john f kennedy sailboat

JFK and Victura

President John F. Kennedy’s beloved sailboat Victura (Latin for “about to conquer”) is a 25-foot Wianno Senior sloop purchased in 1932 as a 15th birthday gift from his parents. It is on the Victura that he taught his wife Jackie to sail and also where the Kennedy family enjoyed their love of sailing on Cape Cod.

John F. Kennedy was an avid sailor, having won many sailing events – including the Nantucket Sound Star Class Championship Cup in 1936, and the MacMillan Cup and East Coast Collegiate Championships in 1938 (with his brother Joe). He enjoyed many boats throughout his life, including a 92-foot wooden presidential yacht that served five presidents and the same yacht that he renamed the Honey Fitz after his maternal grandfather. However, it was the Victura that was JFK’s cherished boat and the very boat that he sketched on many of his documents in meetings during his presidency.

The Victura was struck by lightning in 1936 and rescued from ruin by John F. Kennedy as he dragged it onto a beach during a 1944 hurricane. The Victura also escaped ruin in December 2003 when a fire swept through Crosby Yacht Yard in Osterville, Massachusetts.

Boat LOA: 26 Feet Boat Width: 8 Feet Boat Weight: 3500 lb Boat Material: Wood Boat Builder: Crosby Yacht Yard in Osterville, MA Boat Launched: 1932 Look for a model of the Victura during your visit to the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum!

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Manitou: John F Kennedy’s Yacht, Restored and Racing

We look back at JFK’s yacht Manitou, her restoration and racing, and trace her star-spangled origins.

Olin Stephens’ Design

The glittering twin scoops of Cannes Bay squat between the Mediterranean and the shimmering lavender hills of the Estérel mountains like a bum print in the sand. It is a place where life is slow enough to split the day with a siesta and fast enough to benefit in the thrilling warmth of the night.

The old port is surrounded by tall, dark streets where reassuringly surly waiters entice diners into their restaurants. It was fitting that I was in Cannes to join this particular boat, as one of the previous owners was so intrinsically connected with the film business that it is excusable to forget his political career entirely.

John F Kennedy’s Yacht Manitou was built at the MM Davis & Son yard in Solomons, Maryland, in 1937. She was conceived by James Lowe of Grand Rapids, who was so determined to win the Chicago Mac Race (from Chicago to Mackinac Island, across Lake Michigan) that he commissioned the young naval architect Olin Stephens to design her specifically. She is one of Olin Stephen’s famous inboard yawls, a lineage that started with Dorade in 1930, many examples of which are still loved and raced to this day.

What he wanted was a performance cruising yacht that would race well under heavy and light conditions. So Stephens designed a 62ft (18.9m) cutter-rigged bermudan yawl with 44ft (13.4m) in the water, a 13ft 9in (4.2m) beam and a four-ton keel. She had teak planking on deck and mahogany on oak for her hull.

Manitou was launched in 1937 and promptly won the 1938 Chicago Mac Race in the cruising division (on corrected time), beating all previous records. She came a close second the next year and came back to win it again in 1940 and 1941. After these successes Mr Lowe sold her, and in 1955 she was donated to the US Coast Guard to be used as a training vessel.

It was while she was at Annapolis that Manitou was first spotted by a young Senator Kennedy. She obviously made an impression on him because, when he was elected, the presidential yacht at the time was the 92ft (28m) power yacht Honey Fitz (named after his own grandfather) and, as was customary, a fighting ship ready for naval action.

Being a keen sailor, however, and now the president, Kennedy sent naval aide Captain Tazewell Shepard Jr, to search out a suitable sailing yacht that could accommodate the equipment needed for him to keep in touch with the White House, and even the Kremlin.

One of the yachts on the list was Manitou and, in the style befitting of his entire career, the signing of her deeds was one of the first things he did sitting at the presidential desk. She was promptly moved to Chesapeake Bay where engineers fitted her out as a working presidential office. Indeed John F Kennedy’s Yacht was soon given the nickname “The Floating White House”.

LOD: 62ft (18.9m), LWL: 44ft (13.4m), Beam: 13ft 9in (4.2m), Draught: 8ft 6in (2.6m), Disp: 60,000lb (27.2 tonnes), Sail Area: 1,778sqft (165sqm)

Although he never raced her himself, Kennedy and a friend, future America’s Cup winner Emil “Bus” Mosbacher, had an impromptu competition off Newport to see whether Manitou could beat his 38ft (11.6m) Weatherly . Sadly, the boats got so close approaching a mark that the secret servicemen in their RIB, nervous already at this sudden and unexpected turn of speed, intercepted Bus – much to the annoyance of the president.

During his time he not only used her as a presidential yacht, but also invited a bevy of stars and starlets aboard as guests, due to his fascination with Hollywood. The bathtub in the aft cabin, sunken under the cabin sole, is said to have been host to, among others, Marilyn Monroe.

