mcmillen yachts freedom

An Historic Mathis-Trumpy Yacht Makes Her Daring Return

The 1920s Freedom is restored to her original splendor, recalling the lavish era of classic motor yachts.

She must have been irresistible. What wasn’t to adore along the 104 feet of this regal watercraft? To Jessie Woolworth Donahue, daughter of retail magnate F.W. Woolworth and then one of prewar America’s wealthiest women, the vessel was indeed perfect. A slender beam ideal for gliding the intracoastal waters surrounding her Palm Beach house. A plumb bow that rose straight up from the waterline like the aquiline forehead of an aristocrat. A divinely proportioned counter stern with an elliptical fantail that curved gently up and aft with the grace of a ballerina’s gesture. Bronze scrollwork that glowed in the sun. A low, sturdy stack nestled alongside one heaven-reaching, raked mast. Behind, the romance of sail. Ahead, the power and promise of engines.

And within, the ultimate expression of how one lived: a trio of expansive double staterooms (plus one single), three baths, lounging and dining saloons (with mahogany walls, beams, and deckhouse), and interiors decorated in grand style by famed retailer Wanamaker (the decor alone was advertised to have cost $30,000). Irresistible.

Wealth. Opulence. Assurance. And perhaps most symbolically, a signal of one’s freedom to roam from enclave to enclave, from season to season, in high luxury. Sold, then, was the 1926 Mathis-Trumpy Freedom to Donahue. She was, of course, a member of the Gilded Age class that commissioned or acquired yachts with the same alacrity they built mansions and seized the goldenmost layer of the American dream.

“In these days, newly minted millionaires had their list of things to acquire, to check the box to be a proper millionaire,” says Earl McMillen III, a Newport, Rhode Island–based yacht restorer and de facto historian of the period. “You’d have a house in Palm Beach, Newport, or Bar Harbor in the summer,” he continues, “a shooting plantation in South Carolina or Georgia, and on that list was a proper yacht. It was a lifestyle that everyone saw.”

This maritime striving, according to author Ross MacTaggart, spawned a century’s worth of high-profile boats. The wave began in 1830, he notes, with an Englishman who commissioned the first known motor yacht: the steam-driven Menai, complete with paddle wheels that made her look like a hybrid of a submarine and a Mississippi riverboat.

While the design may have seemed maladroit, the outcome was profound: “For the first time,” MacTaggart writes in his book Millionaires, Mansions, and Motor Yachts, “an individual could control his or her vessel’s schedule.” No waiting for tides, currents, winds. And while the late 1800s saw the addition of luxury rail travel, the promise was more confined than the private yacht: “A millionaire still had to accept the fact that trains went where they could, not where you wanted,” MacTaggart writes. “What was the point of being a millionaire if one could not do whatever one wanted, whenever and wherever? And comfortably?”

Yachting's Gilded Giants

As the 20th century opened, and as industrialists and other millionaires like Cornelius Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan, their offspring, and rising nouveau riche joined the elite rosters, naval architects strove to create vessels that matched those aspirations. Private motor yachts diversified: some built for ocean-going explorations, others—like Freedom— for cruising protected waters along the Eastern seaboard, and others still for speedy commuting from one’s estate, say, on Long Island to the New York Yacht Club’s dock at 26th Street on the East River. The costs to build these crafts (in the millions of dollars at the time), not to mention maintain them—all the way down the ledger to stylish nautical dress for every crew member—were monumental.

.css-ddas4j{color:#0A0736;font-family:BodoniBold,BodoniBold-roboto,BodoniBold-local,Georgia,Serif;font-size:1.625rem;line-height:1.2;margin:0rem;text-transform:lowercase;}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-ddas4j{font-size:2rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-ddas4j{font-size:2.375rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-ddas4j{font-size:2.375rem;line-height:1.1;}}.css-ddas4j b,.css-ddas4j strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.css-ddas4j em,.css-ddas4j i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;} “If you have to ask how much a yacht costs, you can’t afford one.” -Attributed to J.P. Morgan

And in the 1920s, many agree the form reached its design apogee. Designers like Jonah Trumpy were working at the peak of their craft, creating silhouettes of grace and proportion that carved their way elegantly through water and spaces throughout that matched those of mansions and country homes on land. It was a bright era that was snuffed out nearly entirely by the combined economic effects of the imposition of income tax in 1914 and the Depression thereafter, not to mention the rise in the use of automobiles, the improvement of roads, and finally, the new promise of air travel. As happens to all empires, the glory days of the great private yacht were closing.

