Defoe-built Presidential Yacht Honey Fitz as it sailed on the East Coast as a charter. Honey Fitz Found Basking in Florida; Bay City Ships Dwindle to Precious Few
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Good news from Florida for Bay City shipbuilding fans!
John Fitzgerald Kennedy's famous yacht Honey Fitz lives!
And the historic Defoe-built Presidential yacht is restored, to the tune of $2.3 million.
Added to the $5.9 million price paid for the 92 foot yacht, that makes $8.2 million invested over the past few years in a wooden boat made in Bay City more than 70 years ago.
The Honey Fitz now hosts elite parties given by its owners, socialites William and Christina Kallops, but doubtless none of the partygoers will match the prestige of one of its most famous visitors: Winston Churchill. A photo of Britain's famed wartime leader and other notables who have been guests on the ship grace the mahogany paneling in the main salon of the yacht.
The historic yacht underwent renovations two years ago in the P&H Construction Yard in Mobile, Alabama, where we had last heard of it, and now has surfaced at Palm Beach on Florida's "GoldCoast."
In the 70s and 80s the yacht had been used as a charter, named The Presidents, out of Greenwich, Connecticut, and New York City. Kallops acquired the yacht in a business deal but it languished for several years in dry dock at Houma, Louisiana, until the oil magnate decided to give the vessel new life.
Another vessel, the Defoe-built research ship Knorr, that found the sunken Titanic in 1985, is among a handful of the 833 locally-built ships still sailing. The 279 foot R/V Knorr, built in 1968, presently is enroute back from duty in Barbados to its home port at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. It is owned by the U.S. Navy but operated in cooperation with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
From 1854 to 1976 Bay City was one of the most important shipbuilding centers on the Great Lakes with at least 13 companies known to have operated here. Vessels coming off the ways here included the longest wooden ships ever built, the 341 foot long "Goliaths" among Davidson's hull list numbering 108.
Defoe built 316 ships, more than any other local yard, including 10 destroyers or super destroyer escorts, 58 subchasers, 23 mineplanters, 4 minesweepers, 58 destroyer escorts, 47 landing craft, 27 rumrunners, 35 luxury yachts, 13 Coast Guard cutters, 3 harbor tugs, 9 troop transports, 10 freight and ammunition carriers and 5 oceanographic surveying and research ships, along with two large bulk freighters, the Charles L. Hutchinson and the Richard M. Marshall.
Wheeler built 157 ships and in 1884 was rated by a federal inspector as among the nation's finest and most technologically-advance shipyards for steel ship construction.
The 1906 Bay City-built Daniel J. Morrell, 580 feetlong, lives on in history as its hulk lies on the bottom of Lake Huron. Dennis Hale, the lone survivor among 29 crewmembers of its 1966 sinking off Port Austin, is a popular speaker at gatherings of marine buffs around the Midwest. The Morrell was produced by the West Bay City Shipbuilding Co., the old Wheeler yard, that had been financially supported for a time by John D. Rockefeller.
The Kinsman Independent, largest vessel ever launched in the Saginaw River, when last seen was retired atthe dock in Buffalo awaiting sale at a price of $100,000, or scrapping. Low water levels and demise of the longshoremen who "scooped" out the last of her grain cargoes in favor of hoppers brought an end to the 647-foot long freighter. "The fact that she was a straight-decker prolonged her operating years long after others were laid up or converted," said former lake seaman Alan Flood of Bay City.
Built by Defoe in 1952 and originally named the Charles L. Hutchinson, the Kinsman Independentretired with an engine salvaged from the ocean-going Alcoa Protector, sunk by the Japanese during World War II.
The Independent was the last American-flag straight-deck bulk carrier still operating on the Great Lakes upon its retirement inDecember, 2002, after carrying a final load of 15,000 tons of wheat from Duluth, Minnesota, to Buffalo.
Unlike the self-unloaders, "straight-deckers" must be unloaded with dockside equipment and final cleanup by longshoremen. Ironically, the self-unloader Joseph H. Frantz that replaced the Independent in the Duluth-Buffalo grain trade, is more than 30 years older, having been built in the 1920s.
This reporter, along with photographer Dick Hardy, covered the sinking of the steamer Cedarville in the Straits of Mackinac in May, 1965, after a collision with the Norwegian motor vessel Topdalsfjord. The mournful moaning of the fog horns in Mackinaw City will never leave my memory.
Divers report the nearly 600 foot long Cedarville lying almost upside down in 110 feet of water and describe it as one of the most impressive shipwrecks in the Straits. It is a tomb to 10 crewmen trapped below decks. The captain had made a run for shore after the crash but the wounded giant took on water faster than the pumps could work and she went down only a mile or so from shore.
The huge ship, built at River Rouge in 1927 and converted to a self-unloader at Defoe in 1957, was stripped by pillaging divers in early years before laws were passed protecting sunken vessels from underwater salvage.
Below:(Left)The Diamond Light lightship is launched by Defoe (Right) The West Bay City Shipbuilding Co., successor to the Wheeler shipyard, launched the big freighterDaniel J. Morrell in dramatic fashion 98 years ago.
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