Laid down, 10 April 1957, at Stephens Bros, Inc., Stockton, CA, YP-655 was a YP- 654-class Training Craft used at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, and apparently the Surface Warfare Officer’s School Command (SWOS) activity on the West Coast until 1994 to “provide the midshipmen professional training course with practical training afloat on a robust platform to conduct professional development in a safe shipboard environment equipped with systems essential to modern seamanship and navigation. Such training is designed to develop within midshipmen the abilities of an officer-of-the-deck, a proficiency in navigation, and a working knowledge of afloat operations.”
A number of the same class were used (briefly) in the Navy’s Craft of Opportunity Program which turned YPs and commercial fishing boats into experimental small coastal mine hunters.
The 81-foot wooden hull uses four 6V-71N Detroit Diesel engines, and, as noted by Navsource, was purchased from DRMS by one Anthony Dibnah and converted to the motor yacht St. Elias, then sold to a Jim Hornung in October 2006, and at first maintained at Alameda, CA then Galveston, TX., under her naval livery, once more as YP-655.
Now, apparently, she is up for sale once again in Sea Brook, TX for a very reasonable $385K in what looks like excellent condition.
Anchors away!
