Buffett's Boat

[CaseyJones]

Don't know if any of you are Parrotheads (fans of Jimmy Buffett), but I purchased his video compilation tape, Tales From Margaritavision. At the end of the tape he sails around on his wooden sailboat that he keeps at his home in Sag Harbor. It is a truly beautiful old wooden boat that has been very well looked after. Thought y'all might want to check it out.

[ishmael]

Don't know if it's the same boat. Apparently not, from what you describe. Buffet used to have a cold molded interpretation of Nat H's Alerion. That was, oh, 15 years ago, so he likely has had several since.

One of the loudly alive moments of my former boat bulding life was seeing the original Alerion at Mystic. Seeing the hollow at the waterline forward, the varnished cabin/cockpit coaming, the detail at the rubrail. Ah shucks, she just sat there, a revelation, a jewel.

[CaseyJones]

Well now, it could be a recent interpretation. I'm no expert, but it looks like a very well maintained old boat. Could be just a well done new one. Either way, it's a beaut.

[garland reese]

I just checked that video out from the local library a couple of weeks ago. I'm kind of a Buffet fan, but I would not qualify as a ture parrothead. He seems like an interesting sort and being a redneck of long lineage, the music is familiar to me. I listend to him quite a bit when I was younger.
I think that Ishmael might be right on that boat.....whatever the case, it sure did bring about a good dose of "boat envy" in my bones.....
garland

[ishmael]

It strikes me: Alerion's lines are essentially those of an enlarged Haven 12 1/2, right down to the centerboard. Old Nat knew proper when he saw it! To be more correct, the Haven is a scaled version/clone of the former. Perhaps someone who is familiar with both sets of lines can comment.

[Todd Schliemann]

Buffet's boat is HIGH COTTON, a Buzzards Bay 25 by N. Herreschoff. She's a light green now. He keeps it in Sag Harbor and it winters at the Coecles Harbor Boat Yard on Shelter Island. There was an article in WodenBoat sometime back about her. She was fairly recently built, cold molded, built to win some wooden boat regattas, which it did very handily. Kind of a surf board with a monstrous main. A tribute to "platform stability." A small engine was put in it a few years ago so she isn't quite as fast as she use to be, but still finishes in the top three whenever she races.

Exceptionally beautiful boat and extremely well maintained. When she's at Coecles Harbor and often when she races, she's my view and is never far away.

[wandiwise]

Buffet's Alerion reproduction used to live on a trailer at a marina next door to the Fairhope Yacht Club near Mobile, Alabama. We kept our then boat at that same marina, a Frances 26. Ours was a lovely boat, but the lines on that Alerion made me green with envy, as green as the color of our hull.

His is not my kind of music, but he's a fine entertainer and seems a nice guy. I was once his guest (along with my van load of neighbors) at a concert at City Park in New Orleans, all at the invitation of one of Buffet's sisters, my back-fence neighbor. He personally parked the lot of us at the foot of the stage, between the rope and the stage.

A fine time.

www

[Todd Schliemann]

It seems Buffet likes his wooden boats.

Is this the boat you saw?
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=852752&a=6202750&p=39758454&Sequence=1&res=high
Buzzards Bay 25 sister ship to High Cotton.

[Q.Foster]

High Cotton was built at Steve White's yard in Maine, only a few years ago. There are a lot of the Buzzards Bay 25s, new-builds, in the Shelter Island area, some gaff-rigged, some marconi. They will be racing as a class soon. Quite the boat to have.
Check out Jonquil in JohnB's thread: weekend something. Same design.
Also note that Maynard Bray calls that beautiful green color simply:
Nathanael Greene (sic)
the color made famous by N.G.H's last boat, Belisarius.

[CaseyJones]

Yep, that's the boat in the video. His has dark grey looking decks and lots of wood in the cockpit. Almost makes me want to get over my aversion to blow-boats.

[John B]

I was told on the weekend that Buffett and Billy Joel have Buzzards bay 25's. Sounds like they are Pretty popular. Are they mostly old boats still or are a lot of new ones being built?

[Todd Schliemann]

Only 5 Buzzard Bay 25s were built at the Herreschoff yard in '14. Don't know the fate or whereabouts of the originals.

