GOING,GOING,GONE.

WORDS BY JUSTIN RATCLIFFE

Rusting away in La Spezia, Italy, is a piece of presidential history. The USS Williamsburg was formerly the official yacht of President Harry S. Truman, but her days are now numbered. She is shortly

due to go under the hammer, but if the auction doesn’t produce a buyer she will be broken up for scrap.

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It’s easy to miss the narrow road behind the imposing Fincantieri facility in La Spezia that leads to the Navalmare shipyard. Moored stern to at the commercial quayside, and dwarfed by offshore platforms under construction, is what remains of the USS Williamsburg. Now little more than a derelict hulk and showing more rust than paint, the 74m motoryacht looks forlorn after 20 years of neglect. But with her faux smokestack and fantail stern she still clings to her classic charm and it is not hard to imagine her in better days as a gleaming white presidential yacht, cruising the Potomac River in Washington DC.

Bath Iron Works in Maine launched the steel-hulled vessel as Aras in 1930 for Hugh J. Chisholm, a wealthy paper magnate, who owned her for more than a decade. In 1941, with America on the brink of joining the Second World War,

Aras was requisitioned by the US Navy and sent to Brooklyn, New York, where she was fitted out as a gunboat and renamed the Williamsburg. From there she was posted to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The day after she arrived, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and America entered the war.

Her wartime exploits are well documented and ranged from escorting merchantmen and rescuing survivors of submarine attacks in the North Atlantic to transporting gold bullion. She later entered the Norfolk Navy Yard to be converted into an amphibious force flagship for the war in the Pacific. But following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Japanese surrender, the conversion took a different course when the Williamsburg was earmarked to replace the USS Potomac, a former Coast Guard cutter

IT IS NOT HARD TO IMAGINE HER IN BETTER DAYS AS A GLEAMING WHITE PRESIDENTIAL YACHT, CRUISING THE POTOMAC RIVER IN WASHINGTON DC.

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Opening page: USS Williamsburg in La Spezia.Previous page: (top) The yacht was transported to La Spezia in 1993 to be refitted but plans fell through, (bottom) USS Williamsburg in her heyday.This page: Broker David Seal is on a quest to find a buyer.Next page: A proposed render of the refit yacht from Green Yachts, (bottom) Harry Truman, left, and Winston Churchill, right, on board USS Williamsburg.

that had served Franklin D. Roosevelt as the presidential yacht.

One of the modifications requested by President Harry Truman, Roosevelt’s successor, was the addition of an upper-deck lounge and bar, where he liked to mix business with pleasure (both literally and figuratively) by playing poker with foreign leaders such as Winston Churchill. It is likely that the Marshall Plan, NATO, the recognition of the state of Israel, the Korean War and other international matters of state were discussed on board.

By all accounts, Truman was a keen yachtsman and cruised on board as far afield as Florida, Bermuda, Cuba and the Virgin Islands. He enjoyed the naval camaraderie, and old film footage shows him swimming off the yacht with the officers and crew.

The Republican President Dwight Eisenhower took office in 1953, but it appears he disagreed with lavish yachts almost as much as he disagreed with Democrat policies. He made only one cruise aboard the Williamsburg, announcing it was “too rich for my blood”, before she was decommissioned and eventually struck off the Navy list in 1962.

Following her wartime heroics and glory days as a presidential yacht, the vessel began a new career as the oceanographic research vessel Anton Bruun, voyaging deep into the Indian and Pacific oceans on scientific expeditions. Her exploring came to an end after she was damaged in a dry-docking incident in 1968. She was acquired by a

commercial company for use as a floating hotel-restaurant (an operation that lasted only two years) in New Jersey, but while being towed up the Salem River, the unlucky yacht grounded on a mud bank. The Williamsburg next re-emerged in Philadelphia where, in the late ’70s, she was refurbished with Truman memorabilia with a view to converting her into a private club. The venue never opened.

It was an ignominious end for a vessel with such a glorious past, but things were about to get worse. In 1993, under a group of investors calling themselves the USS Williamsburg Corporation, she was transported to La Spezia to be refitted as a boutique cruise ship at the Valdettaro Shipyard in La Spezia, but these plans were never realised due to lack of funds. When the Valdettaro yard went under, the bankruptcy court awarded the yacht to Navalmare in lieu of unpaid bills.

Since then, there have been numerous efforts to save the Williamsburg. There is, for example, a USS Williamsburg Preservation Society, but besides setting up an unused Facebook page, the organisation has not achieved very much.

