Posts
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
Monday, February 15, 2010
Dear Friends January 2010
January 2010
Dear Friends,
December has come and gone so fast I found it hard to catch my breath. Ocean Reef’s Vintage Weekend this year was a great reminder of years past. Freedom, the 103 Trumpy built for Albert G. Fay in 1927, Contract 181 took center stage. Alan Jackson brought two yachts, a Burger and a Rybovich. Then, there was Jonathan III, a wooden Burger.
The true gem of the show was Legion, the oldest Rybovich around that has been totally restored by Mike Rybovich himself.
There was of course my personal favorite, 75’ Trumpy M/Y America, Contract 420, built in 1965 for James L. Knight, owned by Ted Conklin, the owner of the American Hotel in Sag Harbor. I have spoken of this Trumpy many times and we have taken care of her for many years. She is a one-of-kind, classic houseboat with the longest foredeck, with exquisite clean lines. As for Freedom, I finally got to see her finished in persona and she is a masterpiece. Earl has a lot to be proud of on Freedom.
It was a great show.
Nate Smith, my partner, flew down from MMYC in North Carolina to help bring Washingtonian from St. Augustine to Beaufort. Nate usually doesn’t go out on the yachts more than for a sea trial now and then. But there was safety concerns on Washingtonian making the journey so Nate stepped in for the trip. The journey north went smoothly and she is now sitting in at our Beaufort yard.
The Washingtonian project is to get a COI or get a U.S. Coast Guard ticket back so she can charter. She has new owner, Paul and Tracy Berger of Chicago. He is a renown architect there.
Her to-do list includes shaft logs, new transom and a lot of small projects. We plan to install a bright work transom built out of mahogany. The JDW building has come in handy and this project will slide right in.
The Honey Fitz project is in full swing. Chet Gallanari is the lead carpenter on the project and he has really stepped up. This is a significant project.
Capt. Bryan Akers of the 1930 Consolidated Justice dropped by and took a look at Honey Fitz. “My God, the Honey Fitz looks like she’s in traction,” he said.
I never thought about it, but she sure does. Twelve steel pipes have been welded to her engine beds, where six motors hang on pipes and jacks. There are eight that go through hull to lift the weight of the deckhouse up. We have cut many holes to feed laminate ribs and taken four points per side and laminating three per area. Then, we plan to strip off all the hull in between this. This will be the fastest and most efficient to reshape the hull. With battens screwed in place, there we will be able to do multiple rib laminations at the same time and be able to put her back to her original shape.
We are having virgin cut vertical grain Douglas fir cut, milled, dried and shipped from the West Coast of the U.S. The Honey Fitz was built out of some of the finest, tightest grain vertical cedar of her time. That no longer exists. Also, there’s a lot more weight that has been added to her in the engine room than when she was originally built.
The Douglas fir is a little heavier but will add considerable strength where its needed. With planking out of the way, the metal preservation can be done from the outside of the hull and can be reached from the inside.
This is a very ambitious undertaking, a challenge and I love challenges.
We have soaked the forward bilge wood as we slowly rotated the forward third of the hull until we have zeroed out the levels. From the aft engine room bulkhead to the stem, we have removed the twist and the center hog. However, the aft hog is locked in because that area was already rebuilt with the hog in place by another company.
I have gone on a quest to learn as much about the Honey Fitz as I can that has lead me from the JFK Library to Mystic Seaport. After three days of telephone calls, I wasn’t able to find plans and had hit a dead end.
I called Earl McMillin and he rattled off information like a machine. It was hard for me to keep up. He told me about the university at Bowling Green that has records of the “The Great Lakes Collection.” It still took a while to find the right person at the university when I finally must have said the right thing. A woman told me I needed to talk to Bob Graham in archival research.
I envisioned a man standing in a long warehouse stacked, from floor to ceiling with boxes and crates of documents. After talking to Bob, my suspicions were correct. He said the university recently acquired Defoe’s total collection and have three shipping containers full of drawings that have yet to be catalogued.
I told him about the Honey Fitz and the information I had, including her service as a presidential yacht and how JFK came to name her. It wasn’t until I told him we had started the restoration that his voice lit up with interest. He promised to get back to me in the next two weeks. Three days later, I got a call. “I found all of them, including launching photos, scantlings to materials listed with engineer notes,” he said.
