Jim Moores

Jim Moores

Monday, February 15, 2010

February 2010

February 2010

Dear Friends,

In my last letter, I had told you that the 1919 Trumpy Grand Lady had a new owner. Well, I recently got a call from a young lady, named Katrina Kingsley, on the verge of crying. She is the granddaughter of the boat’s late owner.
The man who was going to buy the boathouse had led them to believe that he was going to purchase the boat as well. It turned out that he was genuine, didn’t have the money and may have been trying to take advantage of a sad situation.
Her brothers have come to the realization that they do not want the responsibility or the liability of boat ownership. The Grand Lady has been moved, towed from the boathouse and hauled out at a ship yard.
She has 30 days, and then Grand Lady will be demolished. Katrina wants to try one more time to save her grandfather’s treasured Trumpy. In his last days, it gave him peace that Grand Lady would find a home, someone better able to take care of her.
I said I would help but time is running out. Katrina’s telephone number is 814-574-8688. Grand Lady is part of American yachting history. Restored to her 1919 glory, Grand Lady would be yacht a new owner could be proud of saving, a legacy.
I have enclosed photos of her move.
As I write this, I am sitting in my office and home movies from 1963 of John F. Kennedy with his family and friends in Newport, Hyannis Port and Palm Beach are playing on my laptop. From kids riding ponies, to playing with puppies to family cruises on the Honey Fitz.
These home movies show Kennedy, despite all the burdens of leadership, at ease, relaxed on the open back deck of Honey Fitz. He’s drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, laughing in delight at his daughter and her cousins as they play.
In 1963, this was a different country. But yachting is still the same, a respite, a sanctuary. Where you can be with your friends and family and let the water and wind wash away your worries for a time.
The movies keep playing so each time I sit down, it keeps restarting itself so I haven’t seen it all the way through.
We finally got the original blue prints for Honey Fitz, then Lenore, and I was amazed at how much she has changed. I have enclosed some shrunken-down drawings but you they don’t do her justice. From what I’ve seen and reading her specifications, she is an extremely significant yacht, built long and light, with a 16 foot beam built to pierce the water.
Before WWII, naval architecture was a magical mix of both art and science. Thomas D. Bowes, the naval architect, for Defoe Boat and Motor Works, designed this yacht the same way as such greats as Nathaniel Hershoff.
He built a half-hull model, which did two things: you could see what she looked liked on the water and with a trained eye, you could hold it and by softly moving it, you could see how the water flowed around it. The second was that you could use the model to create line plans.
Enclosed is her half-scale measurements. A yacht was built from these types of plans.
Back in 1931, to get a motor with enough horsepower, it would weigh a ton, if not two or three. To design for speed required a great deal of balance, where the 500 HP motors and fuel and water tanks would be placed was critical. If you’re just a little off, you would lose speed.
Honey Fitz has five stringers, two of them are to prevent hogging, where the hull gets pushed into the center.
As we remove sections of the hull, it’s like an archaeological dig. Riveted steel bulkheads and engine stringers to a million clench nails that once played an important in holding the double planking to the transformation of her a military coastal patrol boat and then to a presidential yacht.
As we take her apart, it’s like peeling back history. We are following her original plans. The only changes are splices and lamination of the ribs to meet the new U.S. Coast Guard regulations.
We have been putting little movies on the websites so we are giving away our trade secrets, but I still don’t recommend you try this at home.
The project is moving quickly after the preparations the owners’ crew and we made in set up. The guys have all the ribs for the engine room laminated, 52 of them.
The real secret is to find people who love what they do, and will work hard and fast, and then to get out of their way.
Nate Smith is doing the same at our Beaufort, N.C. yard on the Trumpy M/Y Washingtonian. He manages the projects hands-on, by doing the critical work himself.
Like Honey Fitz, Washingtonian is a U.S. Coast Guard inspected vessel and the usually grim-faced inspectors have been giving kudos to the work that Nate and his crew are doing.
Inspectors have told the owners, Paul and Tracy Berger of Chicago, “You are in great hands and these guys, particularly this Nate guy, know what they are doing. They really know wood.”
We know wooden boats. And we know our wood. And we also know when it’s not good enough for our projects. Nate called me the other day, testy and irritated. “I need real mahogany. The stuff I’ve seen here is junk,” he said. He got spoiled because we have some great suppliers in South Florida.
I made some calls and found a source in Wilmington. Nate was driving down there to hand pick the boards he needs because the wood is for Washingtonian’s transom and it’s got to be right. I’ve enclosed photos of the work on Washingtonian.
My next story isn’t mine, it’s Earl McMillin’s. I am not going to edit or change it, just add it as is with the photos. I laughed so hard. I hope you enjoy it, too. It’s on a separate page.
I would like to close this letter by saying the last few years have been the most trying as well as satisfying at the same time. I don’t know how we have been so lucky, that we are able to continue in what we do: work on grand wooden boats, keep legends alive as our saying goes.
As I look at the continuing loop of the home movies of President Kennedy on my laptop, he is disembarking Air Force One and a group of children run to embrace him. A short while later, they are riding a convertible and then walking down to the Honey Fitz.
It’s a small glimpse not only in a president’s life, but a man’s life. I can see why he loved his private time, away from his duties, spent with family in the open air on Honey Fitz’s aft deck. But there’s always a special phone near him, responsibility always near.
The movie is from the summer of 1963. In a few short months, his life would be taken and the world as we knew it changed.
I know how fortunate I am, all of us. I have paused the film to go back to the shipyard. I need to check on the project. I will watch the end later.


Until next time,


Jim