The most proactive efforts to find a buyer have been made by David Seal, an English yacht broker currently with Northrop & Johnson, living in Italy. A keen blogger, Seal has made numerous appeals through social media and even produced a video with Navalmare to highlight the plight of the yacht.

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“The Williamsburg has one heck of a history, which is why it’s so sad to see her rotting away here so far from home,” said Seal, when The Superyacht Owner recently went to visit the yacht in La Spezia. “I’ve had four promising enquiries from owners who have seen the online video, but unfortunately we still don’t have a buyer.”

“She’s been here for more than 20 years, but her time is running out,” added Stefano Pitton, commercial director at Navalmare. “We’ve decided to put her up for auction in June and if she doesn’t make the asking price, she’ll be scrapped.”

The asking price will depend on what a prospective owner wants to do with the yacht. If they want to restore and refit the yacht elsewhere, Navalmare would do just enough to keep her afloat for a price somewhere above her scrap value. Alternatively, the shipyard is equipped to recondition the vessel in-house to superyacht standards, but at considerably higher cost (a conservative estimate for a full restoration is around $50 million).

To this end, two Italian design studios have produced initial concept renders. Studio Faggiono came up with a series of highly classic interior designs

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The first American presidential yacht was the steam vessel Mayflower originally built for Ogden Goelet, who owned vast swathes of New York real estate. When the war with Spain began in 1898, she was converted into a fast gunboat to suppress would-be gunrunners out of Havana, Cuba. She served as Theodore Roosevelt’s presidential yacht until 1929 and was broken up in 1955.

The US Coast Guard cutter Electra was renamed USS Potomac in 1936 and served as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential yacht until his death in 1945. It is thought to be one of only four presidential yachts still in existence (including the Williamsburg). Preserved in Oakland, California, as a National Historic Landmark, the USS Potomac opened to the public in 1995 following a 12-year restoration.

The 92ft commuter-style motorboat Lenore II, built by the Defoe Boat Works in Michigan, was renamed Honey Fitz by John F. Kennedy (after the nickname of his maternal grandfather). He used the yacht extensively with his family on the Potomac River and also in Newport and Palm Beach. She was sold off by the Nixon administration and has been privately owned ever since.

Now privately owned, the wooden-hulled 1925 USS Sequoia served as the presidential yacht from Herbert Hoover to Jimmy Carter and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987. Under Carter’s direction, she was sold at auction in 1977 as part of government cutbacks. Although replaced by the Potomac, the yacht was assigned to the Secretary of the Navy and served subsequent presidents and other government officials.

that are sympathetic to the era when the Williamsburg was built. Green Yachts in Genoa developed a sleek exterior profile that offers a more contemporary interpretation of the existing lines, and the studio’s principal, Mattia Massola, has received at least one serious enquiry from a US owner.

Touring the yacht reveals the full extent of the damage wrought by decades of slow deterioration. Make no mistake, this is a restoration project that would require a thoroughly committed owner with very deep pockets. A few years ago, fire destroyed the wheelhouse, but thieves had already removed objects of historic value such as the brass fittings and helm wheel. Most of the hull frames are sound, but much of the steel plating is corroded beyond repair and the superstructure would have to be entirely rebuilt in aluminium. The engine room houses two massive 16-cylinder main engines that could conceivably be saved, but it would make more sense to replace them with modern engines that are more compact, economical and reliable.

Still, the task is not impossible and there are plenty of precedents. The

1920 Big Class sailing yacht Lulworth spent years mud-berthed in the River Hamble, followed by a decade awaiting restoration in Italy, before being returned to her former glory (with interior design by Studio Faggioni) and relaunched in 2006. Built in 1921 for Horace Dodge, scion of the American automobile family, the 78m SS Delphine was sold at scrap value in 1997, but then fully restored (including her original steam engines) at an estimated cost of $60 million.

Not to mention other presidential yachts that have undergone loving restoration, such as Roosevelt’s USS Potomac, known as the ‘Floating White House’; USS Sequioa, which served a long line of presidents; and JFK’s diminutive Honey Fitz, built in 1931. In an example of history turning a full circle, Honey Fitz began life as Lenore II, escort to Truman’s Williamsburg.

The post-war history of the Williamsburg is one of big plans and small budgets. There is just time for one more big plan before this most lavish of presidential yachts is condemned to end her days as nothing more than scrap metal.

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MAKE NO MISTAKE, THIS IS A RESTORATION PROJECT THAT WOULD REQUIRE A THOROUGHLY COMMITTED OWNER WITH VERY DEEP POCKETS.

Above: A salon concept from Studio Faggiono, who came up with a series of highly classic interior designs.