Wanderlust

Wanderlust

(MB: t. 48; 1. 83'0"; b. 13'1"; dr. 3'8 1/2'' (mean); s
12.0 k.; cpl. 13; a. 2 1-pdrs., 1 mg.)

Faalua a wooden-hulled screw launch designed by F. D. Lawley and built by George Lawley and Sons, of Neponset, Mass., for George G. Peters of Boston— was subsequently owned in turn by Sherburn M. Becker and E. J. Steiner, both of New York City, prior to World War I. Apparently Steiner purchased the yacht in 1913 and renamed her Wanderlust, the name she carried at the time of her acquisition by the Navy in the summer of 1917 and carried during her naval service. Delivered to the Navy on 26 August 1917, Wanderlust was designated SP-923 and was commissioned at the Charleston Navy Yard, Charleston, S.C., on 12 September 1917, Lt. (jg.) J. P. Smith, USNRF, in command.

Wanderlust operated on section patrol duties in the 6th Naval District well into 1918, although she appears to have spent much time, initially, undergoing repairs for her temperamental engines. Her ports of call included Parris Island, Port Royal, and Charleston S.C.; Savannah, Gal, and Jacksonville, Fla. When on patrol duty, Wanderlust stopped and boarded fishing craft, ascertaining whether or not they carried proper navigational equipment and licenses that were in order.

Wanderlust conducted night harbor patrols at Brunswick, Gal, from April into the late autumn of 1918. The ship's deck logs cease on 30 September 1918 when the ship was at Brunswick. The 1918 edition of Ship's Data: U.S. Naval Vessels lists the craft as serving on section patrol duties as of 1 November 1918.

In the absence of solid data, it must be assumed that, like many other district patrol craft, if she was in active service in mid-to-late November of 1918, she would have ceased defensive patrolling on 24 November, nearly two weeks after the armistice stilled the guns on the western front. She may have lain in reserve or performed dispatch services between 30 September 1918 (when her deck logs end) and 2 February 1919, the date upon which the erstwhile patrol craft was struck from the Navy list.

Wanderlust retained her name into the 1920's under a succession of owners—including Irving E. Raymond of Stamford, Conn., and Mrs. Marguerite Park of New York City—before she was acquired in 1927 by William Sternfeld of New York City, who renamed her Diana.

She disappears from the Lloyd's List of American Yachtas between 1929 and 1931.