She was built in 1929–1930 by Krupp Germaniawerft at Kiel as Reveler for Russell Alger, chairman of the Packard Motor Car Company, and her subsequent owners include Robert Stigwood and Paul Getty.

[5] Reveler was renamed Chalena, drawing on the first names of the owner and his wife, Helena, allocated Callsign MJPT (changed the following year to WGEJ) and home-ported at New York.

[7] After conversion by the Gibbs Gas Engine Company at Jacksonville, Florida, during which her interior was gutted to make way for a complement of 110 and her clipper bow removed, she was commissioned as USS Beaumont on 22 June 1942, under the command of Lt. Comdr.

She departed from Balboa on 16 August, arriving at her new base, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 2 September, where she was assigned to the Hawaiian Sea Frontier as a weather ship in support of the Pacific Fleet.

Beaumont, alternating with USS San Bernardino (PG-59) (also a former motor yacht, Vanda), collected meteorological information across an area of the Pacific between her base in Oahu and Midway Island.

[5] The Australian-British music entrepreneur and film producer Robert Stigwood purchased the yacht in August 1983, sending her to Malta for a refit lasting eight months, which included restoration of her clipper bow.