We Have All The Delicious Ingredients To Keep Your Home Warm&Savory Open Daily 8am-6pm • 799-3374 • 101 Ocean Street, South Portland Voted Greater Portland’s “Best of the Best” Butcher Shops Two years in a row Averse from a song sung by sailors of the USS Niagara (née Hi-Esmaro),lost in battle in the Solomon Islands: Sleek Hi-Esmaro, the pleasure ship, Built for a sportsman’s pride. Trivial, jaunty, and pleasure bound, Comforts on every side… Now are you consecrated, girls: Blackened and burned you lie. Fair Hi-Esmaro the rich man’s yacht That died as the bravest die! O c t o b e r 2 0 1 7 7 7 from left: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration; Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society - ssmaritime.com Spezia in 2016. And what about John Pierpont Morgan Jr.’s crown jewel, the Corsair IV? Morgan would surely never have imagined his prize yacht serving the British Admiralty during World War II before meeting a tragic end as a converted cruise ship in California, but that’s exactly where the tides took her. In the wake of the war, surviving cruise ships were limited, particularly on the West Coast. The magnificent pre-war Canadian Pacific and Japanese liners that once roamed this stretch of coastline had been brutally sunk in seagoing battles. Spotting a gap in the market, the Skinner and Eddy Corpora- tion, owners of the Alaska Steamship Com- pany, created Pacific Cruise Lines in 1946. The newly formed subsidiary immediately went looking for a ship–and quickly found its star. The Corsair (the IV was dropped) was taken to Todd Shipyards in New York for repair and then sailed to the Victoria Machinery Depot in Victoria, Canada, for conversion to a luxury cruise vessel. William F. Schorn Associates of New York was responsible for outfitting accom- modations for its 82 passengers. The Cor- sair’s staterooms were much larger and more commodious than normally expect- ed on shipboard. No expense was spared in furnishing each room with the very finest of materials available. All bedrooms and state- rooms were fitted with carpets and air-con- ditioning, practically unheard of at the time. Top European chefs were hired to pre- ThemagnificentCorsairmetawaterygraveoffthecoastof Acapulcoin1949.Theshipwasabandonedandcanbeenseen onlybyscubadiversinthecrystalbluewaters.