Payne had chartered the largest US-built steam yacht in 1897 and was impressed by the large seagoing vessel.

Payne developed requirements for a similar and larger yacht and asked the company to submit a design and price for it.

[1][note 1] Four large ballast tanks were arranged, fore and aft of the machinery space, so that draft and trim could be adjusted suitably for steam or sail combinations.

[4][5] Bath Iron Works submitted the winning design and price for such a yacht, capable of crossing the Atlantic at full speed.

The keel was laid in June, and the hull was launched and christened Aphrodite on 1 December 1898 by Miss Vivien Scott, the daughter of the yacht's commander, Captain C.W.

It was rated at 294 NHP[8] or 3,200 horsepower at about 132 revolutions, and drove a four bladed right hand bronze propeller cast as a single piece.

[2] Cabin finishing joiner work, hull cementing were done in New York after the yacht arrived there on 29 March 1899 for interior decoration and final touches.

[2][4] Aphrodite was described as a "sea palace" with the design by Bath Iron Works' Charles R. Hanscom merging Payne's requirements for an unusually seaworthy vessel with luxury and beauty.

The yacht had been explicitly designed for ocean cruising rather than coastal entertainment, with Payne expressing the desire to sail Aphrodite around Cape Horn.

[9] Despite the absence of a luxurious main saloon usual on such large yachts, the craft was amply arranged for Payne's focus on long distance, ocean cruising.

It was 17 ft (5.2 m) wide, with galley, pantries, ice machine, drying room and upper engine space aft.

Chilled provisions for long voyages were kept in separate refrigerated spaces for meat, fowl and fish in the main hold.

The yacht is described during the winter of 1900 at Red Hook, Brooklyn's Erie Basin as "covered from stem to stern with an awning of heavy canvas passing over the main boom aft and made fast to the bulwarks all around.

[12] On 14 June 1917 the first convoys carrying elements of the American Expeditionary Force left for Saint-Nazaire, France in four groups.

[12] After the Armistice of 11 November 1918, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels wired Vice Admiral Sims that a number of yachts, including Aphrodite, were free of their leases and should be returned to the US if practicable.

She was decommissioned at the Fleet Supply Base at Brooklyn, on 12 July 1919 and returned the same day to her new owner, Harry Payne Whitney, who had inherited most of his uncle's estate.

[14] The 1928 edition of Lloyd's Register of Yachts recorded Aphrodite's owner as "The Executors of the late Payne Whitney".

[16] By 1933 Hellenic Coast Lines had renamed her Macedonia,[17] and by 1934 the call sign SVBX had superseded her code letters.

[18] The former yacht, with cargo and passengers, was sunk by German aircraft 22 April 1941[note 3] at Trizonia in the Gulf of Corinth near Patras, Greece.