{"id":9947,"date":"2014-07-18T11:32:25","date_gmt":"2014-07-18T15:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=9947"},"modified":"2014-07-18T11:32:25","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T15:32:25","slug":"yacht-spotting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/yacht-spotting\/","title":{"rendered":"Yacht Spotting"},"content":{"rendered":"

July\/August 2014 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

These yachts sparkle with made-in-Maine alchemy. Nobody can afford not to dream about them.<\/h3>\n

By Claire Z. Cramer<\/p>\n

\"Yachtspotting\"<\/a>BROOKLIN BEAUTIES<\/p>\n

Imagine launching your brand-new 70-foot sloop Sonny<\/em> at Brooklin Boat Yard\u2019s impossibly picturesque Center Harbor headquarters on Eggemoggin Reach. Imagine doing this when you\u2019re 90 years old. Albert Phelps has just done this.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s not the most amazing part,\u201d says Steve White, the boatyard\u2019s owner and CEO. \u201cI built him the exact same boat in the year 2000\u2013same color, same name, everything. Then, in 2010, he calls me up and says, \u2018Steve, I\u2019m getting too old for this. I\u2019m donating the boat to Maine Maritime Academy.\u2019 So he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he got young again. \u201cAbout a year later, he calls me up. \u2018Steve, I miss my boat! Build me another one.\u2019 So we<\/em> did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dieter Empacher-designed cruiser\/racer is fast\u2013she\u2019ll be cooking at 12 to 15 knots when she passes you on the race course\u2013and carries more than 2,000 square feet of sail. That\u2019s a bigger footprint than your average West End condo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gusto Albert has for life is pretty amazing,\u201d says White. \u201cHe and his wife just celebrated their collective 160th birthday. After the launch they flew down and met Sonny<\/em> in the Caribbean. He says they\u2019ll probably sail back up here later this summer or fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

MMA has since sold the first Sonny<\/em>, which is now privately owned, renamed, and recently refitted, again at Brooklin Boat Yard. If a fast sloop named Northern Cross<\/em> leaves you in her wake, you\u2019ll know you\u2019ve just seen the first Sonny.<\/em><\/p>\n

THEY GET AROUND<\/p>\n

The Hinckley Company of Southwest Harbor began as a service yacht yard in 1928. In 1958, naval architect Bill Tripp Jr. designed the Bermuda 40, a keel\/centerboard yawl that became a legend, the<\/em> gentleman\u2019s cruising\/racing yacht. Hinckley built 203 B-40s between 1959 and 1991. The extremely high-quality production fiberglass sailboat and Hinckley\u2019s reputation became the industry standard. Today, Hinckley\u2019s most spectacular sailboat is the\u00a0 Bruce King designed Sou\u2019wester 70, five of which have been built in the past nine years. \u201cHull number one, Midnight Rambler<\/em>, is in Newport, Rhode Island, at the moment,\u201d says Hinckley broker Robert Pooler. \u201cNumber two\u2019s in Tahiti. Number four is in Europe.\u201d The other two live among us. \u201cA finished SW70 is about $7.5 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORRIS DANCERS<\/p>\n

In 1972, Tom Morris began the yachting firm his son Cuyler runs today. Morris Yachts began with updates on traditional classics like the Friendship sloop. Today, their \u201cM\u201d series, designed in collaboration with Sparkman & Stephens, is a luxury \u201cmodern classic\u201d line of sleek sailboats in sizes from 29 to 80 feet. The first M52 hit the water in 2009. Cruising World <\/em>named it their 2010 \u201cBoat of the Year,\u201d calling it \u201c52 feet of drop-dead gorgeous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe M52 is pretty from any angle,\u201d says Morris CEO Doug Metchick. \u201cShe sails like a dream\u2013I\u2019ve hit up to 14 knots in the right conditions. She\u2019s just a great boat.\u201d If you\u2019d like one, the base price is $1.579 million.<\/p>\n

The third M52 is in production now. \u201cThe buyer\u2019s a West Coast guy building this boat instead of buying a summer house.\u201d The first 52 was just resold to an M42 owner who is upgrading. \u201cProbably one in three or four buyers of Morris yachts is a repeat customer,\u201d says Metchick. \u201cSix in 10 of our boats remain in the U.S.\u2013half of those in New England. The rest go to Europe, Asia, and South and Central America now that we\u2019re well known.\u201d<\/p>\n

The boats take shape in Trenton. \u201cBut we actually have five properties on the island, including service yards in Southwest Harbor and Bass Harbor. I like to kid Cuyler that the Morrises are real-estate tycoons trapped in the boatbuilding trade.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July\/August 2014
\nThese yachts sparkle with made-in-Maine alchemy. Nobody can afford not to dream about them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-9947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-julyaugust-2014"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9947"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9952,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9947\/revisions\/9952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}