But for McMillen, there were survivors to be found, restored, and relaunched. “If they’re lost, they’re lost forever,” he says, recounting how Freedom, in fact, nearly suffered that fate. From the hands of Mrs. Donahue, the houseboat (Trumpy’s term for his class of luxury yachts, whose interiors were emulations of all the comforts of home) had been sold in 1939 to a real estate developer in Florida who renamed her Sunset to promote his own Sunset Islands development near Miami. A succession of Florida owners followed, but by 2001, the craft was languishing in a warehouse in Jacksonville and slated for demolition. McMillen learned of the boat’s grim, looming fate from MacTaggart and moved quickly. He bought her for one hundred dollars and undertook the near-Herculean process to move her up the coast to his facilities in the greater Newport area (one of the nation’s centers of boatbuilding and restoration) and to raise the funds—$7.5 million—to restore her. In May of 2009, rebuilt painstakingly plank by plank, the yacht returned to service, thanks to a creative fractional ownership syndicate assembled by McMillen, and took her original name back. In 2010, Freedom won the World Superyacht Best Rebuilt award in London. “It’s the Oscars of the yachting industry,” McMillen says.

It’s no wonder. Brought back lovingly in full splendor, Freedom represents the very finest expression of the age and its aspirations. “Freedom was the most refined and finest-looking of the boats that [Trumpy] built,” he says. “The joinery, the details, the hardware…everything about her is sort of perfect in my opinion.”

McMillen laments a turn away from that balance and proportion among this generation’s newly minted billionaires. “Everything I see today, it’s glitzy and shiny and big, but you lose me there,” he says. “In my opinion, the billionaire of today is most interested in building bigger. They’ve lost sight of how to build a beautiful boat.”

“These wooden boats are organic,” he says, returning to the crafts he loves like family. “You get a sense that they’re a living, breathing organism. They have almost a human-like attachment. There’s something about going to sea on a wooden boat.”

One might almost consider it irresistible.

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Keepers of the Flame

• By Kenny Wooton
• Updated: October 4, 2007

Earl McMillen III

Rotting wood and varnish have always been elixirs to Earl McMillen III. Growing up in Georgia, his family owned a 68-foot, 1927 Densmore-built cruiser named Mahogany Lady, which they kept in the Florida Keys and used for vacations and on weekends. Later, they had a house on a mountain lake with a large concentration of classic runabouts. He’d hang out at the boathouse where many of the old-timers were restored and watch the craftsmen. In the mid-1980s, McMillen and his father restored a 39-foot, 1939 Elco as a project following the death of his little brother in a car accident. As he moved into his 30s, the experiences congealed into a career and a deep commitment to preserving classic yachts. Today, Newport-based McMillen Yachts, Inc., restores, maintains and manages a fleet of about a half-dozen classic powerboats and sailing yachts. Through a pioneering fractional ownership program, the company acquires and operates the boats for the pleasure of its partners and the posterity of the yachting community at large.

“I’ve always had a fascination with history and boating, and this has just been an offshoot of that, McMillen said.

The McMillens bought the Elco in 1986 and started her restoration. The elder McMillen wanted to sell the yacht and move on to other things when the project was finished, but the younger man set out to cruise from their base in Georgia to Maine, by way of a wooden boat show in Newport. He never made it to Maine. He fell in love with the Rhode Island city and spent the summer connecting with kindred spirits.

Later, on a trip to the Chesapeake, he found a pair of old ACF motoryachts, one swamped and one movable. He salvaged the wreck and took her to Georgia, where he later sold her to a friend who restored her. He took the other to Newport and began a casual summer charter business while he finished his undergraduate degree in history at Columbia.

Another classic charter boat came and went over several years in Newport, but the seasonal cash flow made the operation more a hobby than a viable money-making venture.

“I always thought of it as a business, he said, “but it was never one that made any sense financially. I was always having to supplement the budgets for the boats. I’ve always been primarily interested in the classic motoryachts of the 1920s and ’30s. I was hoping to do with the powerboats something along the lines of what Bob Tiedemann was doing with the 12-Meters.

After graduation, McMillen moved back to Atlanta and decided he wanted to make a living working with classic yachts. On one of his trips to the Chesapeake in the late ’80s, he paid $2,000 for a 47-foot day boat. The yacht had been moved to Massachusetts, where she sat for five or six years. He’d made some friends in Georgia who were intrigued by what he’d done with some of the boats he had restored on his own.

