SUPERYACHT #509
September 2004
Article selected from our quarterly magazine dedicated to the largest
and most luxurious boats with information, interviews, technical
articles, images and yachting news
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Article by
Lino Pastorelli
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S.S. DELPHINE
The Michigan steamship
"Lady" of steel launched in 1921 for Horace
Dodge, "Delphine" is now resident in the
Principally of Monaco where, after a rigorous
"facelift", she was revealed to our cameras.
Viewed from above, from the gardens of Avenue
d'Ostende, moored with the Show Boats megayachts
at the quay in Monaco, Delphine looks like an old
lady slightly indignant about all this shameless
modernity, but she is nonetheless in control of
the situation: next to her Mirabella V doesn't
feel so gigantic!
Her presence on the elegant
quay of the Principality is only the most recent
chapter in a history that began in America in the
1920's. The depression was still far off.
Financial empires and capital moved between the
Great Lakes and the East Coast, and to display
such riches on the catwalk of the Hudson meant
stepping into the elite of the powerful.
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TECHNICAL DATA
LOA: 78.6 metres
Beam: 10.8 metres
Draft: 4.45 metres
Displacement: 1961 t.
Maximum speed: 12 knots
Cruising speed: 8-9 knots
Cruising range: 2000 miles
Diesel consumption: 1000 l/h cruising, 120 l/h in port (generators)
For further information
www.ssdelphine.com
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What better means for such a purpose, Horace Dodge
must have asked himself, than a steam-yacht? An
even bigger steam-yacht, the biggest in the
world, named after his beloved daughter Delphine.
Bypassing the more famous shipyards on the coast,
he chose one in Detroit where the Dodge Brothers'
Company had its headquarters. At that time it was
the leading USA automobile manufacturer and the
company founders lived there. The distance and
the magnate's state of health would not have
permitted the frequent visits he wanted to make
while the vessel was under construction, and this
not only for personal reasons: Horace Dodge was
no newcomer to the nautical sector and his
various experiences had resulted in the
establishment of the Dodge Marine Division which
adapted their car engines to be used on boats.
For example, he himself designed Delphine's power
system. The Dodge brothers however did not live
to see the steam-yacht completed: they both died
shortly before it was finished. Only Horace's
wife and his sister-in-law were present on the
Great Lakes Engineering Works quay on 2nd April
1921 for the launching of this Pharaonic 258
footer. Apart from the owner's suite there were
nine guest cabins, three lounges, a smoking room,
a games room, a music salon and covered decks.
And everywhere a profusion of lights, air-
conditioning and servants. A minimum crew of 55
for 20 guests! Delphine sailed mainly in the
Great Lakes to follow the motorboat races that
Horace Dodge Jr. was so keen on - a painting in
the Delphine Lounge shows the Dodge heir's racer
with the ship in the background - or was used for
high society cocktail parties. It rarely ventured
into the Atlantic: with a four and a half metre
draft and a length of almost eighty metres she
was pretty complicated to sail down the St
Lawrence river or between the locks of the
Welland Canal. In 1926 one of these voyages
nearly proved fatal for the yacht: a fire sent
her to the bottom of the Hudson River but she was
salvaged. Restored at a New York yard under the
supervision of the original designer H.J. Gielow,
Delphine resumed her gilded life right up to the
1940's, perhaps crossing routes with J.P.Morgan's
Corsair or Cornelius Vanderbilt's North Star.
Shipwreck on a rocky bank of the Great Lakes in
1940 was far less disastrous than the one of
1926, but by this time America, like the rest of
the world, was feeling the winds of war. With the
new martial name of U.S.S. Dauntless, she was
used by the US Navy as a base for admiral E.
King, commander in chief of the American fleet.
It appears that the fates of men and battles were
sometimes decided aboard her, with meetings
between the allies - Churchill, Molotov,
Roosevelt and King himself - though these facts
have always been surrounded by a certain secrecy.
When the vessel was acquired by Anna Dodge after
the war, another restoration was carried out and
the funnel now displayed nine gilded braids, one
for every six months of service to the country,
but Delphine's "golden age" was temporarily
suspended. Donated to a charity foundation which
just a year later passed on the encumbering gift
to the Lundeberg Maryland Seamanship School, she
was used for twenty years - under her old wartime
name - for the training of Merchant Marine
captains and officers. Though subsequently
purchased by a couple of companies, one in
America and one in Singapore, she never achieved
the much craved "final restoration", but she did
make her first Atlantic crossing to the
Mediterranean. The vessel remained in Malta and
Marseilles for about four years before the
decisive owner appeared, a Belgian businessman.