The Star Wanes

In 1968, long after JFK’s assassination, she was finally sold at auction to Paul Hall, the leader of the Harry Lundeburg School of Seamanship, and became once more a vessel for learning. In the same year, Aristotle Onassis was wooing Jackie Kennedy, and, as a token of his love, twice attempted to buy it back for her at “any price”. But Hall was a proponent of the common man, so the offer only strengthened his resolve to keep her for teaching less privileged children about teamwork.

In 1999, in poor state and neglected, her history a mere forgotten footnote, she was bought by Laura Kilbourne, the great-granddaughter of none other than James R Lowe, the original owner. Manitou was given a major and meticulously accurate refit at the Chesapeake Marine Railway in Deltaville, Virginia – just down the road from where she was built.

By 2010, however, Laura was forced to sell by the arrival of triplets, relinquishing Manitou to the present owners Phil Jordan, Pat Tierney, Claes Goran Nilsson and Melinda Kilkenny. Though Laura’s refit had started a decade before, the boat was as yet unsailable and there was much to do. The interior, panelled beautifully in American butternut, a hard but light wood, was totally bare. There were no doors below, the original sails were still with her but could be seen through like greasy paper, and her rig, it was considered, could be improved.

And so, in December, in another fateful turn of events, she was taken back to Solomons where she had been built. Here, her stem was replaced, her engine changed for a 120hp Yanmar, the wiring redone, new tanks fitted and new batteries and navigation equipment were installed. She was given new winches and tracks and then came the varnish. After a gruelling four months of varnishing every inside inch of her, the interior finally sparkled once again.

An interior that, it is important to note, has a sunken bath, a fireplace and a fridge that has been modified to be opened from the top or sides. None of this detracts from one of the most elegantly laid-out living quarters and galleys you will come across. She seems large, light and airy with plenty of headroom and nothing seemingly compromised.

On top, the decks are uncluttered and the companionway, being amidships, leaves the cockpit free. She left the yard on 10 July 2011 and sailed into New York Harbor, flashing her cream sides past the Statue of Liberty with all sails up, making a triumphant 9 knots. Many a proud eye may have dampened with salt spray that day. From there, she went up to Newport, Rhode Island, and was shipped across to the Mediterranean.

Then the next chapter unfurled. She went into the famed Villefranche boatyard near Nice and, along with recaulking her hull and replacing the garboards, the rig was improved. The original mainmast had three sets of spreaders, and this they reduced to two, also removing the jumpers. The upwind performance was improved to such a degree that, with the mizzen staysail balancing it all, Manitou is now the envy of the fleet. Although this year was planned as a training year, no one seemed to have told the boat, and she started winning races regardless, taking first place in the Puig Vela and Alcudia and coming second in Palma, Nice and Imperia.

Sailing Manitou

I stepped aboard JFK’s Yacht as the sun was just drying the dew over the toerail and was welcomed by what at first seemed like a multinational but close family made up entirely of men. They were milling about in the restrained excitement before a race , putting on sailing gloves, taking off socks, discussing tactics and stowing breakables. The winds were light and I was soon pulled into a discussion about the advantage this gave the smaller boats in the class. We made ready and sailed out of Cannes into the Golfe de la Napoule. The wind, little that there was, perked up a bit, so we raised the jib and Manitou woke up.

There were 11 people on board and she didn’t feel crowded. Six minutes were called. We admired the posture and varnish of our adversaries like jockeys leaning on the race paddock fence. Five minutes. I fiddled with my camera and changed the lens. We raised the main. Three minutes. One of the Swedes on the foredeck changed his knee pads. One minute. We no longer admired our adversaries. Go!

One of the things that is unique in sailing is that there’s no suddenness about the start of a race, no screech of tyres. You merely carry on doing what you were doing before. The crew is a syndicate made up of old friends, all evenly tanned and most of them in their fifties. I was immediately intrigued by the dynamic, and as other skippers could be heard yelling at their crews, here was calm. On a full race charter there are constant questions and eternal strangers. Here there was cohesion, the ease of familiarity and the knowledge of each others’ abilities.

I sat down next to a particularly distinguished French gentleman who lived on the western edge of the bay. He explained to me how wonderful the lobsters used to be at a restaurant on a nearby island that had been closed down by the monks who owned the lease. The wind picked up a little more and Claes swung on shrouds and gave complex trimming signals to the well-manned cockpit. Having three of the four owners on board also lightened the potential hierarchy and it became evident that this was a crew of mixed ability but shared enthusiasm.

They had their rules: no shouting was one I particularly agree on; no paid crew, and they’d decided that 30 people was the maximum syndicate size – small enough to avoid confusion but large enough to provide a full crew for most regattas. Friends, and friends of friends. And when the more salubrious regattas became oversubscribed, they decided to put extra money into the funds. Everything was done with the doff of a gentleman’s agreement. Not that there aren’t any women involved. Far from it. When on board, the ladies, as well as one of the owners, Melinda Kilkenny, are known as “The Mizzen Sisters” such is their expertise at dealing with all things mizzenly.