Then it snowballed. The JFK library’s Laurie Austin called and told me they had old movies and photos. Then Mystic Seaport’s Louisa Watrous called me and said they had found photos of when Lenore/Honey Fitz served as a U.S. Navy patrol boat with machine gun turrets and missile launchers. If I had wanted something special for Christmas, this was it.
A while later, I received a call from Bill Iler on Windrush about Grand Lady. He had spoken to Dan, the late owner’s son. Bill told me that someone had bought her and the boathouse. The new owner intends to fiberglass her. It wasn’t really the answer I was looking for but then Sunrise, Freedom would probably not be here today if she hadn’t been glassed to hold her together so she could be restored later.
I would like to end on an upbeat note. Andrew, our webmaster, has redesigned and upgraded our web site and it’s back up. We had run out of room in our old photo gallery and we had to move everything. We are reloading the photos as we find time, when Stephanie has extra time. We are making short movies of Honey Fitz restoration and we will be loading those as well. The goal is once a week. It will be on our youtube channel, which is linked to our website at www.mooresmarine.com. Do a search for “Moores Marine” in youtube and you should be able to see all of our little movies, 17 so far.
I am challenging Nate and Judy to do the same with the Washingtonian project. I don’t know if this has been done before, two pre-war yachts getting refits at the same time, in two different states by the same company.
My first movie was pretty rough but I am getting better at holding the camera steady and getting better content, instead of shots of my shoes. Or, Stephanie’s getting better at film editing. At least I’m good at calling “Action,” or “Get to Work.”
Until next time,
Jim
Dear Friends,
December has come and gone so fast I found it hard to catch my breath. Ocean Reef’s Vintage Weekend this year was a great reminder of years past. Freedom, the 103 Trumpy built for Albert G. Fay in 1927, Contract 181 took center stage. Alan Jackson brought two yachts, a Burger and a Rybovich. Then, there was Jonathan III, a wooden Burger.
The true gem of the show was Legion, the oldest Rybovich around that has been totally restored by Mike Rybovich himself.
There was of course my personal favorite, 75’ Trumpy M/Y America, Contract 420, built in 1965 for James L. Knight, owned by Ted Conklin, the owner of the American Hotel in Sag Harbor. I have spoken of this Trumpy many times and we have taken care of her for many years. She is a one-of-kind, classic houseboat with the longest foredeck, with exquisite clean lines. As for Freedom, I finally got to see her finished in persona and she is a masterpiece. Earl has a lot to be proud of on Freedom.
It was a great show.
Nate Smith, my partner, flew down from MMYC in North Carolina to help bring Washingtonian from St. Augustine to Beaufort. Nate usually doesn’t go out on the yachts more than for a sea trial now and then. But there was safety concerns on Washingtonian making the journey so Nate stepped in for the trip. The journey north went smoothly and she is now sitting in at our Beaufort yard.
The Washingtonian project is to get a COI or get a U.S. Coast Guard ticket back so she can charter. She has new owner, Paul and Tracy Berger of Chicago. He is a renown architect there.
Her to-do list includes shaft logs, new transom and a lot of small projects. We plan to install a bright work transom built out of mahogany. The JDW building has come in handy and this project will slide right in.
The Honey Fitz project is in full swing. Chet Gallanari is the lead carpenter on the project and he has really stepped up. This is a significant project.
Capt. Bryan Akers of the 1930 Consolidated Justice dropped by and took a look at Honey Fitz. “My God, the Honey Fitz looks like she’s in traction,” he said.
I never thought about it, but she sure does. Twelve steel pipes have been welded to her engine beds, where six motors hang on pipes and jacks. There are eight that go through hull to lift the weight of the deckhouse up. We have cut many holes to feed laminate ribs and taken four points per side and laminating three per area. Then, we plan to strip off all the hull in between this. This will be the fastest and most efficient to reshape the hull. With battens screwed in place, there we will be able to do multiple rib laminations at the same time and be able to put her back to her original shape.
We are having virgin cut vertical grain Douglas fir cut, milled, dried and shipped from the West Coast of the U.S. The Honey Fitz was built out of some of the finest, tightest grain vertical cedar of her time. That no longer exists. Also, there’s a lot more weight that has been added to her in the engine room than when she was originally built.
