Following the end of the war, the vessel returned to private operation in 1946 until 1967 when Mizpah was laid up with a broken crankshaft at Tampa, Florida.

[1] The yacht, originally constructed for the United States Navy but due to naval treaties was prevented from being completed.

[2] In 1929 it was sold to Eugene F. McDonald of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founder and president of the Zenith Radio Corporation,[1][3] who used it both as a Chicago residence and a floating laboratory on which to test his electronics company's new products.

Mizpah departed Sturgeon Bay on 16 November 1942 for service as a convoy escort along the eastern coast of the United States between New York City and Key West, Florida until July 1944.

At that time, Eugene Kinney,[3] McDonald's nephew and Zenith Corporation vice president who had grown up on Mizpah and served as a naval officer in the South Pacific during World War II, learned of her plight and purchased her.