 On 13 Jul 42 VCNO asked BuShips to negotiate a bareboat charter agreement with the owner of the auxiliary steel schooner yacht PIONEER at $1.00 per year.This vessel had been designed by Cox & Stevens and built by Krupp's Germaniawerft at Kiel, Germany, in 1927 as CRESSIDA for the German-American industrialist Hermann Oelrichs, who was a member of the Vanderbilt family.She was reputed to be one of the fastest tall ships on the west coast, often making 14 knots in races off Newport Beach, Calif. Oelrichs sold her in the mid-1930s to George Washington Vanderbilt III, who used her for recreational cruises and to explore Africa and the South Seas.