The Douglas fir is a little heavier but will add considerable strength where its needed. With planking out of the way, the metal preservation can be done from the outside of the hull and can be reached from the inside.
This is a very ambitious undertaking, a challenge and I love challenges.
We have soaked the forward bilge wood as we slowly rotated the forward third of the hull until we have zeroed out the levels. From the aft engine room bulkhead to the stem, we have removed the twist and the center hog. However, the aft hog is locked in because that area was already rebuilt with the hog in place by another company.
I have gone on a quest to learn as much about the Honey Fitz as I can that has lead me from the JFK Library to Mystic Seaport. After three days of telephone calls, I wasn’t able to find plans and had hit a dead end.
I called Earl McMillin and he rattled off information like a machine. It was hard for me to keep up. He told me about the university at Bowling Green that has records of the “The Great Lakes Collection.” It still took a while to find the right person at the university when I finally must have said the right thing. A woman told me I needed to talk to Bob Graham in archival research.
I envisioned a man standing in a long warehouse stacked, from floor to ceiling with boxes and crates of documents. After talking to Bob, my suspicions were correct. He said the university recently acquired Defoe’s total collection and have three shipping containers full of drawings that have yet to be catalogued.
I told him about the Honey Fitz and the information I had, including her service as a presidential yacht and how JFK came to name her. It wasn’t until I told him we had started the restoration that his voice lit up with interest. He promised to get back to me in the next two weeks. Three days later, I got a call. “I found all of them, including launching photos, scantlings to materials listed with engineer notes,” he said.
Then it snowballed. The JFK library’s Laurie Austin called and told me they had old movies and photos. Then Mystic Seaport’s Louisa Watrous called me and said they had found photos of when Lenore/Honey Fitz served as a U.S. Navy patrol boat with machine gun turrets and missile launchers. If I had wanted something special for Christmas, this was it.
A while later, I received a call from Bill Iler on Windrush about Grand Lady. He had spoken to Dan, the late owner’s son. Bill told me that someone had bought her and the boathouse. The new owner intends to fiberglass her. It wasn’t really the answer I was looking for but then Sunrise, Freedom would probably not be here today if she hadn’t been glassed to hold her together so she could be restored later.
I would like to end on an upbeat note. Andrew, our webmaster, has redesigned and upgraded our web site and it’s back up. We had run out of room in our old photo gallery and we had to move everything. We are reloading the photos as we find time, when Stephanie has extra time. We are making short movies of Honey Fitz restoration and we will be loading those as well. The goal is once a week. It will be on our youtube channel, which is linked to our website at www.mooresmarine.com. Do a search for “Moores Marine” in youtube and you should be able to see all of our little movies, 17 so far.
I am challenging Nate and Judy to do the same with the Washingtonian project. I don’t know if this has been done before, two pre-war yachts getting refits at the same time, in two different states by the same company.
My first movie was pretty rough but I am getting better at holding the camera steady and getting better content, instead of shots of my shoes. Or, Stephanie’s getting better at film editing. At least I’m good at calling “Action,” or “Get to Work.”
Until next time,
Jim
Dear Friends November 2009
Nov. 23, 2009
Dear friends,
I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: I never had the nerve to dream this big. We just started work on the Honey Fitz, a 92-foot, 1931 Defoe cabin cruiser built in Bay City, Michigan, also known as the eighth presidential yacht and “The Yacht of Camelot.”
She was originally built for Sewell Avery, chairman of Montgomery Ward, as Lenore. President John F. Kennedy renamed the boat after his maternal grandfather, John Francis “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, mayor of Boston. Reportedly, one of Kennedy’s favorite photographs shows him on the aft deck of the Honey Fitz with his daughter Caroline.
Recently, Honey Fitz hauled out at the Rybovich north yard to do some shaft work. Rybovich called us in to laser target the yacht because proper haul out and blocking of wooden boats are critical. After the survey, Rybovich executives contacted us again about the boat, particularly Mike Rybovich. She needed more than shaft work.
I was taken aback when Mike turned down the project. I have always held Mike in the highest regard for the amazing sports fishing boats that he and his family have innovated and built over the years.
I visited with Mike about the yacht at his boat shop. “Jim, you are the only one who can do that project right,” he said, “We’re not set up for that type of refit, but you are. Besides, that’s what you do best.”
