This Concordia yawl, No. 4, just under 40′ long, appeared in WB No. 151. She went to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for restoration and is still a work in progress.
Billings Diesel & Marine of Stonington, Maine, after rebuilding her hull, has had to take over ownership of PAULINE. The cost of completion became too much for the owner, and he had to abandon his dream. So here we have a good hull without an installed engine, and a superstructure that needs considerable work. But the remaining work could be accomplished afloat, saving drydocking fees and eliminating the risk of drying out from an extended period ashore.
Just as we were putting the final touches on this article, we found out that BONNY BRIDE had been donated to Jon Johanson’s International Maritime Library. Jon will continue searching for a new owner, one who will surely appreciate that she’s planked with cedar imported from Maine instead of Nova Scotia pine, and is better built than most. She has room to spare in both the cockpit and cabin—and is in decent structural condition. Perhaps it won’t be too long until we see BONNY BRIDE afloat again.
No prospective buyer as yet has satisfied owner Tucker Reynolds’s criteria: someone who he feels will do the boat justice. Luckily, Little Gull is inside Tucker’s shed—on ice, as it were—so there’s no rush. We believe someone, someday will come along, take the boat under his or her wing, and give her the restoration she needs. Having a boat designed by William Hand and built by Herreshoff makes her unique. What a pedigree! She’s practical as well, having good accommodations, a handsome appearance, and the performance you’d expect from her designer and builder.
Jan Rozendaal so enjoyed restoring Mashnee with George Darling that he came back for more by buying MADDY SUE. As with MASHNEE, the work is being done in Darling’s Charlotte, Vermont, shop. Recent photos show her getting a new transom, some laminated sister frames, and floor timbers. A new engine to replace the old Chrysler gas one is also being planned.
Persistence paid off, both in acquiring CRUSADER and in restoring her. Present owner John Hutchison missed out the first time around, but kept in touch with the man who first bought her (based on “Save a Classic”), and ultimately was able to acquire her before any work had commenced. John then undertook a thorough restoration by himself over several years. Although he is not a professional boatbuilder, his skill is evident in the photos he took while the work was going on. Before CRUSADER, John had built a lovely Coquina, a Nat Herreshoff design, for himself.
Trumpy maestro Jim Moores (see WB No. 207 for "Trumpy Man: How Jim Moores became Florida's go-to guy for restoration;" WB No. 176 for "Save A Classic: IBIS: A Trumpy-Mathis houseboat") saved the deckhouse of IBIS, though her hull was cut up by another firm. The deckhouse now serves as an office at the North Carolina branch of Moores Marine.
There’s not much of this yacht that’s salvageable, but that’s not unusual among many restorations. Besides very deep pockets, one would need vision to imagine what she could become—or to visualize what she was originally. Brian Amble of California had the vision, but not the wealth. But he did acquire her and make a start. As the largest all-wood sailing yacht ever built by Herreshoff, and as a genuine, topsail-carrying sloop (or cutter, if you will), VAYU (or more properly, DORIS, the yacht’s original name), fully restored, would be a show-stopper.
“Save a Classic” can take only partial credit for getting this boat into the right hands. Word of mouth among the cognoscenti got FALCON a new and enthusiastic owner—two of them, in fact. The first of these was the late Konrad Ulbrich who had another FALCON of the same Universal Rule class (designed by Frank Paine, which he renamed HAYDAY, see WB No. 207), and the second and present owner is Gerald Rainer who also owns the lovely Herreshoff schooner MARY ROSE.
This yacht’s restoration had to meet a deadline—and it did. In only a few months after being trucked from Chicago to San Diego, FAME was strengthened and spiffed up for relaunching on her July 10 centennial in 2010—quite a feat, considering her condition, which included a noticeably sagging stern, a rotted forefoot, weak floor timbers, etc., etc. FAME’s restoration followed that of the Q-boat COTTON BLOSSOM (now LEONORE) as the second such undertaking by Dennis Conner, the well-known AMERICA’s Cup skipper.
Jarvis Newman’s nostalgia got the better of him, and he couldn’t resist this one. Years ago, OLD BALDY had served as the plug for Newman’s fiberglass Pemaquids, and in semi-retirement he decided to go back to wood and refurbish OLD BALDY himself in his one-man Southwest Harbor, Maine, shop. It was a great coming-together both for Jarvis and for the boat. Unlike MASHNEE and FAME, which are many years older, this boat didn’t require a thorough restoration, just a general upgrade.
New owner Jan Rozendaal and builder George Darling teamed up to thoroughly restore MASHNEE. They did this in Vermont at the same time as French & Webb were restoring three other boats of this 1902 class in Belfast, Maine (see WB Nos. 203 and 204). All four were completed and launched in 2008, with MASHNEE having a Doug Hylan–designed marconi rig and a different interior layout. What a grand sight to see these four beauties on the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta courses!
