[1] In 1937 Vanderbilt chartered the schooner Cressida to cruise the South Pacific on a scientific expedition to collect fish specimens under the auspices of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
From May 24 to May 31 the Cressida was anchored at Honolulu; there the expedition disbanded and, via the Panama Canal, the crew returned the schooner to New York City on July 18.
On 17 March 1939 the main part of the expedition began with Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt, the ornithologist S. Dillon Ripley as bird collector, the mammalogist Frederick A. Ulmer Jr.[10] as mammal collector, and B. Berthold, a resident of Medan, in charge of arranging and organizing the transportation.
[1] Ripley and Ulmer did not reach Sumatra aboard the Vanderbilts' yacht but instead left together from New York on February 17, then arrived at Belawan via Marseilles, the Suez Canal, and Colombo, Ceylon.
After the main part of the expedition was complete, Ripley and Ulmer, while waiting for a steamer to take them home, spent 12 days collecting on the island of Nias.