The Brooklin Boat on Blue Hill Bay has rebuilt the APHRODITE, a 74-foot speedboat originally constructed in 1937 for financier Jock Whitney, whose family philanthropy extends to Maine’s art treasures.
He used this sleek, torpedo-stern launch to commute from his Manhasset home to his Wall Street office, a 45-minute cruise. He would settle back to read the New York Herald Tribune, which wasn’t surprising since he owned the paper. He required that his new boat, built by Purdy Boat Company of Port Washington, N.Y., cruise smoothly at 38 mph. Double-planked in Philippine mahogany over steam-bent white oak frames, APHRODITE has a 14-foot, 6-inch beam, draws 3 feet 5 inches and displaces 23 tons.
APHRODITE’s latest owner, mutual fund manager Charles Royce of Watch Hill, Rhode Island, spent $2 million to have the Maine yard rebuild her. That’s more than the boat’s original $90,000 cost even when adjusted to 2005 dollars at $1.3 million. And when yard owner Steve White says, “rebuild,” he means 100 per cent. There isn’t an original timber left in the hull, yet the classic lines and opulent features remain intact.
This is a glamorous old girl, and those who partied on board included Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Henry Ford II and Nelson Rockefeller.
Whitney’s sister Joan Payson, who had a home in Falmouth, owned the New York Mets baseball team. The Portland Museum of Art now includes the Joan Whitney Payson collection.
White, grandson of writer E.B. White, said that two years ago, the tired old APHRODITE made it from New York to Brooklin under her own gasoline-engine power, but caught fire in Rockland while the crew was at breakfast. They returned to the dock just in time to save the boat from serious damage. That was late fall, 2003. Over the next two years, White’s workers created a replica vessel piece by piece. They even found barnacles below decks, suggesting the vessel sank and spent time under water. All hands at Brooklin Boat Yard celebrated her re-launching last October, taking a trial spin around the bay.
APHRODITE runs on twin 1,000 horsepower Caterpillar diesels, the boat also has up-to-date electronics tucked into fine woodwork. White had located two vintage Packard engines still in crates and never used, just like APHRODITE’s original gas hogs, but Royce wanted diesel reliability.
During World War II, APHRODITE ferried Franklin Delano Roosevelt to his Hyde Park home on the Hudson River. Later, the boat served a summer program for kids from city slums, and in the 1970s it took on a hippy-ish name, MOONFIRE, and went through various owners and serious neglect. Boatyard owner John Pannell restored APHRODITE in 1984, selling it to Royce five years ago.
Pannell’s marina sits on the site of the Purdy yard where APHRODITE was first launched.
Is today’s boat really the same boat? White says that depends on your definition, and he doesn’t lose sleep over it. The reconstruction was very faithful to the original — except that the new APHRODITE clocks at 43 mph.