Aloha II was requisitioned by the US Navy and saw service in the final years of the First World War. She was returned to Curtiss in 1919 who restored her to her pre-war glory and later set off on a two-year world cruise. After returning home she would go on to spend the rest of her life under Curtiss James’s ownership as the flagship of the New York Yacht Club (by now properly buffed up again)
Aloha, the bark Battened down one day on Aloha in a small trickle in Labrador during a bad storm, Arthur contemplated an even larger boat that would carry the same Hawaiian name. After four days the storm let up and Arthur had some promising sketches of a new vessel to show for it. In addition to running a complex system of railroads and building three imposing houses, he would put 270,000 miles under the keels of his three vessels. At the same time as Beacon Hill House
was being built for Arthur’s Newport estate, Aloha the bark was under construc- tion at Fore River Shipbuilding Company, in Quincy, Massachusetts. Given the attention being lavished upon
the dwelling on Telegraph Hill, the influ- ential companies and many experts involved, it is difficult to comprehend that Aloha the bark was an even more demand- ing operation. But it was. Either project would have been considered an ultimate expenditure of time, energy and money for most capable, dynamic men of means. But Arthur Curtiss James handled them both with aplomb. And not from his easy chair. He was fully involved in both. James initiated the original sketches for
the yacht, as we know, and his multi- talented Captain Bezanson built a large, detailed model of the vessel as imagined during Aloha’s winter lay-up at New London in 1908-09. While Clinton Crane was again the lead designer of the vessel, both Crane’s design firm, Tams, Lemoine & Crane, and A Carey Smith & Ferris were
54 SEAHORSE
involved. Nearly three years were spent planning before the building contract was placed, during which time six sets of plans were drawn (all by hand, of course), and six models were built. James himself was on top of the project the whole way. Built of steel, the third Aloha would be
the new flagship of the New York Yacht Club. Rigged as a bark (a sailing ship, typically with three masts, in which the foremast and mainmast are square-rigged and the mizzenmast is rigged fore and aft), the yacht was 216ft overall, 167ft on the waterline, with a beam of 35ft 6in and a draught of 17ft 6in. Fully rigged, Aloha would weigh in at 659 tons. Her mainmast would just make it under
the Brooklyn Bridge at mean high water (276.5ft). Her lines were elegant. Her free- board was on the shallow side, giving a yacht of such size and tonnage an unusu- ally racy look. The sweep of her sheer was subtle. Her overhangs fore and aft – 40ft in total – were finely tapered. Her decks were teak, which was heavier but longer lasting than the traditional pine. Non-corrosive white metal was used for
deck gear and fittings instead of brass, which would have required constant polishing. Her service boats included steam launches of 30 and 21ft, three lifeboats housed on a boat deck and launched by steam power, and a dinghy. Alohawould carry 20,000ft2
of sail,
and make 10kt under the power of a 400hp triple-expansion steam engine driving a feathering propeller (diesel power would replace steam in 1926). Below were six large staterooms for
owner and guests in addition to accommo- dation for maids and a doctor. The owner’s stateroom spanned the full width of the vessel. The spacious fo’c’s’le housed the crew of 38 men. The main salon measured 32 x 17ft. A sick room afforded isolation if need
be. A laundry room was fitted out with the latest machinery, and there was hot and cold running water throughout the vessel. Below the berth deck was the hold, a cavernous space with 7ft of headroom, housing the main refrigerators and store- rooms for wet and dry goods. One detail in particular is an example of
the amount of care and thought that went into every aspect of the yacht. It was the shape of a hatch opening on the overhead of the dining saloon that Arthur wanted to stimulate his guests’ sense of beauty. According to the man who built the hatch
at the Fore River yard, whose name has been lost, ‘Commodore James stipulated that the hatch opening, as viewed by diners seated in the saloon, had to be shaped as a perfect ellipse. It was my job,’ the builder wrote, ‘to arrange for this thing of beauty. Sole dimen- sions given to me comprised the major and minor axes. Shaping of the metal was not permitted until after the naval architect came to Quincy from New York and checked the layout for accuracy of ellipse.’ Arthur Curtiss James knew what he
wanted in his yachts as much as he did in his business and his home life. But with his astonishing capacity for detail he was never afraid to play his part, however small the task at hand.
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