Qualla: HMS Warrior (1917)

HMS Warrior (1917): Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Raymond Perry Rodgers Neilson, Public domain. She was launched in 1904 as Warrior. By the time German bombs found her in the Channel off Portland Bill on 11 July 1940, she had been Wayfarer, Warrior again, Goizeko-Izarra, Warrior a third time, and finally Warrior II. She had carried Frederick William Vanderbilt around the Caribbean, run aground on the Colombian coast in a hurricane, hosted Franklin Roosevelt at a wedding in Washington, evacuated Basque children from the Spanish Civil War, and been requisitioned by the Royal Navy in two world wars. One steel hull, five names, and three wars. She rests now in fifty meters of water off Portland Bill, broken into pieces, occasionally visited by divers.

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Image: Raymond Perry Rodgers Neilson | Public domain

HMS Warrior (1917): A Yacht for a Vanderbilt

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bain, Public domain. George L. Watson designed her, and the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company of Troon, Scotland, launched her on 4 February 1904. Frederick William Vanderbilt reportedly paid about a hundred thousand pounds for her, the equivalent of nearly half a million dollars at the time. A Parisian dec...

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Image: Bain | Public domain

HMS Warrior (1917): Aground in Colombia

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bain, Public domain. In December 1913, Warrior left New York for a Caribbean cruise with the Vanderbilts and their guests, including the Duke and Duchess of Manchester. After Charleston and Palm Beach and Bermuda, she ran aground off the Colombian coast in heavy weather. Her wireless distress signal ...

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Image: Bain | Public domain

HMS Warrior (1917): Wayfarer and Lusitania

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. By November 1914 the yacht had passed to Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, a cousin of Frederick and an heir to the Vanderbilt railroad fortune. He renamed her Wayfarer, fitted out a nursery for his children, and sailed her to Los Angeles through the just-opened Panama Canal. By March 19...

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Image: Public domain

HMS Warrior (1917): Flagship on the Potomac

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bain, Public domain. In February 1917 the British Admiralty took her, fitted her with two twelve-pounder guns, and commissioned her as HMS Warrior with pennant number 090. She patrolled the West Indies through 1917 and into 1918, calling at Kingston, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts, Antigua, Barbados, Trini...

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Image: Bain | Public domain

HMS Warrior (1917): The Basque Years

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bain, Public domain. Cochran got her back in 1919. By May 1920 he had sold her to Ramon de la Sota y Llano, the Bilbao industrialist and Basque nationalist, who renamed her Goizeko-Izarra, Basque for Morning Star. She flew the Spanish flag through the 1920s and the early 1930s. When civil war came to...

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Image: Bain | Public domain

HMS Warrior (1917): Portland Bill

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bain, Public domain. Before the end of 1937 the yacht returned to British registry, owned by Rex Morley Hoyes of Marwell Hall in Hampshire and operating again as Warrior. In 1940 the Admiralty requisitioned her a second time, converted her for anti-submarine warfare, and commissioned her as HMS Warri...

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Image: Bain | Public domain