J. P. Morgan’s yacht *Corsair III* was leased to the U.S. Navy in 1917. In this photo, the crew spells out the ship’s name in semaphore.

The New York Yacht Club Goes to War

During World War I, the lavish yachts of New York’s richest families—replete with Tiffany interiors and pipe organs—were commandeered into hunting German submarines

By Henry R. Schlesinger

In late February 1917—two years after World War I began and just before America entered it—the assistant secretary of the navy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, addressed members of the New York Yacht Club (N.Y.Y.C.) in a meeting that likely took place in the club’s Model Room. In what was described in the press as a plea, F.D.R. asked club members to put their yachts at the service of the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. With America’s entrance into the war imminent, the military was woefully short of seagoing vessels.

“I cannot impress upon you too strongly the importance of this help we ask you to render the country,” Roosevelt said near the closing. “You can and will do it, I know.”