HMCo #320p War Bug [Warbug]

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"... Mr. Warburg also offered to the Navy Department a sixty-foot Herreshoff torpedo chaser. This offer was made through the Eastern Yacht Club, of Boston, which has proposed to turn over to the navy eight similar craft. ..." (Source: Anon. "Offers Y. M. H. A. Building. Felix M. Warburg Announces it May be Used for Army Training." New York Times, April 4, 1917, p. 15.)

"IN the lists printed on pages 36, 38, and 40, will be found a complete record of all motor boats and motor yachts which went into the service of our Navy Department during the war period. This is the first time that such a list has been published and is given to Motor Boating at the special request of the Hon. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
The data which is printed is divided into four parts. Motor boats purchased outright by the Government; Motor boats loaned by their owners to the Government on a free lease basis; Motor boats chartered, and Motor boats lost.
The lists include boats propelled by internal combustion motors only—they do not include steam yachts or steamers of any description.
A large majority of the boats purchased by the Government are to be offered for sale at once. Those which are to be sold are marked with a *. ...
*War Bug [Name of Boat]; 1795 [S.P. No.]; 62-4 [Length]; 19,000 [Purchase Price]; Felix Warburg, New York, N.Y. [Former Owner]. ..." (Source: Anon. "Privately Owned Motor Boats Purchased by the Government. First List to Be Published Containing Names of Motor Boats Taken Into the Navy." Motor Boating, February 1919, p. 36-40.)

"If details are few on the role of the [Eastern Yacht] clubhouse as a naval training station, they are no more than clues that a part may have been played by some members at sea --- as tossed out by John Parkinson in his History of the New York Yacht Club: 'A group of Boston yachtsmen, which included some NYYC members, built a one-design division of fast patrol boats at their own expense before their country entered the war. They were about 50 feet long and proved useful.'
The 1917 EYC Yearbook lists eight powerboats, all 62 feet overall, 61 feet waterline, and 11 feet beam, except one 58 feet overall, 57 feet waterline and 11 feet beam. All were under construction for single and multiple owners, including Maximilian Agassiz, John S. Lawrence, Herbert M. Sears, Oliver Ames, Charles F. Ayer, Francis S. Eaton, Charles P. Curtis, and Charles A. and Henry A. Morss. Nathaniel F. Ayer was building the 58-footer. There is no further reference to them. Philip Bolger heard that Ralph Winslow claimed to have designed them while working as Loring Swazey's draftsman. On the other hand, one wonders whether these or the fast patrol boats mentioned by Parkinson --- considerably elongated --- are the same as those alluded to by Devereux Barker in The Eastern Yacht Club Story many years later:
'Shortly after the Declaration of War, the Government asked yachtsmen to subscribe for power boats to be used for submarine patrol. They were to be built by Herreshoff, be about 40 feet long, and cost $ 18,000. The added inducement was that the owner would be commissioned as an ensign and command his own vessel. This inducement was shortly annulled, but in any event, the delays in the yard were so great that few, if any, of the craft were delivered in time to be of any use.' " (Source: Garland, Joseph. The Eastern Yacht Club: A History from 1870-1985. Camden, Maine, 1989, p. 143.)

"War Bug (SP 1795)
Motorboat: Built in 1917 as Herreshoff 320 by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Co., Bristol, CT; Renamed War Bug; Acquired by the Navy 6 November 1917; Commissioned USS War Bug (SP 1795), 17 November 1917; Decommissioned, 28 December 1918; Sold, 30 June 1919. Fate unknown.
Specifications: Displacement 28.89 (gross) t.; Length 62' 4"; Beam 10' 11"; Draft 2' 9" (mean); Speed 20 kts.; Complement nine; Armament one 1-pounder.
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships History: War Bug--a wooden-hulled motor boat completed in 1917 at Bristol, R.I., by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Co.--was purchased by the Navy from Felix Warburg of New York City on 6 November 1917.
Designated SP-1795 and commissioned on 17 November 1917, War Bug was assigned to the 1st Naval District and served in waters near Boston through the end of World War I. Decommissioned on 28 December 1918, she was sold on 30 June 1919 to E. Atkins and Co., of Boston. [E. Atkins and Co. were in the Cuban sugar business and it is possible that the vessel was subsequently employed in Cuba.]" (Source: http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/171795.htm, retrieved March 17, 2007)