As far as I know Buffet just has the one, HIGH COTTON. As Q. said she's new. There is another, GOOSE, in our harbor, a new marconi rigged version. BLUE BIRD is another. There are others near by and more abuilding. Magnificent boats all the way around. Pretty and complete from any angle. Horribly fast upwind and down in most any air. Once you've seen one they are hard to forget. Nat's finest work here. Odd that only a handful were built originally. HIGH COTTON and NAIAD (the one in the previous picture) were some of the new ones that rekindled the rebirth.

Billy Joel hasn't got one yet as far as I know, but has ALEXIS, a very sweet custom fishing boat by Coecles Harbor, extremely well maintained and well mannered. He is doin' some work producing the Shelter Island Runabout with Coecles Harbor. Equally well mannered boats. They aren't wood I'm afraid, but they are a much refined lobster yacht of the Hinckley type, only prettier, and with a lot less pretense. Extremely well made.

If your thinkin' about a Buzzard's Bay 25, I'll fix you up. Course you've got to keep it here. Right next to me would do.

[sawcutmill]

On the subject of nathanael greene,my grandfather, charles rockwell, was the one who started the green color. His first boat,WILD GOOSE, a fisher's island 31, actually a foot an half longer than all of the others , was the first GREEN to be built.He was adopted by the family when his parents passed away, grew up with the Herreshoffs, and in 1928 had "Phantom " built hull no. 1144, she is pictured in the book "Wood water light", i am sailing her in the rendezevous.I still own her and her color is still GREEN,w/ that classic white and black boot, something my grandfather developed. He then had Capt Nat personally design "Belisarius", a design that LFH had helped to work out details on since 1917, as i have the original letters too, including some rosenfeld photos, builder's contracts etc..her hull no is 1266, and she was launched in february 1938, from there my Gfather sailed her in a blizzard to the bahamas, running aground three times before leaving Narragansett Bay. there were no buoy markers at that time, and in the fall of the same year she survived the Hurricane of 38' at Cuttyhunk harbor, i also have his diaries, and in them my Gfather states it blew so hard that the varnish blew off the toerails, impressive considering Bristol Fashion . My parents bought the boat in 1967 and we cruised the Carribean until 1974 , a time when things were still pristine.My grandfather also owned Capt Nat's ALERION too, given to him personally.On my site www.woodwater.com,one (http://www.woodwater.com,one) can see my restoration of my grandfather's 12 1/2, PHANTOM, as well as the other vessel i own which i hope to put up on the "My woodenboat" section, "PELAGIC" a colin Archer type gaff ketch that i bought in England in 1984.so with that said the green in GREENE is really a development by my grandfather, hello to maynard and the gang at GREEN'S Island.

[Q.Foster]

Good stuff, SAWCUT.
You've got a book to write from your grandfather's letters there. I'm ready to read it.
I see by your webpage that you ARE into those colors. The yellow is the same hue as the traditional green.
I saw Belisarious out sailing just a few years ago, maybe watching a Bermuda Race start. Looked tired; that beautiful boat deserves more.

[Todd Schliemann]

Bravo to you and your Grandfather SAWCUT!

I am a quiet admirer of that green color. Always held to the adage that "there are only two respectable colors for a sailboat, black or white, but you'd have to be an idiot to paint one black." Foolish perhaps.

Without necessarily giving credence to the affects of the sun on darker sets of topsides, I have always liked the way mahogany and white topsides complement each other. Also brilliant white (with a touch of blue added to the mix) will pick up any color nearby, the sea, the sun, even marsh grass close aboard. Nothing more heroic than a white hulled sailboat seen against a dark coming squall line.

But that green color has a very strong appeal. It is a dusty light green that is a very nice complementary color opposite nicely varnished mahogany. That green and red thing. At it's best if you have a lot of mahogany. Spending time next to HIGH COTTON makes me respect how subtle that particular hue is. A little either side and you'd either look like a dry celery stick or a lime lollipop. There was a very nice boat I saw last summer named CURLEW (Alerion) in Westport, Mass. that had that green. Very nice.

Thanks for the origin.