World Cruise of the Motor Yacht Orion, November 5th 1929 - June 11th 1930

243, [7] pp. 8vo. Blue cloth spine, paper-covered boards, gilt titles and top edge. Color maps on endpapers, black-and-white photographs throughout. An account of a round-the-world trip undertaken by one of the wealthiest merchant families in the United States at the time, just as the Great Depression was beginning to unfold. Stops included Havana, Algiers, Genoa, Tunis, Malta, Cairo, Ceylon, Rangoon, Penang, Singapore, Siam, Java, Bali, Manila, Hong Kong, Canton, Macao, Japan, and Honolulu. At the time, the Orion, at 333 feet, was the largest yacht in the world, and required a crew of 50. Ten years after the voyage the boat was commissioned and repurposed by the U.S. Navy, and it went on to several other interesting incarnations as well, with its ultimate use as a floating apartment at the Athens Olympics in 2004.