And so we raced. And as we raced, the skipper Alex Tilleray, prised from The Blue Peter , guided us through the race, adjusting sheet cars ready for a tack, setting the spinnaker boom in case we needed it and even explaining how to tie a particular haul knot. His influence was pervasive; his racing knowledge unquestionable and his demeanour lacked that manic violence of the fanatical winner. We won, it seemed – it’s always difficult to tell – and we headed back to the old port to drink beer in the cockpit and talk of our tactics, joined by wives who’d been shopping.

It was on dry land, however, that I fully understood the advantage of a syndicate. There was, as there often is, an altercation during the race, which led to an inquiry. The inquiry led to one of Manitou ’s owners, Phil Jordan, being threatened by the skipper of the other boat in the pub straight afterwards. He was surrounded by the syndicate, shoulder to shoulder, ready to defend him. Had they been a group of strangers, that may not have been the case.

Pat told me that when they were looking for a boat to buy, Phil had said he was looking for one with significance. There can be few, if any, with more.

Oldest Ocean Globe Race Boat: Olin Stephens’ Galiana

Western flyer restoration: the john steinbeck fishing seiner.

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Watch CBS News

John F. Kennedy's beloved sailboat Victura back on display

May 29, 2017 / 7:28 PM EDT / CBS News

BOSTON -- The night before President Kennedy traveled to Dallas, he made a simple sketch inside a Houston hotel room. It may be the last thing he ever put on paper, but it wasn't the first time he thought of his sailboat, Victura.

"All throughout his life it was being out in the sun, in the wind, on the sea, in the salty air, that somehow was always a source of renewal and inspiration for him," said Stacey Bredhoff, curator at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Victura, meaning "about the conquer" in Latin, was given to him by his father when JFK was 15. He named it, cared for it and sailed it for three decades.

"It's exposed to the elements over the summer so that people can see it," Bredhoff said, so it needs the work every year.

In Osterville, Massachusetts, CBS News' Jeff Glor watched as the Victura was being restored by 75-year-old Malcolm Crosby, whose family designed the boat model 100 years ago.

"A lot of history here," Crosby said.

Kennedy credited the boating skills he learned on Victura with saving his life in World War II. And in 1953, pictures of Kennedy and a then-Jacqueline Bouvier onboard launched America's love affair with the young couple.

"The Kennedys have boating really in their DNA," said Greg Egan, who owns the Crosby Yacht Yard and overseas the revarnishing, polishing and painting.

"Every year we give it a protective coat of varnish," Egan said. "We want to make sure the boat's in great shape and protected for all the visitors."

Victura was returned to the library earlier this month, back at its prime spot on the shoreline.

"What do you find most fascinating about Victura?" Glor asked Bredhoff, the library curator.

"Just the fact it was his and it was so important to him and was such a part of his life," she said.

"It's wonderful to see her here, in the sunshine," she continued.

Where the stories it holds can be shared anew.

• John F. Kennedy

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VICTURA: THE KENNEDY SAILBOAT

AMY MACDONALD:   Good afternoon. I'm Amy Macdonald, the Forum Producer at the Library, and I welcome all of you here on this May Sunday. First, let me acknowledge the underwriters of the Kennedy Library Forums: lead sponsor Bank of America, Raytheon, Boston Capital, the Lowell Institute, the Boston Foundation; and our media partners, the Boston Globe , Xfinity and WBUR.  

The photos and film clips of Kennedy family sailing Nantucket Sound are so familiar that Kennedys and sailing are almost synonymous in our minds. Of course, the family had many sailboats, but the Victura was their favorite, and it's almost a miracle that it has survived. Acquired by the family in 1932, it was struck by lightning in 1936, endured a hurricane in 1944, and barely escaped a harbor fire in 2003.  It is now safely ensconced at the John F. Kennedy Library Museum from May to November, and at the Crosby Yacht Yard during New England's long winters. 

At the conclusion of this Forum, our author, Jim Graham, would be happy to have a show-and-tell outside by the boat. Hopefully, we won't have that shower they're predicting. His book, Victura , is on sale in our Museum store and after our outside excursion, Jim will be happy to sign books. 

Bios of both Jim and our moderator, Bob Oakes, are in your program. We're so pleased to have Bob Oakes back on our stage. The last time he was here was in 2011, when he moderated a Kennedy Library Forum with Governor Deval Patrick.

Jim and Bob will have a conversation and show slides for about a half an hour, and then we'll take your audience questions.  Please join me in welcoming Jim Graham and Bob Oakes. [applause]

BOB OAKES:  Thank you. So why don't I start out by just saying, Amy, thank you very much. It's a privilege to be back here for this event. Especially – as I'm sure this is the case for most of you -- after all the wonderful days and hours that I spent here with my family as my kids were growing up.  And I say especially because one of the things about this book is I think it takes us so nicely inside the Kennedy family and lets readers experience something that was important to generations of the Kennedy family, and that's the joys, the laughs and the life lessons learned on the water sailing. So thank you.

I want to start by saying, James, it's kind of a treat being able to get to do this twice, because we did this the other day on the radio. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, it was great fun.

