Venture II (PYc-52)
1943-1945
The first Venture retained the name she carried at the time of her acquisition; the second Venture was given a general word classification.
(PYc-52: displacement 138 (full load); length 110'0"; beam 17'6"; draft 6'0" (mean); speed 17 knots (trial); complement 24; armament 2 .50-caliber machine guns; 4 depth charges)
The wooden-hulled, triple-screw yacht Vixen was built in 1931 at New York, N.Y., by the Consolidated Shipbuilding Corp., for Adolph M. Dick; the vessel changed hands in 1934, when she was purchased by George Schneiderman of Hollywood, California. Vixen was then chartered by the Navy on 27 December 1941 and acquired by the War Shipping Administration (WSA) on 6 January 1942. Designated as the unnamed submarine chaser PC-826; she was commissioned on 10 March 1942, Lt. (j.g.) Thomas H. Byrd, USNR, in command.
Assigned to the Third Naval District for the duration of World War II, PC-826 escorted coastwise convoys along the seaboard encompassed within the Third Naval District and participated in searches for reported German U-boats.
On 15 July 1943, PC-826 was renamed Venture and classified as a coastal yacht, PYc-52. On 25 September 1944, she was reduced from "in commission" status to "in service" and continued so for the remaining 13 months of her Navy career. After the war ended, the yacht was placed out of service at New York on 10 October 1945; and her name was stricken from the Navy List on 24 October 1945.
On 12 April 1946, ex-Venture was delivered to the War Shipping Administration berthing facility located on Long Island, N.Y., and before the year was out, was purchased by the Credit Corp. of Newark, N.J., for use as a yacht. She was renamed Vixen. Over the ensuing decades, Vixen changed hands three times: when purchased by Vernon M. Bugg of West Long Branch, N.J. (1954), Charles R. Juliano of Merchantville, N.J. (1963) and Apex Controls, Inc., Haddonfield, N.J. (1977).
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
7 April 2022