Through one of those friends, representatives of the Cloister hotel on Sea Island approached him about restoring a boat for guest use. The hotel didn’t want to fund a restoration, but McMillen and friends developed a plan to sell shares to raise the money. The restored yacht ended up spending several years at the Cloister under McMillen management. The group then sold the boat, called Zapala, to a private owner who continues to operate her out of the hotel.

“The idea of building a fleet of fractionally owned boats came later, McMillen said. “My objective, having owned that boat for five or six years, was to see her restored. Once we did that and it worked well, we realized we could go out and save more boats doing it the same way. It looked like there was more demand for boats with cruising accommodations.

Most of the original partners joined to buy and restore a larger cruising yacht, the 77-foot, 1929-vintage motoryacht Belle (“Fore and After, September 2000), which was restored by a McMillen crew at the International Yacht Restoration School, founded by Newporter Elizabeth Meyer.

Under McMillen’s fractional ownership programs, each yacht is set up as a limited liability corporation with the primary mission being charter by the partners at a preferred rate. Most are available for one-time charters to non-partners who may be interested in investing. Partners put up, say, $70,000 for a 5 percent share of the latest restoration, Scout . Investors are then offered charters at half the standard rate. Upon availability, and after they have fulfilled their usage allotment on Scout , they have access to the other McMillen yachts at the preferred rate. In addition, investors receive some depreciation and the prospect of their shares increasing in value over time. The company does limited advertising, preferring to network.

“We operate it like a private club, McMillen said. “The primary selling point is the ability to participate in the restoration of these fine boats and use them in the ways they were originally intended. These are people who wouldn’t necessarily have the time to devote to owning their own boats, or really wouldn’t have the interest. For their investment they can enjoy the boats and be part of this restoration movement.

McMillen Yachts takes a fee for the restorations and ongoing management, and retains shares in all the boats. McMillen himself uses them as much as he can. The company employs a full-time crew of shipwrights during restorations and prefers to finish projects fast.

McMillen’s current fleet includes Belle, Scout , two Starling Burgess-designed 12-Meters built at Abeking & Rasmussen in the late ’20s-one restored for the America’s Cup Jubilee and another awaiting restoration-and the company’s most recent acquisition, a 104-foot, Trumpy-designed, Mathis-built, 1926 cruiser called Freedom. Next on the restoration docket, though, is Alondra, the former Mahogany Lady and McMillen family yacht, which Tiedemann helped locate.

McMillen, 38, loves what he does, but senses an urgency to the broader mission.

“We’re in the very early stages of trying to grab the last of these boats and make sure they wind up in the right hands, he said. “Within the next 10 years, the classic yachts will have either been restored or lost. McMillen Yachts, Inc., (401) 846-5557; www.woodenyachts.com .

Bob Tiedemann

Bob Tiedemann has always hated seeing wooden boats die. As a kid in Connecticut, he found great pleasure sneaking into boat yards and crawling around the old-timers.

“Then I’d come back to see my favorite derelict and it would be in the back 40, a pile of timber, and they’d be hauling the keel off to the scrap yard, he lamented.

Cruising the New England coast aboard his family’s 54-foot yawl in his teens and 20s, he saw more grand old ladies meet ignominious ends. Among the wrecks and ruins, he found a career and a lifelong commitment to yacht preservation.

“There’s something very romantic about them, he said of wooden yachts. “They have a personality, a character, a warmth you don’t find in newer boats.

In 1976, Tiedemann founded Seascope Yacht Charters to restore, maintain and manage Gleam, a 1937-vintage 12-Meter sailing yacht. The Seascope fleet now includes the Tiedemann family’s 54-foot mahogany Alden yawl, Mariner, built in 1950; the 12-Meter Northern Light, built in 1938; the 62-foot, 1921-vintage commuter and rum runner Pam; and another commuter and rum runner called L’Allegro, built in 1918, which is in Tiedemann’s back yard awaiting restoration. In partnership with his wife, Elizabeth, he has built a charter business in Newport that caters primarily to corporate clients who charter the Twelves. Pam is available for charter around Newport or as a tender for the Twelves.

The foundation of the 52-year-old Tiedemann’s love of old boats and preservation was built in the cockpit of Mariner. At 15, he persuaded his father, a naval architect, to buy the yawl, which the family used for cruising. Tiedemann earned an engineering degree in college, intending to follow in his father’s footsteps. He worked for his father part time in school, but summers were focused on doing charters with Mariner. After a few years, he decided to try to make a living chartering full time.