BOB OAKES:   I want to open where the book opens. Can I say that you really did catch me. You took my breath away, really, right from the start of the book on page one when, to illustrate your point about how sailing was so integral to the family, you tell us that the night before he died in Dallas, JFK in his hotel room in Houston doodled, drawing a little picture of a sailboat moving through the waves.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, it's really poignant, isn't it?  That all throughout his White House years and Oval Office meetings and elsewhere he would often draw those sketches of a sailboat with a gaff rig, which is the one that has the mast up, an extra boom, up high, which makes it a distinctive sailboat and much like the Victura.  I think that it's also so fascinating to think about him during the Cuban Missile Crisis and other moments drawing little doodles of that sailboat, as if he's trying to transport himself back to his origins or his beginnings. So I think it always came back to him.

BOB OAKES:   Take us back, if you might. What is it that drew the family to the sea and to sailing?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Well, they moved to Hyannis Port, moved into the house and later bought it in the late '20s and then began to acquire sailboats fairly quickly -- little sailboats. The first one or two were called Wianno Juniors, and then they bought a Wianno Senior, which became the Victura.

Joe and Rose Kennedy were not really big sailors. There's no record of them pursuing the sport themselves. But when the children began to sail together, I think that experience together, growing up together during the '20s and the '30s was really something that bound them together and they had so many fond memories that to this day they pass it down generation to generation. 

I think they always saw in the sea an escape, a way to be together, a way to be competitive and enjoy the thrills of competing against Boston Brahmin, who did not necessarily welcome them to their society. And then they loved it so much that though they were the first generation to sail the Wianno Senior sailboats, they passed that down generation to generation, brother and sister, uncle to nephew. So this day even the little children, little Kennedy tribe children out there, nine and ten years old, learning how to fold sails so they one day can sail Wianno Seniors as well. 

They acquired a half a dozen Wianno Senior sailboats over the years since that first boat, the Victura, and keep passing it on. 

BOB OAKES:   The patriarch of the family, Joe Kennedy, Sr., was not much of a sailor, as I understand it. But he watched, intently; he watched the kids sail and scolded them when they screwed up in a race.

JAMES GRAHAM:   He did. John F. Kennedy was once asked about the competitiveness for which the Kennedys were so famous and he said, "Well, much too much is made of that. We aren't really that competitive, although our dad sure did ride our butts about the sailboat races." He used something a little bit more barnyard than that, but, yes, they certainly did love it. They enjoyed the competition. There was never any sense from the kids that they resented their father for the pressure that he put on them for being competitive. It was always really important that they come in first. There may be 12 boats in a race, but if you came in second that wasn't good enough. They had to analyze exactly why they didn't win it and that was true of all of them. 

BOB OAKES:   He preached that winning was really everything.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yes. I mean, well, a little caveat: he would say that once you've tried enough, you've tried everything you can possibly try and still not fallen short, that's okay. But if he saw your effort wanting, that's when you'd be in trouble.

BOB OAKES:   You write at one point that the Kennedys were privileged and ambitious, imbued with both a sense of entitlement and a strong work ethic. How did sailing fit in to that?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Well, they certainly worked very, very hard at it. I mean, they sailed every day. Of course, they loved sailing so it wasn't like it was work. But the parents certainly instilled a work ethic in the children and some of the children worked harder than others. Joe Kennedy, Jr., was a very good student. But it's often said that John F. Kennedy himself was not quite as enthusiastic a student, or as disciplined a student on every subject as some of his siblings were. As I understand it, John F. Kennedy tended to focus on the subjects that really interested him, not necessarily the ones that he needed to study to get good grades.

BOB OAKES:   Since you led us into Joe, Jr., let me ask a few questions. We talked about how Joe, Sr., loved the competition and loved preaching winning to the kids. Certainly, that was the case when it came to sailing races, which bred into many of them, including Joe, Jr. a degree of fearlessness. And Joe, Jr. of course, in World War II was a bomber pilot, killed in England while flying essentially a very dangerous mission and a secret mission that he volunteered for. Tell us that story.

JAMES GRAHAM:   It's an interesting story. John F. Kennedy's famous PT109 incident happened before Joe, Jr. died, and there has been speculation that perhaps Joe, Jr. was feeling a bit of competitive pressure from his younger brother, who had become a war hero, while Joe, Jr. was still flying missions out of Great Britain.  But that said, it has to be said that Joe, Jr. was, without question, a great war hero because he volunteered for a very dangerous mission, experimental aircraft that was packed with explosives, volunteered to fly it. Of course, the mission failed and it exploded in midair.

BOB OAKES:   Looking for V-bomb launch sites, right?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Exactly right. One of the interesting things about that is how so much of this story of the Victura all comes back home again. And after Joe, Jr. died … The news was brought to the main house at Hyannis Port via the two Catholic priests who came and knocked on the door and broke the news to the family – and there were many tears shed, of course, but after a while– they had planned on going sailing that afternoon after they had this news of Joe, Jr. and they said, "Joe would want us to sail." So they went out and sailed together. John F. Kennedy was with them at the time, because he had come back from the war already.