Having had Delphine towed to Bruges in western
Flanders, he did not contact a shipyard but built
one, bringing in a series of small businesses
coordinated by his daughter Ineke Bruynooghe and
with the help of naval engineer Antoine Wille.
The ship was brought back to life under a precise
programme: very safe and luxurious charters,
therefore observation of all SOLAS regulations
for fire prevention, HACCP for galleys and
associated apparatus and MARPOL for non-
pollution. All this however without betraying
Horace Dodge's initial spirit of an elitist
yacht. Five years of work with patient research
on plans, paintings and photos in order to
faithfully reconstruct the original style, though
today's materials are all fireproof, plus a
series of comforts that not even Dodge had
envisaged. Delphine was thrice in dry dock in
Belgium and Holland, but her steel hull had
suffered little from the ravages of time. Then at
last, after a long cruise on the Atlantic coasts
of France, Portugal, the Balearics and the
Riviera, she arrived in August 2003 at her home
port, Port Hercule in the Principality of Monaco.
A visit aboard this vintage megayacht is
something of a journey back through time and
through the vessel's strong personality. For
example the many plausible reasons behind the
decision to retain steam engines rather than
replace them with two diesels: they're the
originals, they don't vibrate, they're silent and
fascinating. The truth is that the real spirit of
Delphine, her status of veteran Steam Ship, quite
indifferent to changes in styles, furnishings and
owners, lies in that incredible engine room. Laid
out on no less than three levels it houses two
monumental 1500 HP quadruple expansion vertical
cylinder engines: already a gem at a time when
the most evolved engines were triple expansion.
Maximum speed of 12 knots at 155 rpm, but for the
moment they are being run in and do not exceed 80
revs. The plate on the manometer panel states
that they were built by the Great Lakes
Engineering Works-Detroit-Michigan in 1921,
serial number 578, and it is in this room that
the calendar has really been stopped at eighty
years ago. In a meandering of levers, tubes,
manometers and valves - with back lighting and
foreshortenings borrowed from the best Fritz Lang
- I looked on as some of the ship's six engineers
dismantled for maintenance a con-rod bush from
the gigantic, uncovered engine shaft while others
prepared the lubricants for an imminent
departure. When under way the engineers live
here, two at a time in continuous shifts, 24
hours a day: the great wind sleeves on the
wheelhouse have the purpose of sending forced air
to cool this place which otherwise would be
unliveable in. Delphine has direct drive, which
means there is no kind of inverter, so when the
boilers are under pressure and steam passes into
the cylinders the vessel gets under way. It also
means something else: to go astern the rotation
of the engines must be inverted, a delicate
operation carried out manually by the engineers
at a very precise point in the cycle, on
receiving the "full astern" command over the
engine-room telegraph. Madame Bruynooghe spoke of
a recent test in which this command was given
with Delphine under way at cruising speed: "in
thirty seconds almost twenty tons of steel had
come to a complete stop. but," the owner
admitted, "we don't do this often." Though the
guest staterooms and the two owner's (now VIP)
suites have been maintained on the original plans
of spectacular size and furnishings, the need to
offer a level of "five star luxury" led to the
installation of a fully equipped gym, a
hairdresser's salon, a sick bay with physician
and a hamam, a Turkish bath that accommodates six
persons. Another recent addition is the mosaic
swimming pool on the upper deck while the ample
space (1000 square metres) of the promenade deck
offers the possibilities of lazy sunbathing on
chaises longues, jogging or the simple pleasure
of strolling around and watching the sunset.
Technology and atmosphere cohabit on board: for
example in the smoking room, amid teak and
capitonne leather, you can smoke the last cigar
of the evening or hook up to the Internet on a
wireless network. Social life such as cocktail
parties, soirées etc. are held in the
lounge bar with its imposing Steinway grand or,
for more intimate gatherings, in one of the other
two saloons. Of course on-board music also
follows less traditional channels and each
stateroom has independent Hi-Fi systems which can
be interconnected for parties. Private phone and
independent satellite TV, not to mention a
minibar and elegant bathroom, should suffice to
satisfy the most demanding charter party. There
are usually twenty-four guests aboard, sometimes
twenty-eight if the spare cabin is used, served
by a crew of twenty-six: captain, 1st and 2nd Mate,
able seamen, engineers, stewards, cooks,
hairdresser, doctor and (optional) pianist. All
that is needed to recreate the luxurious and
somewhat démodé atmosphere in which
Delphine is so much at her ease. Before the end
of my visit I met Oliviér, the young
French captain: ".command of a steamship is not a
trifling affair. You have to keep an eye on her
reaction times: for example you need an hour and
a half between getting the boilers going and
casting off, something that must be taken into
consideration on a coastal cruise. On the other
hand there's the fascination of this command,
with its unparalleled "vintage" and modern problems."
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