“I thought it would be great fun to have a classic boat, sail it around, make enough to survive and save boats in the process, he said.

His father helped him borrow the money to buy Gleam, which needed work, but was not a derelict. He brought her back to Newport, and his formal career in classic yacht charter was born.

Tiedemann found Northern Light under water in Michigan in the mid-1980s. Her owner had abandoned her, and she had sunk in a marina in Holland. He spent two winters traveling between Newport and Holland raising her and getting her in shape. Then he sailed her through the Great Lakes and down the canals into the Hudson just in time to make a charter commitment for the Statue of Liberty centennial.

He acquired Pam in Florida in 1989, as a tender to complement the Twelves. She was built for Herrington Walker, son of Hiram Walker, the distiller. She was built at Great Lakes Boatbuilding, which built many commuters for automotive industry leaders.

Along the way, he bought and sold several classic yachts and helped found the Museum of Yachting. Part of the inspiration for the museum was the disturbing number of boats he saw being cut up.

Tiedemann is a hands-on preservationist. He has participated personally in all the Seascope restorations. He tries to keep the restorations true to original. The charter business funds the restoration and maintenance of the yachts and puts food on the table.

“Every cent I’ve ever made has come out of these boats, he said. “I never thought I’d be able to make a living, but it’s been even more successful than I expected it to be.

The sight of Gleam and Northern Light sailing in and out of Newport on summer evenings evokes the decades when that city hosted the America’s Cup regattas and when yacht racing was the province of gentlemen whose pride and competitive spirit outweighed commercial concerns. Nowadays, Tiedemann’s company channels that competitive spirit into team-building and corporate bonding. Companies can send top executives out for a 12-Meter match race on Gleam and Northern Light for about $5,000. By arranging the charter of additional power and sailing yachts, Seascope has handled groups of up to 500.

Tiedemann’s preservation of the 12-Meters is generally acknowledged to have been what spawned the recent resurgence of the class, especially in Europe. Thirty-seven 12-Meters, many freshly restored and refurbished, including Northern Light and Gleam, competed at the America’s Cup Jubilee regatta in 2001. The sight was responsible for many moist eyes.

Tiedemann is proud of the impact he’s had on the 12-Meter class and the broader yacht preservation movement, but he’s concerned America is lagging behind Europe in preservation efforts. He’d like to see more American classics remain on these shores, and he’s committed for the duration.

“It’s an all-consuming passion, he said. “I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Seascope Yacht Charters, (401) 847-5007; www.seascopenewport.com .

Elizabeth Meyer

Elizabeth Meyer isn’t the type to let a little challenge get in the way of a big idea. She built a successful home design and construction business on Martha’s Vineyard in the 1970s with no experience in the field. When she stared into the vast, empty hull of the 130-foot J-Class yacht Endeavour on the hard on the south coast of England in 1984 and announced to a companion that she was going to buy the yacht and restore her, the companion responded with a skeptical, “What? Meyer was prompted to invoke her favorite response to that question: “What do you mean ‘What?’ Why not?

Fifteen years after its completion, the resurrection of Endeavour is widely regarded as the most significant classic yacht restoration ever, and Meyer is viewed by many as a key player in the classic yacht renaissance in America. Through her company, J-Class Management, and the not-for-profit International Yacht Restoration School (IYRS) in Newport, which she founded and serves as chairman, she has been directly or indirectly responsible for the restoration and preservation of dozens of classic vessels, from the magnificent Endeavour and her J-Class cousin Shamrock V to Beetle Cats and prams.

The roots of Meyer’s commitment lie in the sandpaper and varnish brushes she used to help her parents commission their small daysailers and powerboats during summers in Massachusetts and Maine. Her first significant exposure to boat restoration was in Maine during her teens, when she witnessed the restoration of an 80-foot schooner.

From age 10 or 11, Meyer and a close friend wrote companies such as Hinckley, Alberg and Concordia in search of the perfect sailing yacht to buy together someday. By the time Meyer graduated from high school, the pair had decided they’d own a Concordia yawl. Meyer went to college and left the dream behind, but her friend persisted and the two women ended up owning a 1960-vintage Concordia yawl shortly after Meyer graduated.

Like so many boat partnerships, theirs didn’t last. Meyer ended up owning the boat and sailing it to Annapolis, where she lived aboard while running the small Hood Sailmakers loft. After a year there, she set sail with a friend for New England.