BOB OAKES:   Kind of makes you think that if that sense of competition and that sense of fearlessness wasn't woven into the character of the kids through sailing, then maybe he might not have volunteered for that mission. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   That certainly could be. And I agree the fearlessness was something that was a thread throughout many of the kids. I think so many times they would just jump in and out of sailboats. They were in the water, back in the boat, in the water again. There's a certain fearlessness to that. 

Robert F. Kennedy was famous for being really just a fearless guy. I mean, he just took all kinds of chances. After the death of the President, he was climbing Mt. Kennedy in Canada and was just a remarkable fellow.

BOB OAKES:   The Victura: Jack named the boat the Victura. What does it mean and why do you think he picked it?

JAMES GRAHAM:   I mentioned earlier that he was a good student in some subjects and not so good in others. One of his weaker subjects was Latin. That said, he picked a wonderful Latin word to name the sailboat. Victura means about to conquer. It also means to live. But John F. Kennedy himself said that he meant to use the word in its other meaning, which is about to conquer. I've always thought it was just a perfect name for a sailboat, especially a racing boat. 

BOB OAKES:   Why the Wianno Seniors? There's a picture of it up there. Why the Wianno Seniors? They could have basically had any smaller-sized sailboat that they wanted. Why this model?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Families of the South Shore and Cape Cod asked the Crosby Yacht Yard to design the Wianno Senior sailboat for that particular sailing area, Nantucket Sound. This year happens to be the 100 th anniversary of the construction of the first Wianno Senior. It was built specifically for the environment of Nantucket Sound. It has a shallow keel so that with all those shallows and shoals you would run aground less often, although locals are filled with stories of running boats aground. So that's a distinctive feature of the boat.

It also has a gaff rig, which causes the sail area to be a bit more horizontal than vertical, like a traditional Marconi triangular rig. So that when it leans over in the wind, the wind will wash over it a little bit better. So the boat was built specifically for Nantucket Sound, for the families, so that they could race against one another. 

BOB OAKES:   And hard, not impossible, but hard to tip over.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Very hard to tip over. There is a story of Ethel managing somehow to tip one over. She ran it aground again. The boats are very hard to tip over when they're in the water. But if they're on land or the keel is stuck in the sandy bottom and the wind catches it in a way, you can tip it over. She managed to do that on one occasion with some visiting friends from Ireland, some of whom did not know how to swim so they were holding on to coolers and things of that sort to stay afloat.

BOB OAKES:   And she thought the whole episode was great fun. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Oh, yeah, the entire time, she made everybody feel very comfortable and, "Yeah, we tipped the boat over, but no big deal, we'll all be fine." And they were fine, of course. There were plenty of other boats around to come help. 

But every day was an adventure. I kept hearing that again and again as I talked to members of the family. They sailed every day, and every day was a new adventure. You never knew what was going to happen on a sailing voyage.

BOB OAKES:   We should point out, as you did earlier, that although quite a lot of sailing centered around this one boat – we have it here in front of us on the screen, in addition to it being up there – the family owned quite a few boats. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   They did. They owned a couple of Wianno Juniors, which were smaller versions of this boat. They bought one early on that they called the Ten of Us when they were a family of ten. Joe and Rose had at that time eight children. A few years went by and Ted was born, and somewhat unexpectedly, I gather, because it was several years between the birth of Jean, the next youngest, and then Ted. So they had one boat called Ten of Us, so the next boat they called One More. [laughter]

BOB OAKES:   Jack in World War II: Jack was picked for PT boat training, at least partly, or maybe largely, because of his sailing experience. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, the folks who recruited sailors and skippers for the PT crews actually came to New England and the sailing communities.  They were looking for Ivy League and other collegiate racers. And Jack and Joe, in particular, were topnotch collegiate sailors, so they were good candidates for PT boat work. They were looking for people who were familiar with and comfortable on smaller boats, rather than the big destroyers and the like. There was a PT boat on display, I believe, in Edgartown that Jack Kennedy got to see before he actually was recruited. So the rest is history. A lot of the training happened in Nantucket Sound and that vicinity.

BOB OAKES:   You point out in the book that PT boat duty was not all glamorous, that a lot of it was constantly just trying to keep the ship, the PT boat ready to sail and in addition to that, fighting off the notion that where they were based, in the Solomon Islands, they were out of the mainstream of the war.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, there were all these great battles going on -- Guadalcanal and all the others -- and they were on patrol duty. So they weren't necessarily participating in the major battles. They were out there reconnaissance and chasing after Japanese boats as they came and went, so there was a little bit of resentment that they weren't in the middle of things, but they certainly saw plenty of action when you consider the sinking of PT109.

