Although Wade declined the offers, the ship, after moving on to visit ports in China, was detained for several hours under suspicion of being a Japanese vessel.

[4] The yacht carried a crew of 26 officers and men and carried four boats including a steam launch and a metal lifeboat[3] Wadena was equipped with machinery to distill up to 1,200 US gallons (4,500 L; 1,000 imp gal) of fresh water daily, and a refrigeration system that was capable of producing 3,000 pounds (1,400 kg) of ice daily in addition to chilling food storage areas.

Near the daughter's room was the gun case, containing a mix of revolvers, shotguns, rifles, and cutlasses, which were thought to come in handy during visits to the South Seas.

[3] Wade's stateroom had elaborately carved mahogany, a double bed, a closet, moveable reading desk, and a porcelain-lined bathtub with hot and cold running water.

[3] In April, rumors that asserted Wadena had sunk in the Mediterranean, perhaps fueled by the how low the boat sat in the water, were dispelled in the American press.

[3][5] The family was accompanied on this initial trip by Wade's mother-in-law, and by his brother-in-law George A. Garretson, a West Point graduate who would later serve as a general in the Spanish–American War.

After this, Japanese Emperor Meiji attempted to purchase the Wade's yacht, intending to convert it into a dispatch boat, but the family did not part with their craft.

From there the family departed their yacht in order to board the American steamer St. Louis for its inaugural westbound transatlantic crossing from Southampton on 15 June 1895.

The captain and crew of Wadena sailed her back across the Atlantic with orders to prepare her for racing season, and arrived at New York on 16 June 1895, a year to the day she departed.

[10] In company with converted yacht Yacona and tug Mariner, Wadena got underway a half-hour before the end of the forenoon watch on 6 February 1918, for New London, Connecticut.

Anchoring off New London at the outset, the yacht shifted berths to the Central Vermont Railroad Pier, where she remained until steaming to Newport, Rhode Island, on 22 February.

Soon thereafter, at the start of the afternoon watch, Mariner, her seams opened by the pounding sea, her pumps inoperative, and boiler fires put out by the rising water in her engineering spaces, signaled: "We are sinking fast".

Later, while the rest of the convoy continued on its passage and Mariner, abandoned, drifted off to sink by day's end, Wadena retrieved SC-177 and ultimately reached the British naval station at Hamilton, Bermuda, on 1 March.

Underway again on 25 May, Wadena sailed for the Azores and returned to Bermuda in company with old consort Yacona and a trio of tugs, Undaunted, Goliah, and Arctic, on 20 June.

She performed patrol and escort duties between Gibraltar and Funchal, Madeira; Ponta Delgada and the Canary Islands; and Tangiers and Safi, Morocco.

An hour into the afternoon watch on 11 November, her quartermaster recorded: "At 1:00 (pm) received word that Germany had signed the armistice and that hostilities had ceased at 11:00 a.m."[10] While the ship lay at Gibraltar, she was inspected by Rear Admiral Albert P. Niblack, Commander, Squadron 2, Patrol Force.

Eventually getting underway on 11 December 1918 to return to the United States, she made part of the passage in company with gunboats Sacramento, Paducah, and the Coast Guard cutter Manning.

As squadron flagship, she departed New London on 5 May 1919, bound for the New York Navy Yard, reaching there the following day in company with converted yachts Wanderer, Corona, Christabel, and Emeline.

On 8 September 1919, the Navy Department discovered a higher bid from S. H. Johnson of New York City had been received and misfiled, and attempted to rescind the transaction with Levinson by refusing to deliver the yacht to which he held title.