Mike and I have watched each other’s careers through 28 years. He builds great boats and I restore and preserve them from the past. During the two-year Summerwind refit, we worked almost within shouting distance in the same yard. Me, rebuilding and Mike, building. They each present unique challenges.
When I left his office, it hit me: This is Mike Rybovich. He thinks we’re the ones to do this job right. I have never been paid a higher compliment by a colleague.
So for the next few days, we worked on a game plan. Don Thibeault, our veteran master boat builder, said it best about Honey Fitz. “She’s built like a 90 foot canoe, lots and lots of small frames plus stringers.”
Our immediate goal is to remove the twist she has developed bow to stern and try to reduce the hog. We will be disassembling the engine room, 140 ribs plus 70 planks, eight stringers and that’s just getting started. We have removed hogs in the past but never over this length. This is going to be a great challenge.
I have been doing a little research on her and Honey Fitz is an American legend, with a long history of the rich and famous and powerful.
The following is an excerpt from the JFKlibrary.org website on the boat:
According to Dave Powers (author of Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, and a long-standing friend of John F. Kennedy), Kennedy had some of his happiest moments aboard the Honey Fitz ). A life-long lover of the sea, Kennedy would slip away from the White House for a few quiet hours on the yacht in the Potomac. He spent Easter and Christmas holidays on her in Palm Beach, Florida, as well as taking days off in September and October aboard her at Hammersmith Farm. The cover of Powers' book in paperback version was one of the President's favorite photographs, taken on the aft deck of the yacht.
Commanded by Lt. Cmdr. Walter C. Syle of the Naval Administration since the Eisenhower administration, the Honey Fitz was redecorated by Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy herself, who installed a color television for the first time aboard the vessel, primarily for the enjoyment of her young children.
The vessel was primarily used for the family and close friends, though some dignitaries did visit from time to time (Powers particularly remembered Harold MacMillan on board once), and numerous photographs were taken on the yacht. The boat is also on record as being used to transfer guests down the Potomac to Mount Vernon for a particularly impressive State dinner one evening during JFK's administration.
From President Kennedy's birthday (May 29) until approximately mid-September the yacht was kept at the Cape and used every weekend. One particularly happy occasion was the surprise birthday party Jackie threw for her husband in 1963, with most of the family on board. Kennedy loved to spend time alone with his children on the yacht.
The bullshot was the favorite drink aboard, bracing against even the strongest winds. One of the original Kennedy life preservers and two of the flags from the boat are in the Kennedy Library.
I have been saying I don’t know how many more of these big projects I have left in me. But after launching Summerwind in the spring and taking some much needed time off to renovate our Florida shop and gets some R&R, I am ready to get back in the saddle. I’m sure at the end of this project, I’ll say the same thing again.
Prior to Kennedy, Honey Fitz served presidents Truman and Eisenhower. After him, Johnson and Nixon. Nixon, who named the yacht Patricia after his wife, sold the yacht in 1970.
Then in 1998, the yacht was sold for $5.9 million at a JFK memorabilia auction. Other auction items included a handwritten draft of his inaugural address, best remembered for: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
All of the yachts we work on carry stories with them, of people both famous and not, and good and not so good times on board. Our job is to make sure as many of these yachts carry on to collect more stories, more memories, for years to come.
On that note, I have some bad news as well. I hate hearing them and passing them on but it seems that’s become part of these letters. I just find it disheartening to repeat them.
A few weeks ago, I received a few calls from Maryland about a Trumpy sinking. It was the 71’ Trumpy Eleanor, Contract 243, built in 1939 for William M. Davey as Martha. She has been leaking for some time and there was an electrical malfunction and she went down in relatively shallow waters. She is hauled out now and in Cambridge on railways.
Eleanor, once owned by Howard Hughes, is one of my favorite Trumpy yachts and hopefully will be back in service soon.
The next is Valor. I have received calls from Bill Waskey and Eric Horst about her. This Trumpy, which was featured in the movie “The Wedding Crashers,” is scheduled for demolition soon. The yard manager has offered to let people take what they want before she is crushed. I am not in a position to take advantage of this offer but I have copied the email on the back of this letter.
Also, time is running out on the Grand Lady, the 1919 Trumpy. She needs a new owner, soon. She is one of the oldest Trumpy yachts still alive.