BOB OAKES:   August 1943: 109 is run over by a Japanese destroyer during a pitchblack night while on patrol in the straits off the Solomon Islands. And thanks to his time on the water and in the water, too, as you pointed out, swimming, Kennedy leads several long swims by the surviving crew members and swims, in addition to that, miles out at night to try and flag down what he hoped would be passing PT boats, although none did pass.  You write that Ted Kennedy, years later, said he was convinced that Jack's sailing experience saved his life and the lives of his crew members.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Ted specifically said the Victura -- that experience that Jack had sailing the Victura -- as one of the reasons he survived World War II. I think it has to be said that his skills as a swimmer had a lot to do with surviving that incident. But of course, you become a great swimmer when you spend so much time in the water sailing. So it all goes together.  But I do believe that we might not have had a President Kennedy had we not had a sailor named Jack Kennedy.

BOB OAKES:   Certainly, one of the things you point out very well in the book is that he was just not afraid of the water and even though he was injured and even though at that point he realized he lost a couple of crew members, he was not afraid to get into the water knowing that he would spend hours floating in the strait. He was not afraid to go out at night to swim and see if he could find a way to find a boat to get a rescue.

JAMES GRAHAM:   It was an amazing feat. The boat, the PT109, was split in half by a destroyer that just came out of nowhere and sliced the boat in half. He had to reassemble his crew. Two, unfortunately, died on impact but the rest of the crew climbed aboard the floating wreckage of the boat. And he managed to lead them ashore by … The rest of the crew, most of the crew, grabbed a piece of wood or something and paddled to shore. He grabbed a  badly injured sailor, who couldn't swim he was so badly injured, and took the strap from the guy's life preserver and put it in his teeth and towed him ashore.  And after that, after hours and hours of swimming that way -- I think it was the next day as night fell -- he swam again way out in the middle of the channel with a lantern, waiting for a PT boat to go by and ready to shine the light at it. Because there are all kinds of Japanese boats going back and forth on their patrols as well. 

What an awful experience, because they're stranded on an island. The rest of the Americans, all the allies think they're dead; they saw the explosion. They can't put SOS in coconuts on the beach of the island because there's Japanese everywhere, so they have to hide in the bush, which is exactly what you don't want to do if you want your fellow seamen to find you. So somehow, miraculously, they got out. 

BOB OAKES:   And the coconut that he wrote on and gave to the natives was in the Oval Office. It was on his desk at the Oval Office, later in the Oval Office of course, which you point out was decorated largely in a seafaring theme.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, when the President took over the Oval Office, he transformed it into this shrine to American seafaring. So he had that coconut on his desk from the PT109 incident. He had two cannons as bookends that were modeled on cannons from the USS Constitution. There were paintings of historic war battles, naval battles, models of ships. Of course, one of the things is when you find out that the President loves to sail, everyone who wants to give a gift to the President gives him more sailing paraphernalia. So the French, for example, gave him a ship that went on display in the Oval Office. 

BOB OAKES:   If you close your eyes and you think about the Kennedy family, what is it you picture most? When I'm running through that catalogue of pictures in my head, I think that I mostly see them on the boats in the water. I think that the majority of the photos in my head probably have Jack and Jackie and Bobby, and Teddy later, on the water, the wind whipping through their hair. I think this is a good time to show us a few historical slides. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   The one thing I wanted to point out about the Victura, there are so many things about it – the importance of what it contributed to the bonds of the family, and their survival during the war, and all of those things -- but also it was so important to the building of the Kennedy brand and the image that we have today of the Kennedys. It started as early as 1934 when Joe Kennedy, Sr. was appointed chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Boston Globe came out to do a photo spread on the family and took this picture of John F. Kennedy and Robert when Robert was, I think, eight and Jack about17 years old. And they're standing on the bow of the Victura. We know that because in the photo caption the Globe identified the boat.

Flash forward about six years to 1940. I always show this photo and ask people if they can identify Ted Kennedy in this photo. [laughter] 1940, Joe Kennedy is now the US Ambassador to Great Britain, and LIFE magazine sends a photographer out to take a picture of the family. This time they send out Alfred Eisenstaedt, who's such a famous photographer.  When I first saw this photo I thought, John F. Kennedy is not in this photo; I wonder if he's taking the photo. But then I thought, boy, it's an awfully welltaken photo; the contrast and everything is so well done. That's because it was Alfred Eisenstaedt taking the photo and John F. Kennedy wasn't on the boat. Eisenstaedt -- famous for taking that photo at the end of World War II of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square. 

Of course, a few more years go by. Right after that last photo was taken, John F. Kennedy went to war and became famous as a war hero. The whole story of PT109 reported in the New York Times and there was one article written about it, interesting thing about the tale of PT109 and how it became the story that made him a war hero.

John F. Kennedy had dated a woman named Inga Arvad, who was a Danish journalist, beautiful woman. He came back from the Solomon Islands and met up with Inga Arvad, who was a journalist, and despite the fact they had dated previously, she wrote a wonderful article about his war adventures abroad PT109 and the whole adventure that he had. 

Then John F. Kennedy went to New York and met up and had dinner with another former girlfriend, who now was married to John Hersey, who was a famous journalist in his own right and became famous for the book Hiroshima and some other works. Hersey wrote the story of PT109 for the New Yorker , and Joe Kennedy had it reprinted for future campaigns. Then 1953, John F. Kennedy is a young, newly elected US Senator and his fiancée Jacqueline Bouvier and he go for a sail on the Victura, again with LIFE magazine. 