"Nine of these 62-foot patrol boats were built by the Herreshoff Mfg. Co. for the training of World War I Naval Reserve volunteers, having been ordered and paid for as a patriotic gesture by members of the Eastern Yacht Club of Marblehead, Massachusetts. (The EYC clubhouse, having been converted early in the war as a barracks, served as an operational base for these patrol boats.) Their cost was $19,000 each. They were twin-screw vessels, powered by two eight-cylinder Sterling engines. These craft ... each carried a standard, Herreshoff-built Columbia-model tender --- a somewhat delicate lifeboat for wartime use." (Source: Bray, Maynard and Carlton Pinheiro. Herreshoff of Bristol. Brooklin, Maine, 1989, p. 152.)

• Anon. "Eastern Y.C. Patrol Fleet." Rudder Magazine, January 1918, p. 7-8. (1,607 kB)
  Document is copyrighted: No. Class history. Vessel description. Owner names. Photos. (#320p War Bug, though part of this class, is not mentioned in the article, because she was independently contracted for by a non-Eastern Y. C. yachtsman.)

• War Bug (HMCo-made index card)
• War Bug (MIT Museum-made index card)
• Note: The vessel index cards comprise two sets of a total of some 3200 cards about vessels built by HMCo, with dimensions and information regarding drawings, later or former vessel names, and owners. They were compiled from HMCo's early days until 1920 and added to in later decades, apparently by Hart Nautical curator William A. Baker and his successors. While HMCo seems to have used only one set of index cards, all sorted by name and, where no name was available, by number, later users at MIT apparently divided them into two sets of cards, one sorted by vessel name, the other by vessel number and greatly expanded the number of cards. Original HMCo cards are usually lined and almost always punched with a hole at bottom center while later cards usually have no hole, are unlined, and often carry substantially less information. All cards are held by the Francis Russell Hart Nautical Collections of the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Mass.

Name: Warbug
Type: Gasoline
Length: 62'4"
Owner: Warburg, Felix

Source: Herreshoff Manufacturing Company. "A Partial List of Herreshoff Clients." In: Herreshoff Manufacturing Company. Herreshoff Yachts. Bristol, Rhode Island, ca. 1931.

• War Bug
• Note: The L. Francis Herreshoff index cards comprise a set of some 1200 cards about vessels built by HMCo, with dimensions and / or ownership information. Apparently compiled in the early 1930s, for later HMCo-built boats like the Fishers Island 23s or the Northeast Harbor 30s are not included. Added to in later decades, apparently by L. F. Herreshoff as well as his long-time secretary Muriel Vaughn and others. Also 46 cards of L. F. Herreshoff-designed vessels. The original set of index cards is held by the Herreshoff Marine Museum and permission to display is gratefully acknowledged.

Name: Warbug
Type: 62' 4" gasoline
Owner: Felix Warbug
Row No.: 741

Source: Herreshoff, L. Francis. "Partial List of Herreshoff-Built Boats." In: Herreshoff, L. Francis. Capt. Nat Herreshoff. The Wizard of Bristol. New York, 1953, p. 325-343.

Year: 1917
E/P/S: P
No.: 320
Name: War Bug
OA: 62' 4"
LW: 61' 0"

Source: Vermilya, Peter and Maynard Bray. "Transcription of the HMCo. Construction Record." Unpublished database, ca. 2000.

Note: The transcription of the HMCo Construction Record by Peter Vermilya and Maynard Bray was performed independently (and earlier) than that by Claas van der Linde. A comparison of the two transcriptions can be particularly useful in those many cases where the handwriting in the Construction Record is difficult to decipher.

"Built in 206 days (contract to delivered; equivalent to $92/day, 280 lbs displacement/day)." (Source: van der Linde, Claas. January 16, 2024.)

"Displacement 28.89 (gross) [long or short?] t." (Source: http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/171795.htm, last visit March 17, 2007)

Note: Research notes contain information about a vessel that is often random and unedited but has been deemed useful for future research.