Now, on to the good news. I like that better. Last week was old home week. Everyone showed up at the same time. Capt. Bryan and Cori Akers on Justice, Capt. Kevin Thompson with a 40-foot Garwood in tow and then Capts. John and Aimee Russell on S.S. Sophie.
This means summer is definitely over. This is a happy time of the year and I’m glad to see everyone back, safe and sound.
This month is going by so fast and I’m sorry it took so long to get my last letter out. Some of you might have noticed that your name or address was handwritten or it was sent to an old address.
We had a computer crash. Instead of the mailing list being updated on the server as it was supposed to, it got saved on a local computer that crashed. Best we could do was retrieve a list that went back three years. We’ve been trying to piece it back together.
Moving on, naval architect Bruce Marek has gone back to the drawing board on the launch. Since they will be cold molded, he has worked away to build station frames and with shifting them closer and farther, we will be able to build two different sized launch, a 29 footer and a 40 footer.
I am hoping to see finished plans very soon. The 29 footer will not have the stack, stand up head, and be more a center console or bow steering type.
Lastly, Ocean Reef is coming up quickly. I hear that Freedom, the 103’ Trumpy will be there and Larry Mullins plans to debut his new boat there, the Legend, the oldest Rybovich around. He went to great lengths to find her and bring her back to Florida, her birthplace. Mike Rybovich did the restoration 20 years ago and the boat was recently back with Mike.
I won’t tell you anymore but ask Larry. It’s his story to tell. There are a lot of good, old friends who say they will be there. I hope you’ll be one of them.
Until next time,
Jim Moores
Dear friends,
I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: I never had the nerve to dream this big. We just started work on the Honey Fitz, a 92-foot, 1931 Defoe cabin cruiser built in Bay City, Michigan, also known as the eighth presidential yacht and “The Yacht of Camelot.”
She was originally built for Sewell Avery, chairman of Montgomery Ward, as Lenore. President John F. Kennedy renamed the boat after his maternal grandfather, John Francis “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, mayor of Boston. Reportedly, one of Kennedy’s favorite photographs shows him on the aft deck of the Honey Fitz with his daughter Caroline.
Recently, Honey Fitz hauled out at the Rybovich north yard to do some shaft work. Rybovich called us in to laser target the yacht because proper haul out and blocking of wooden boats are critical. After the survey, Rybovich executives contacted us again about the boat, particularly Mike Rybovich. She needed more than shaft work.
I was taken aback when Mike turned down the project. I have always held Mike in the highest regard for the amazing sports fishing boats that he and his family have innovated and built over the years.
I visited with Mike about the yacht at his boat shop. “Jim, you are the only one who can do that project right,” he said, “We’re not set up for that type of refit, but you are. Besides, that’s what you do best.”
Mike and I have watched each other’s careers through 28 years. He builds great boats and I restore and preserve them from the past. During the two-year Summerwind refit, we worked almost within shouting distance in the same yard. Me, rebuilding and Mike, building. They each present unique challenges.
When I left his office, it hit me: This is Mike Rybovich. He thinks we’re the ones to do this job right. I have never been paid a higher compliment by a colleague.
So for the next few days, we worked on a game plan. Don Thibeault, our veteran master boat builder, said it best about Honey Fitz. “She’s built like a 90 foot canoe, lots and lots of small frames plus stringers.”
Our immediate goal is to remove the twist she has developed bow to stern and try to reduce the hog. We will be disassembling the engine room, 140 ribs plus 70 planks, eight stringers and that’s just getting started. We have removed hogs in the past but never over this length. This is going to be a great challenge.
I have been doing a little research on her and Honey Fitz is an American legend, with a long history of the rich and famous and powerful.
The following is an excerpt from the JFKlibrary.org website on the boat:
According to Dave Powers (author of Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, and a long-standing friend of John F. Kennedy), Kennedy had some of his happiest moments aboard the Honey Fitz ). A life-long lover of the sea, Kennedy would slip away from the White House for a few quiet hours on the yacht in the Potomac. He spent Easter and Christmas holidays on her in Palm Beach, Florida, as well as taking days off in September and October aboard her at Hammersmith Farm. The cover of Powers' book in paperback version was one of the President's favorite photographs, taken on the aft deck of the yacht.