She landed on Martha’s Vineyard. During the next six or seven years, she bought land and designed, built and restored more than 80 homes, including the Jacqueline Onassis compound, learning the business as she went. She also wrote for yachting magazines and penned a book commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Concordia yawl. She wrote the book in part to promulgate the Concordia legacy with an eye toward maintaining the value of her own boat, but also to make sure the world recognized the value of the yachts and the brand.

“It’s not creating charisma where there is none, but making people remember the yachts and why they’re wonderful, she said. “A big part of maintaining these boats is getting owners or potential owners excited and getting them to see how wonderful it is to own a wooden boat.

Her investments in land left her with a healthy nest egg, and she set off for Europe in search of a yacht to restore on spec to get her new business off the ground. It was on a second trip a year later, on assignment for Nautical Quarterly, that she found Endeavour and fell in love at first sight.

J-Class yachts sailed in the America’s Cup regattas of the 1930s. Only two survived in sailable shape, Shamrock V and Velsheda, which Meyer sailed just before she found Endeavour. Some years earlier, Endeavour had been rescued from the mud on the Isle of Wight. Her hull was partly restored before the owners ran out of money. Meyer bought the yacht and began, at a seaplane base on the south coast of England, what would become the most highly regarded yacht restoration the world has seen.

With the assistance of designer John Munford and naval architect Gerard Dijkstra, she fully restored the hull and deck structure and assembled much of the machinery and parts. Later, she moved the project to a professional yacht yard: Royal Huisman in Holland, where the restoration was completed in 1989. Endeavour sailed into Newport and a new life.

Many stories at the time portrayed Meyer using inherited money for the project, but she says the $10 million she spent came from land transactions on Martha’s Vineyard. Shamrock V, meanwhile, had been donated to Newport’s Museum of Yachting, and Meyer oversaw a major refit. She founded J-Class Management in 1988 to promote Endeavour and Shamrock and to manage, broker and restore classic and neo-classic yachts.

After spearheading the creation of restoration classes at the Museum of Yachting, upon whose board she served, Meyer founded IYRS in 1993 to teach the skills, history, science and art of restoring, maintaining and building classic yachts. The accredited school offers a two-year diploma program, participates in vocational partnership programs with state and local schools, and hosts classes and lectures open to the public. Students work on power and sailing yachts donated to the school. Its most ambitious project is the archival restoration of the historic schooner Coronet, for which it has raised $2.5 million of the $7.5 million needed.

Meyer, who turns 50 this year, plans to step down as chairwoman of the IYRS board this summer and devote her efforts to J-Class Management projects, although she’ll continue to manage the Coronet project. Still thinking big, she has a proposal out to build a replica of Reliance, the 200-foot sloop that defended the America’s Cup in 1903, and she’s looking for clients to build a matched pair of J-Class yachts from a Swedish design.

Strained by the high cost of upkeep, she sold Endeavour in 2000 to former Tyco chairman L. Dennis Kozlowski, who has been engulfed in legal problems. Kozlowski’s predicament has caused concern about the fate of Endeavour, but Meyer believes the yacht is in good hands. A short-term benefit of Kozlowski’s troubles, Meyer says, is that the big, blue J is available for charter again-with J-Class Management serving as central agent.

“I really enjoy what I do every day, she said. “I wish there were six of me so I could do six times as much. But again, she sees the key to preservation as fostering enthusiasm among others.

“An individual can restore a lot of boats. If you can influence other people, you can be more effective at saving more boats.

J-Class Management, (401) 849-3060; www.jclass.com . IYRS, (401) 848-5777; www.iyrs.org .

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Earl McMillen III is not a big fan of modern yachts. When he sees them out on the water around his boatyards in Newport, Rhode Island, or Beaufort, South Carolina, it troubles him.

“The grace and form is just not there,” he says. “The engines they can put in a modern power boat will push pretty much anything, so you’ll see these big ugly monstrosities going through the water, pushing up these tremendous wakes. Classic yachts were designed to go through the water easily and they’re just much more beautiful to look at. There’s a lot more to going out to sea on one of these wooden yachts than [in] a plastic boat, in my opinion.”

McMillen’s opinion is not surprising: he has spent the past 21 years rescuing old yachts, restoring them and then sailing them. Over the years, he has found others who share his passion.