BOB OAKES:   You write about this photo in the book: If ever there was a single moment when the Kennedy brand as defined, it was when this picture was taken, July 20, 1953.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, you think they're just newly together, this couple. John F. Kennedy's just newly elected to the US Senate, and they show them on the cover of LIFE magazine, which was much more influential in terms of its share of media audiences than magazines are today. So it did so much to establish them.  Then, go forward a few more years, the 1960 Presidential campaign, and there's John F. Kennedy in Sports Illustrated . This was taken in the summer of '60, shortly after he was nominated to be President by the Democratic Party. 

BOB OAKES:   I spent some time looking in the book at this photo. What I really like about it is I think it captures the confidence with which he sails. I mean, look at the left foot. It's just sitting there – I don't know my boat terminology -- but it's just sitting there, casually, braced on that centerpiece of wood. And the right foot, I just looked at it and I casually braced on that center of wood.  I thought, “How many times over his life did that right foot sit in exactly that spot, bracing him up as the boat heeled over?”

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, it begins to be clear why he enjoyed doodling. He clearly loves what he's doing. You can understand why he's drawing little pictures of it when he's in the Oval Office.

But the sailboat and its contribution to the image of the Kennedys was a two-edged sword. This photo was taken in 1962 and on this very day this photo was taken, the sailboat, he ran it aground in the presence of a number of newspaper reporters. The next day he boarded Air Force One and opened the newspapers, and there was a headline in, I believe, the New York Times and a couple of other national newspapers. Headline UPI -- so it would have been distributed nationally -- the headline line:  "President Runs Sailboat Aground." He was furious because this had been so much a part of the image that President Kennedy had cultivated and all the Kennedys had cultivated over the years.  So he was furious and he summons his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, and demands that he go down to the press corps, who were also in another section of Air Force One, and demand a retraction of the story, "Can't Be True." [laughter] And by the way, you can't have this image of the President all over the newspapers.  So supposedly the reporter reached into his briefcase, pulled out a photograph of the President and his crew waistdeep in water, trying to push the sailboat off the shoals. And this photo had not been published so Pierre Salinger walked back and nothing more was said of the matter. 

BOB OAKES:   On the subject of photos though, a side note: In '62, the President was spending some summer days on the Cape as President, sailing and swimming on an island called Egg Island and – you point out in the book – almost always trailed by a gaggle of mostly friendly reporters, but reporters nonetheless. And around that time, the word that we hear so frequently today, especially at seven o'clock at night when we're looking at TMZ here in Boston, we hear the word paparazzi. And that's when paparazzi came into being. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? The Kennedys certainly enjoyed the presence of news photographers up until this point. After that, they really became a bit wary of it and began laying ground rules for how close the press boats could get and that sort of thing. But it was right around that time that word ‘paparazzi’ was coined.

BOB OAKES:   The sea and Jack Kennedy. You point out that Kennedy's love of sailing influenced public policy and especially in conservation. The best example we have of that today is that Jack sponsored the legislation to propose the Cape Cod National Seashore.

JAMES GRAHAM:   That's right. It certainly influenced that. The Secretary of the Interior at the time had expressed a little bit of frustration that President Kennedy didn't show very much interest in inland wilderness; he was always interested in seashores. So he proposed the Cape Cod Seashore and at least a couple other seashores that became national seashores. So his interest in the sea certainly influenced public policy.

I don't know if you want me to get into this part as well, but I think it influenced public policy in other ways. I write in the book that I think it had some influence on President Kennedy's embracing the idea of sending a man to the moon. He often used metaphors of the sea in describing space travel. He said, "This is a new ocean and we must sail it."

BOB OAKES:   And he called it spacefaring.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Exactly. Of course, this whole competitive spirit that we talked about earlier that had been instilled by Joe and Rose in the kids, there's one wonderful moment when President Kennedy -- a year or two after he'd committed the country to go to the moon -- he invited James Webb into the Oval Office, and talked to him about what the estimate is getting to the moon first your priority of NASA. Webb said, "Well, it is a priority." And President Kennedy quickly corrected him and said, "No, I think it's the priority."  Then he went off lecturing James Webb by saying, "We can't come in second, we can't come in second place by six months. That's no good. We can't spend these enormous amounts of money to come in second. We want people to look at the US and say that they were behind, but by god they pulled ahead." Which sounded exactly like talking about sailboat racing. 

BOB OAKES:   You write in the book -- there was a specific line I wanted to ask you about -- "It would be an oversimplification to attribute Jack's decision to go to the moon to his love of sailboat racing, but it must have added a subconscious allure."