Commanded by Lt. Cmdr. Walter C. Syle of the Naval Administration since the Eisenhower administration, the Honey Fitz was redecorated by Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy herself, who installed a color television for the first time aboard the vessel, primarily for the enjoyment of her young children.
The vessel was primarily used for the family and close friends, though some dignitaries did visit from time to time (Powers particularly remembered Harold MacMillan on board once), and numerous photographs were taken on the yacht. The boat is also on record as being used to transfer guests down the Potomac to Mount Vernon for a particularly impressive State dinner one evening during JFK's administration.
From President Kennedy's birthday (May 29) until approximately mid-September the yacht was kept at the Cape and used every weekend. One particularly happy occasion was the surprise birthday party Jackie threw for her husband in 1963, with most of the family on board. Kennedy loved to spend time alone with his children on the yacht.
The bullshot was the favorite drink aboard, bracing against even the strongest winds. One of the original Kennedy life preservers and two of the flags from the boat are in the Kennedy Library.
I have been saying I don’t know how many more of these big projects I have left in me. But after launching Summerwind in the spring and taking some much needed time off to renovate our Florida shop and gets some R&R, I am ready to get back in the saddle. I’m sure at the end of this project, I’ll say the same thing again.
Prior to Kennedy, Honey Fitz served presidents Truman and Eisenhower. After him, Johnson and Nixon. Nixon, who named the yacht Patricia after his wife, sold the yacht in 1970.
Then in 1998, the yacht was sold for $5.9 million at a JFK memorabilia auction. Other auction items included a handwritten draft of his inaugural address, best remembered for: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
All of the yachts we work on carry stories with them, of people both famous and not, and good and not so good times on board. Our job is to make sure as many of these yachts carry on to collect more stories, more memories, for years to come.
On that note, I have some bad news as well. I hate hearing them and passing them on but it seems that’s become part of these letters. I just find it disheartening to repeat them.
A few weeks ago, I received a few calls from Maryland about a Trumpy sinking. It was the 71’ Trumpy Eleanor, Contract 243, built in 1939 for William M. Davey as Martha. She has been leaking for some time and there was an electrical malfunction and she went down in relatively shallow waters. She is hauled out now and in Cambridge on railways.
Eleanor, once owned by Howard Hughes, is one of my favorite Trumpy yachts and hopefully will be back in service soon.
The next is Valor. I have received calls from Bill Waskey and Eric Horst about her. This Trumpy, which was featured in the movie “The Wedding Crashers,” is scheduled for demolition soon. The yard manager has offered to let people take what they want before she is crushed. I am not in a position to take advantage of this offer but I have copied the email on the back of this letter.
Also, time is running out on the Grand Lady, the 1919 Trumpy. She needs a new owner, soon. She is one of the oldest Trumpy yachts still alive.
Now, on to the good news. I like that better. Last week was old home week. Everyone showed up at the same time. Capt. Bryan and Cori Akers on Justice, Capt. Kevin Thompson with a 40-foot Garwood in tow and then Capts. John and Aimee Russell on S.S. Sophie.
This means summer is definitely over. This is a happy time of the year and I’m glad to see everyone back, safe and sound.
This month is going by so fast and I’m sorry it took so long to get my last letter out. Some of you might have noticed that your name or address was handwritten or it was sent to an old address.
We had a computer crash. Instead of the mailing list being updated on the server as it was supposed to, it got saved on a local computer that crashed. Best we could do was retrieve a list that went back three years. We’ve been trying to piece it back together.
Moving on, naval architect Bruce Marek has gone back to the drawing board on the launch. Since they will be cold molded, he has worked away to build station frames and with shifting them closer and farther, we will be able to build two different sized launch, a 29 footer and a 40 footer.
I am hoping to see finished plans very soon. The 29 footer will not have the stack, stand up head, and be more a center console or bow steering type.
Lastly, Ocean Reef is coming up quickly. I hear that Freedom, the 103’ Trumpy will be there and Larry Mullins plans to debut his new boat there, the Legend, the oldest Rybovich around. He went to great lengths to find her and bring her back to Florida, her birthplace. Mike Rybovich did the restoration 20 years ago and the boat was recently back with Mike.
I won’t tell you anymore but ask Larry. It’s his story to tell. There are a lot of good, old friends who say they will be there. I hope you’ll be one of them.
Until next time,
Jim Moores
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