While plenty of wealthy people can afford to have new multi-million-dollar yachts built to order, one-of-a-kind vintage yachts – those designed or launched before January 1950 – are rare and in high demand. Aside from having a scarcity value and offering a beautiful sight cutting through the water, these vessels are often cheaper and retain value better than their modern counterparts.

But finding one can be a challenge. The number of classic yachts in the US is dwindling, as many in need of restoring are being abandoned in boatyards or scrapped. “I do a lot of travelling and digging around in old boatyards,” says McMillen. “Over the last 20 years, as waterfront real estate has become more sought after, a lot of old boatyards have been sold to developers and any old boats they have go with them. I’ve seen some wonderful boats, that weren’t necessarily in horrible shape, bulldozed to make way for the next condominium development.”

When McMillen realised 12 years ago that he did not have the cash to save more than a few old yachts on his own, he set up a fractional ownership business, McMillen Yachts, in order to rescue and restore more vessels. “A lot of people I met were happy to write a cheque to get involved in what I was doing, even if they didn’t have much time to devote to this themselves,” he says. “The partnership scheme gives them access to these magnificent yachts that you see very rarely these days, in a format that takes all of the hassle out of it.”

McMillen is mainly interested in American-built motor yachts constructed between the first and second world wars, a period he thinks was a pinnacle in US design. Investing partners each pay between $50,000 and $350,000 for a minimum 5 per cent stake in a renovation project or a boat already on the water, each organised as a limited liability company. As well as maintaining their ownership stake, investors can take the boat out for at least eight days a year for a preferred rate, or use another McMillen yacht if theirs is not available.

Aside from organising crews and schedules for the boats once they are launched, McMillen maintains the yachts and transports them. The boats spend the summer in Newport, Rhode Island, and are based at Beaufort, South Carolina in the spring and autumn. In the winter, the boats are relocated to Florida and the Bahamas. When a partner is not using one of the three boats in service, they are available for charter.

Although other companies have followed McMillen into the fractional yacht ownership business, he thinks that his small family business, which employs only 30 people, including crew, is still the only one that offers this for classic yachts.

The concept appeals to people who want to sail, but do not want to commit the time and money to owning a yacht themselves. Teddy Turner, the eldest son of Ted Turner’s, is an investment partner in the 70ft 1928 yacht Onawa.

Bayne Stevenson, a commercial property developer, has also been an investment partner since he came across one of McMillen’s boats, a 77ft 1929 motor yacht named Belle, in Martha’s Vineyard three and a half years ago. “She was beautiful,” he says. “I talked to the captain about her and that’s how I met Earl and came to invest in her. The great thing about it is that I’m busy and there’s no way I can spend as much time on a boat as I’d like to. This way you can spend as much time out on the water as is available at a rate that’s substantially less than chartering. There’s a pride in ownership and you get to know your crew. It’s been a very positive experience.”

Stevenson had owned, part-owned or chartered wooden boats since he was 12. “You develop a love for them and they’re very special. You look at the mahogany brightwork on Enticer [the 1935 85ft motor yacht he currently part-owns with McMillen] and she’s just beautifully crafted.”

Sailing a classic yacht is not just about aesthetics, it is about the romance of being on a boat with an illustrious past. At least, Brad Pitt must have thought so when he bought the 165ft Edwardian motor yacht the Kalizma for Jennifer Aniston, who was then his wife, in 1994. In another era, the Kalizma was owned by Richard Burton, who bought the vessel for Elizabeth Taylor to celebrate her Oscar win in 1967. The Burtons spent a lot of time on their love boat, which had five main cabins, a Van Gogh, a Picasso and a Monet and a Louis XVI-style four poster bed, as well as four crew cabins, eight crew and a French chef.

For McMillen, restoring classic yachts is a labour of love. He is two years into his latest three-and-a-half-year restoration project, a 1926 motor yacht called Freedom. Most projects have taken him about two years, but at 104ft, with five double state rooms, Freedom is his most ambitious restoration.

“Basically, I was the boat’s last hope,” he says. “She was awful. Her owner had recently died and I got a phone call from his nephew when the boatyard where she was being stored down in Florida were going to cut her up. They were afraid she would sink and they’d have a huge liability on their hands.”

McMillen bought Freedom for the princely sum of $100. The cost of renovation, however, is expected to be $5m. “We’ve got to do everything, as well as rebuilding the hull, but when it’s completed, hopefully she’ll be very close to what she looked like when she was launched in 1926.”

