Sea Cloud

The Sea Cloud is sailing cruise ship of the Sea Cloud Cruises line. Initially built as a private yacht, it subsequently served as a weather ship for the United States Coast Guard and United States Navy during World War II. The ship served as the first racially integrated warship in the United States Armed Forces since the American Civil War. Originally a private yacht, she was transferred to the Coast Guard and then to the Navy during World War II. Following the war, Sea Cloud was returned to private ownership, serving as a yacht for numerous people, including as presidential yacht of the ruler of the Dominican Republic. The ship currently sails in Europe and the Caribbean as part of a fleet of sail cruise ships operated by Sea Cloud Cruises GmbH of Hamburg, Germany.

Private yacht
Sea Cloud was built in Kiel, Germany, as a Barque for E. F. Hutton & Co.. She was launched in 1931 as the Hussar II; at the time of her construction, she was the largest private yacht in the world. In 1935, the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph E. Davies, obtained the ship after marrying Hutton's ex-wife Marjorie Merriweather Post. Davies renamed the ship Sea Cloud. As a man with political influence, Davies entertained many high profile people on the ship, including Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. The ship even served as an informal embassy, as Soviet and United States officials stayed and met on the vessel.

Coast Guard service
Davies had first offered the ship to the Department of the Navy in 1941, but the Navy turned him down. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt objected to the ship entering service, remarking that she was too beautiful to be sacrificed. However, on January 7, 1942, the Navy reassessed their position, chartering the ship for $1 per year. The Navy sent Sea Cloud from Georgetown, South Carolina, to the United States Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland, to be refitted as a "weather observation station vessel", and had its four masts removed and hull painted battleship gray. The Sea Cloud was commissioned as a United States Coast Guard Cutter on April 4, 1942, and assigned to the Eastern Sea Frontier, with a permanent home port in Boston.

During 1942, Sea Cloud mostly served as a weather ship at Weather Patrol Station Number Two (position 52°N, -42.5°W). On June 6, 1942, the ship rescued eight survivors from the schooner Maria da Gloria. On August 3, 1942 and August 4, 1942, the Sea Cloud served at Weather Patrol Station Number One while USS Manhasset (AG-47) was converted to a weather ship.

Naval service
In 1943, the Navy asked for control of Sea Cloud and Nourmahal, another former yacht converted into a weather ship. On April 9, 1943, the United States Navy commissioned Sea Cloud as USS Sea Cloud (IX-99), though she maintained a Coast Guard crew. She was assigned to Task Force 24.

Relieving USCGC Conifer (WLB-301) in February 1944, Sea Cloud patrolled a one-hundred square mile area near the New England coast, generating weather reports for the First Naval District. On February 27, 1944, Sea Cloud travelled to be refurbished at Atlantic Yard in East Boston, afterwards taking over a new one-hundred square mile area at Weather Station Number One.

On April 5, 1944, Sea Cloud received radar indication of a small target at position 39.45°N, -62.5°W, bearing 350° at 3000 yards. General quarters were sounded and battle stations manned, but contact was lost ten minutes later. The target was identified as a submarine, but after Sea Cloud carried out standard anti-submarine drills with no evidence of damage being inflicted, she returned to port.

After minor repairs, Sea Cloud was rebased to Argentia, Newfoundland, where she was assigned to Weather Station Number Three. While patrolling the area on June 11, 1944, the crew spotted a Navy TBF Avenger, exchanging recognition signals. Sea Cloud received orders to report to the USS Croatan (CVE-25) and join the five other escort ships under her command. The envoy searched for a raft reported in the area, but returned with no sightings. After this event, Sea Cloud was once again reassigned to Weather Station Number Four. After a search for a downed aircraft, she returned to port in Boston. Sea Cloud was decommissioned on November 4, 1944, at the Bethlehem Steel Atlantic Yard and returned to Davies, along with $175,000 for conversion to pre-war appearance.

For her wartime service, Sea Cloud was awarded the American Campaign Medal and the World War Two Victory Medal.

Racial integration
In late 1944, Lieutenant Carlton Skinner took command of the ship, after previously serving as executive officer in November 1944. At that time, black seamen were only permitted to serve as ship stewards. After witnessing a black man save the crew of the USCGC Northland (WPG-49) yet still be denied promotion because of the rule, Skinner proposed an experiment. Skinner submitted his plan to the Secretary of the Navy and was allowed to sail his first weather patrol with a fully integrated crew. Within a few months, fifty black sailors, including two officers, were stationed aboard the Sea Cloud. Skinner requested that the experiment not be publicized and the ship not be treated differently from other ships in the task force. Skinner showed that his integrated crew could work just as efficiently as a segregated crew, if not more so, when his crew passed two fleet inspections with no deficiencies.



Under Skinner's command when the ship was integrated, American painter Jacob Lawrence served on the Sea Cloud. He was able to paint and sketch while in the Coast Guard, notably his War Series.

Return to civilian service
Following its return, Sea Cloud received a reassembled rigging in 1947, and a new set of twenty-nine sails in 1949. She was painted white, and a gold eagle painted on the bow. The ship's reconstruction took nearly four years. Ownership eventually went from Joseph E. Davies to his wife Marjorie Merriweather Post in the aftermath of their divorce. After evaluating the cost of running a 72-person crew, Post decided to sell the ship.

Presidential yacht Angelita
Rafael Trujillo, ruler of the Dominican Republic, purchased Sea Cloud in 1955, trading a secondhand Vickers Viscount for it. He renamed the ship Angelita after his daughter. The yacht served as a houseboat and government office. Following Trujillo's assassination on May 20, 1961, his family attempted to smuggle themselves and Trujillo's body to the Canary Islands aboard the Angelita, but were forced back by the Dominican Republic's new government.

School ship Patria
Five years after Trujillo's death, the ship, now named Patria, was sold to Operation Sea Cruises. Company president John Blue renamed her Antarna. He brought her to the United States, but port authorities docked the boat after a dispute. Charles and Stephanie Gallagher paid the fees to get the ship free and set her to sea, even though Blue still held the ship's papers. The two dreamed of making the ship an "oceanic school" where students would supplement their traditional learning with at-sea education. Blue eventually retrieved his ship after a confrontation in Panama.

Cruise ship Sea Cloud
After the ship stayed in port for eight years, Hartmut Paschberg and a group of Hamburg associates purchased her, once again naming her Sea Cloud. Paschberg and thirty-eight other men sailed the ship to Europe, arriving in the Port of Hamburg on November 15, 1978. Sea Cloud spent eight months undergoing repairs in the now-named Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft shipyard, the very yard she was built in. She was redesigned with a sixty-four passenger capacity for a crew of sixty. The ship set sail on her first cruise in 1979, and has since been described by the Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising & Cruise Ships as "the most romantic sailing ship afloat". In 2011, the Sea Cloud underwent extensive renovations at the MWB-Werft, Bremerhaven. She is still operating as a cruise ship.