Sequoia II AG-23

Sequoia II

(AG-23: dp. 90; 1. 104', b. 18'2"; dr. 4'5"; s. 12 k.;
cpl. 10)

The second Sequoia, a wooden yacht built in 1925-26 by the Mathis Yacht Building Co., Camden, N.J., for Richard Calwalder, Jr., was purchased by the Department of Commerce from her second owner, William H. Dunning, on 24 March 1931 and was transferred to the Navy and commissioned as Sequoia (AG-23) on 25 March 1933, Lt. John S. Blue in command.

"In service" for most of her career, Sequoia has been "in commission" for only three brief periods: 25 March to 16 November 1933, 1 April to 27 July 1935, and 1 August to 9 December 1935. Acquired for the use of the President, she was employed in that capacity until March 1936, when Potomao (AG-25) was designated as the presidential yacht. Sequoia was then assigned as the Secretary of the Navy's yacht, and from that time into 1969 she was used to fill the hospitality needs of high ranking government officials. In January 1969, she was again assigned primary employment as the presidential yacht; but, in June of that year, she resumed her previous, more general schedule under the Secretary of the Navy. Into 1974, she is used by cabinet and other high ranking o~cials as well as by the President, and since the institution of the Department of the Interior's Summer in the Parks program, she has also been used by that agency to provide day trips for school children in the Washington, D.C., area.