Despite the large commitments in time and money to restore these boats, McMillen says most of his investment partners have seen their interest appreciate, either when that interest has been sold to another investor, or when a boat is sold. “The minute a brand-new yacht leaves the boat builders’ yard it’s going to depreciate, I’d guess, about 20 per cent,” he points out. By contrast, the original investors in Belle spent $40,000 on their 5 per cent interest 10 years ago. “We recently sold Belle for $1.5m, so the original partners received $75,000 back.”

Doubling one’s money over 10 years is not the most impressive rate of return, but the investment is secure as each boat is fully insured. It is the sailing experience that makes the investment worthwhile.

Part-ownership of these vessels also gives individuals access to an elite community. Classic yacht owners from all over the world congregate at the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta every April, and McMillen plans to take Onawa to the Mediterranean in August. “We’ll start in Porto Chevo in Italy, then move the boat up to Cannes for the 12-metre world championship,” he says. “Then after going to Saint Tropez in October, we’ll put her back on a ship and bring her back here to Newport.”

Closer to home, the International Yacht Restoration School in Newport sponsors an annual cruise that brings together many classic yachts and every July Mystic Seaport in Connecticut hosts the Annual WoodenBoat Show.

McMillen wants to continue his restoration work so the boats that are still around can return to the water. “I think we’re coming close to the point where either the boats have been rescued and restored or they’ve been destroyed,” he says. “So already you’re seeing people build replica classic yachts from scratch.”

It all goes to show that while modern yachts may come and go, vintage yachts will always stay in fashion.

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34m classic yacht Maemere rescued from scheduled demolition

A 34 metre classic yacht named Maemere has arrived for a comprehensive restoration at McMillen Yachts in Rhode Island after narrowly avoiding a scheduled demolition in California. 

The vessel, which was operating as a harbour cruise ship under the name High Spirits, was saved by the president of McMillen Yachts, Earl McMillen III. McMillen was able to introduce a new party that was interested in saving the vessel and was integral in arranging the transfer of the boat from California to Rhode Island. 

McMillen Yachts will now helm a full-scale restoration from the keel up with a view to meticulously maintain her classic charm. Originally launched in 1929, the boat was designed by John Trumpy and built by Mathis Yacht Building Company.

Earl McMillen III and the team were heavily involved in the transport of the vessel to the McMillen facilities in Portsmouth. “The yard had already cut large holes in the side of the hull and had removed the engines and machinery, in anticipation of cutting her up,” he explained.

“We had to repair the holes and replace the planking that had been removed so that we could re-float her. She remained at a local San Diego marina until a ship was available to bring her to the east coast.” Due to local laws, the vessel had to be towed on her own bottom to Mexico where she was then loaded onto a ship bound for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

“Coincidently, she was offloaded in the river just offshore from where she was originally built in Camden, New Jersey 93 years ago, in 1929,” added McMillen.

The vessel was due to be scrapped just days before McMillen heard of her fate. “I received a call from a yacht broker on Tuesday asking whether I was aware that [the vessel]  was scheduled to be cut up on Friday,” he said.

“I contacted the owners and asked for more time. The boat yard was only willing to give us one more week," he continued. "We were able to send a team out from Newport and bring a barge in to take the boat away by the following Saturday."

Maemere has a rich history behind her, with onboard relics including a Joe Selby painting and a cigar humidor that was once owned by one of the boat’s former crew. She also features silver julep cups which were gifted by the granddaughter of the original owner, DeWitt Page.

McMillen is no stranger to restorations of this size and scale, having completed the restoration of Maemere’s sistership, Freedom . The restoration took place between 2004 and 2004 and cost around seven million dollars.

Once the restoration is complete, Maemere will be operated as a private yacht.

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Cruising the Moskva River: A short guide to boat trips in Russia’s capital

There’s hardly a better way to absorb Moscow’s atmosphere than on a ship sailing up and down the Moskva River. While complicated ticketing, loud music and chilling winds might dampen the anticipated fun, this checklist will help you to enjoy the scenic views and not fall into common tourist traps.

How to find the right boat?

There are plenty of boats and selecting the right one might be challenging. The size of the boat should be your main criteria.

Plenty of small boats cruise the Moskva River, and the most vivid one is this yellow Lay’s-branded boat. Everyone who has ever visited Moscow probably has seen it.

This option might leave a passenger disembarking partially deaf as the merciless Russian pop music blasts onboard. A free spirit, however, will find partying on such a vessel to be an unforgettable and authentic experience that’s almost a metaphor for life in modern Russia: too loud, and sometimes too welcoming. Tickets start at $13 (800 rubles) per person.

