Hello Paul Madden at The Yacht Channel. Several years ago i had a client from Singapore who
wanted to purchase a steamship yacht that was built in 1921 in the United States
for the Dodge family. It had been restored from this state that you see here, into a pristine mega
yacht over 250 feet long fantastic boat and it had the original steam engines in it so it was a very
interesting survey. I'm going to show some of the pictures of the boat and give the history of the
vessel and then I'll talk a little bit more about the mechanics and what we found in the survey.
Delphine was commissioned by Horace Dodge, who was the car magnate, and it was built in 1921, so
it's a century-old ,100 years old. It was built by Great Lakes Engineering in Detroit, Michigan which
is not a spot that you think of when you think of mega yachts. It was the largest American yacht
at that time. Unfortunately, Horace Dodge died before it was launched. The Dodge family used it
for a time, but they had it in Brooklyn where it caught on fire and sank. It was rebuilt at
what is now the navy yard the Brooklyn Navy Yard, back to its original state. And then along came
World War II and it was requisitioned by the U.S. Navy and it was renamed the USS Dauntess.
It looked very cool as a warship. It was never in combat. Legend has it that President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Harry Truman Molotov - presumably of the cocktail fame and Winston Churchill enjoyed
the hospitality of the yacht . It is said that the Yalta Treaty was drawn up in the vessel's ornate
smoking room. After the war she went back to the Dodge family and they sold it in 1968. It
went downhill from there. It was not kept up and it ended up rotting in Marseilles when a Belgian
family came along and bought it. The Belgian fellow, who was on board when we did the survey,
he and his daughter did this incredible refit on the boat where they went back and got all the
records and did all the research on the materials and the Tiffany lamps and the Tiffany glass and
they restored it to such a high level. Reportedly, they spent 40 million Euros on the restoration.
They did it all in Belgium, so it it's quite a phenomenal feat in regards to what they did and
the the level of quality that they brought to it. And also doing it in Belgium. The result is
quite spectacular and she was re-christened in September 2003 by Princess Stephanie of Monaco.
It's 258 feet long and I'm just looking at the specs now- 78.5 meters. It's got a beam
of 35 feet. It's classed as a passenger vessel, and that's very important because
it has accommodations for 28 guests and you really you have to have passenger vessel classification
and that is a very high level of classification and speaks to the safety
and the systems on board the boat. And the design is very different from the yachts today
because for one thing it has large promenade decks- and they really deserve that name.
It's similar to the old cruise ships and you just don't see it on yachts anymore. So that's a unique
feature and it's quite wonderful on this vessel. It's got a big formal dining room that seats 28.
It's got these beautiful wood bars, very much in the sort of gentlemen's club
style that you see on some of the classic Camper & Nicholson vessels and
going along with that it's got leather button back chesterfield furniture which is again a
really nice touch. The state rooms are good size. The owner's stateroom is huge, vip staterooms,
wonderful bathrooms with mahogany paneling and marble. So in a lot of ways it's got the
feel of a luxury hotel or a classic old ocean liner. The newer touch it has include a gym;
it's got a spa and a sauna with a full Turkish bath,
a fully equipped hair salon. The bridge is, again, just a really classic yacht or ship's bridge,
really charming. It has two of these steam engines. They're 1500 horsepower each and they
are quadruple steam expansion engines and these were actually developed and patented by the owner
Horace Dodge - so he was the inventor of these engines. Interesting notes about the steam engines
- obviously they don't have any carbon buildup and so they will run and last forever and they get
more efficient once they get all warmed up and heated up. So if you're going on a transatlantic
or a long-range cruise, your efficiency and the fuel economy actually improves as you go along.
And they don't have vibration. They're extremely practical and strong engines. So our survey,
which is now long out of date, found that the steel work was in excellent condition.
This steel hull is riveted and the superstructure is also steel. It's not aluminum, like in a
current vessel. Overall it was just a very impressive experience to have a survey on
Delphine and it's one of the most interesting yachts ever built and it is now 100 years old!
And that's today's vessel review from THE YACHT CHANNEL.
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