SMS Seeadler solved a World War I raider's fuel problem

Seeadler's sailing rig reduced the fuel and support demands that constrained German raiders far from home. She had three masts carrying 2,600 square meters of sail, an auxiliary diesel giving about nine knots, and a crew of sixty-four. Two 105 mm guns and two machine guns provided her armament. She captured sixteen ships totaling roughly 30,000 tons, including steamships, before a tsunami wrecked her on a reef and her crew burned the wreck to conceal it from Allied ships. Sailing vessels had long operated around the world without support from home, and this ordinary commercial appearance also made Seeadler an unexpected raider in the First World War. Her British construction and successive commercial ownership in Glasgow, Montreal and New York preceded German acquisition in 1915. This argument for sail as a raiding solution applies specifically to First World War conditions and rejects the same approach for the Second World War.