Bigger boats offer smoother sailing and tend to attract foreign visitors because of their distinct Soviet aura. Indeed, many of the older vessels must have seen better days. They are still afloat, however, and getting aboard is a unique ‘cultural’ experience. Sometimes the crew might offer lunch or dinner to passengers, but this option must be purchased with the ticket. Here is one such  option  offering dinner for $24 (1,490 rubles).

If you want to travel in style, consider Flotilla Radisson. These large, modern vessels are quite posh, with a cozy restaurant and an attentive crew at your service. Even though the selection of wines and food is modest, these vessels are still much better than other boats.

Surprisingly, the luxurious boats are priced rather modestly, and a single ticket goes for $17-$32 (1,100-2,000 rubles); also expect a reasonable restaurant bill on top.

How to buy tickets?

Women holding photos of ships promise huge discounts to “the young and beautiful,” and give personal invitations for river tours. They sound and look nice, but there’s a small catch: their ticket prices are usually more than those purchased online.

“We bought tickets from street hawkers for 900 rubles each, only to later discover that the other passengers bought their tickets twice as cheap!”  wrote  (in Russian) a disappointed Rostislav on a travel company website.

Nevertheless, buying from street hawkers has one considerable advantage: they personally escort you to the vessel so that you don’t waste time looking for the boat on your own.

Prices start at $13 (800 rubles) for one ride, and for an additional $6.5 (400 rubles) you can purchase an unlimited number of tours on the same boat on any given day.

Flotilla Radisson has official ticket offices at Gorky Park and Hotel Ukraine, but they’re often sold out.

Buying online is an option that might save some cash. Websites such as  this   offer considerable discounts for tickets sold online. On a busy Friday night an online purchase might be the only chance to get a ticket on a Flotilla Radisson boat.

This  website  (in Russian) offers multiple options for short river cruises in and around the city center, including offbeat options such as ‘disco cruises’ and ‘children cruises.’ This other  website  sells tickets online, but doesn’t have an English version. The interface is intuitive, however.

Buying tickets online has its bad points, however. The most common is confusing which pier you should go to and missing your river tour.

“I once bought tickets online to save with the discount that the website offered,” said Igor Shvarkin from Moscow. “The pier was initially marked as ‘Park Kultury,’ but when I arrived it wasn’t easy to find my boat because there were too many there. My guests had to walk a considerable distance before I finally found the vessel that accepted my tickets purchased online,” said the man.

There are two main boarding piers in the city center:  Hotel Ukraine  and  Park Kultury . Always take note of your particular berth when buying tickets online.

Where to sit onboard?

Even on a warm day, the headwind might be chilly for passengers on deck. Make sure you have warm clothes, or that the crew has blankets ready upon request.

The glass-encased hold makes the tour much more comfortable, but not at the expense of having an enjoyable experience.

Getting off the boat requires preparation as well. Ideally, you should be able to disembark on any pier along the way. In reality, passengers never know where the boat’s captain will make the next stop. Street hawkers often tell passengers in advance where they’ll be able to disembark. If you buy tickets online then you’ll have to research it yourself.

There’s a chance that the captain won’t make any stops at all and will take you back to where the tour began, which is the case with Flotilla Radisson. The safest option is to automatically expect that you’ll return to the pier where you started.

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THE 10 BEST Moscow Boat Tours

Boat tours in moscow.

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• 3rd Transport Ring (TTK)
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• Things to do ranked using Tripadvisor data including reviews, ratings, photos, and popularity.

1. Flotilla Radisson Royal

2. Moscow River Boat Tours

3. CheapRussia Tours

4. Erwin. Reka

5. Lovely Russia Tours

6. Capital River Boat Tours - Moscow Centre

7. MORE MOSCOW

8. Mosparokhodstvo

9. S-cruises

10. Water Taxi

11. MosFlot

12. Insider Moscow Tours

13. UTS GROUP

14. Russia CityPass

15. Argo Travel

16. Moskva Flot

17. Magiya Otdykha

18. Moscowkremlintours

19. DIVAS TOUR

20. moskva s gidom.

21. Moskvatrip

22. Follow Locals

23. S-Cruises

24. Miceversa

25. russian travel and tours

26. nizhny novgorod 4* vodohod.

28. Mosflot.ru

29. Ksenia Maximova

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