H. Payne charter (1897)
Businessman Oliver H. Payne chartered Eleanor for the 1897 summer yachting season. She sailed from New York on 19 June 1897. Her ports of call on Payne's three-month trans-Atlantic trip included the Azores, London, Le Havre, Leith, Bergen, Hammerfest, Wisby, Stockholm, Cronstadt, St. Petersburg, Kiel, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Maderia, and Bermuda. The ship arrived back in New York on 5 October 1897. Payne found Eleanor so much to his liking that he commissioned Bath Iron Works to build a similar vessel, the Aphrodite, which displaced Eleanor as the largest yacht ever built in the United States.
Colonel Oliver H. Payne charter (1898) Payne chartered Eleanor for a second time in 1898, while his new yacht was under construction. Her first trip that season was to the Thames River to watch the Yale crew team compete. Payne's nephew, Payne Whitney, was captain of the team. Eleanor then cruised the northeast, with stops at Bath, Quebec City, Halifax, and Bar Harbor. Colonel Payne's guests included Payne Whitney and Senator Mark Hannah. On 21 August 1898, Eleanor led the naval procession up the Hudson River to welcome home the U.S. Navy ships which fought the Spanish fleet in Cuba.
Charlotte Cardeza ownership (18981900) Charlotte Wardle Cardeza (nee Drake), was the only child of a successful textile manufacturer. She and her only child, Thomas, inherited his fortune in 1890. She purchased Eleanor from William Slater in September 1898. She gained not only a yacht, but a measure of social prominence in New York society; she was admitted to the Atlantic Yacht Club in the same class as J. P. Morgan.
Cardeza first put the ship to use on an extended Caribbean cruise during the winter of 1899. She joined the ship in Charleston, South Carolina in January 1899. During the cruise, the ship made port calls in Savannah, Key West, Tampa, Jacksonville, Nassau, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, Barbados, Caracas, Ponce, Kingston, and Havana. From Havana she sailed directly to Savannah, Georgia, arriving 4 April 1899. Cardeza and her party left the ship there and returned home to Philadelphia by train.
After a maintenance period in New York, Cardeza sailed north on 9 July 1899 along the northeast coast. The ship stopped at Newport, Vineyard Haven, Nantucket, Portland, Bar Harbor, Halifax, Charlottetown, Sydney, and Boston. This was Cardeza's last major trip aboard Eleanor, but she is known in later years still connected with the sea as one of the survivors of the Titanic sinking.
James J. Hill ownership (19001917) James J. Hill was most prominent as a railroad magnate and financier, and was one of America's richest men. While his home was in St. Paul, Minnesota, his business and financial interests frequently took him to New York City. He had a passion for fishing, and as he grew older, a desire to spend more time with his family. A New York-based yacht answered a number of these desires. He purchased Eleanor for $150,000 and took ownership on June 14, 1900. Hill renamed the ship Wacouta, after a chief of the Red Wing band of the Dakota.
Shortly after acquiring his new yacht, Hill sent her from New York through the Saint Lawrence River and into the Great Lakes. This trip included port calls in Buffalo, Detroit, and Duluth. After a summer in freshwater, Wacouta arrived in New London on 1 October 1900, and went immediately into the shipyard.
During the winter of 1900-1901, Hill spent $21,450.86 on substantial modifications of the ship. The sail plan was changed from a barque to a fore-and-aft schooner rig, which reduced the number of crew required. A pilot house was added to enclose the bridge. Her steering equipment was replaced. Carpets and bathtubs were replaced. Engines were upgraded in the ship's boats which were used for Hill's fishing outings.