JAMES GRAHAM:   I think so. Michael Beschloss wrote a really great article about the motivations of why President Kennedy chose to send a man to the moon. And people have speculated about a lot of things – it was a distraction from the Bay of Pigs, which had just happened weeks earlier than the speech about going to the moon.  President Eisenhower thought it was crazy to send a man to the moon and spend all that money on it. Eisenhower, I don't think, ever appreciated the symbolism of the race, of getting there first and establishing a finish line as President Kennedy did. Kennedy spoke often of going to the moon, as not something he wanted to do for the science, but to demonstrate American technological superiority and our ability to win a race.  So I think that notion of the race and the competition really resonated with President Kennedy in a way that might not have with a politician like Dwight Eisenhower. 

BOB OAKES:   Do you think that if not for his life and experience sailing competitively in sailboat races, if not for that, maybe he would not have made the decision to go the moon?

JAMES GRAHAM:   No, I would not make that argument. But I would say it was a contributing factor. As with so many political decisions, there are many, many factors that go into them. But I do think that very early on he asked his staff … The Soviets were doing all kinds of one-off stunts. They had the first woman in space and they had the first dog in space. Before Kennedy, they had launched the first satellite. Kennedy said, "What can we do over the long term that will redefine the race as something we can win?" And they knew at the time that if given time they could develop the rockets necessary to get Americans to the moon. So I think it was a contributing factor, for sure. 

BOB OAKES:   Let me ask about Bobby and Ethel. They purchased their own sailboat just like the Victura, a Wianno Senior, and they called theirs the Resolute. Tell us about the significance of that name.

JAMES GRAHAM:   I've asked Chris Kennedy, the son of Robert Kennedy, where the name came from because as many of you probably know, especially if you've toured the

Museum, you know about the Resolute desk in the Oval Office that John F. Kennedy had. I asked if it was named for that desk. He thought it was either that or because of the famous British boat for which the Resolute was named. The desk is made from the timbers of the Resolute.   Iit was probably more a combination of things for the legend of the Resolute, the desk, and the rest. Max Kennedy actually bought a Wianno Senior later and named it Ptarmigan, which is coincidentally – the British ship, the Resolute, was first called Ptarmigan and then it was renamed when it was outfitted for Arctic exploration, renamed the Resolute. So he just liked that little historic reference. 

BOB OAKES:   Talked a little bit about Ethel earlier. She loved to sail. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Ethel loved to sail every day. After her children lost their father, I think she really valued that time sailing. She was not so much a racer, but just loved taking the children out. No child was ever left behind -- any child who wanted to join the crew. She's got 11 kids, that's a lot of childhood friends, so the boat was always loaded with kids. There's one most memorable incident. Ethel Kennedy, one thing that she very firmly believed -- and she was a woman with strong beliefs …

BOB OAKES:   I know where you're going with this. It's the ferry episode.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yes, yes. She really firmly believed that a sailboat always has the right of way over a powerboat, and it doesn't matter how big that powerboat is. So a ferry that carries cars and hundreds of passengers, it's still a powerboat.  So she had an ongoing feud with the captains of various ferries, one of which was called the On Cantina[?]. She got in its way and the captain of the On Cantina came running out on the flying bridge, screaming at Ethel and her crew to get out of the way. He's yelling at her and the On Cantina's crew is yelling at the captain saying, "Look out where we're going," and he's too distracted by yelling at Ethel. The On Cantina ran aground in the shoals, damaged the propeller and Ethel just kept sailing on.

I had a chance to ask Ethel about this incident and her feuds with these big ferryboat captains and she looked at me and squinted her eyes and said, "Sometimes when people are big, it goes to their head." [laughter] And she clearly thought of herself as David and these ferries as Goliath.

BOB OAKES:   You wrote that after Bobby's death, Ethel sailed almost every day when she could. What drove that, do you think?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Well, she loved to sail. She loved the time with the kids. You mentioned Egg Island earlier.  It really wasn't an island, it was a sandbar. They'd go up there and load up coolers with sandwiches and crackers and cheese and beverages. There's a man there who always hung out on the beach; he had a little powerboat and he couldn't speak, but he had a powerboat with a little outboard motor on it. So they named him Putt for the sound of his motor.  There's a great story that Ethel also shared with me. Putt eventually died. He lived in a little shack around Hyannis. She went and looked into the shack after he had gone, and there was a picture of Ethel pasted on the wall. Ethel, as she's telling me the story, said, "I didn't really ever photograph well.  I wasn't a very pretty woman, but there I was on the wall. And the rest of the wall was covered with pornographic pictures of women." [laughter]

BOB OAKES:   Any further comment?

JAMES GRAHAM:   I didn't pursue that line of questioning any further. [laughter] 

BOB OAKES:   I'm going to get you to read from a passage here. It's marked on 159 and 160. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Sure.

BOB OAKES:   In the book, Jim points out that the family often wrote letters to document important moments, and Ted wrote one after Bobby's death to his children. It was published in a private family book, and you included a passage of it in here. I had never read it before and it was, I thought, very moving.

JAMES GRAHAM:   I'll read this. To be clear, these are Ted Kennedy's words in a letter that he wrote to the children after Robert Kennedy died.

When I think of Bobby, I will always see Cape Cod on a sunny day. The wind will be from the southwest and the whitecaps will be showing, and the full tide will be sweeping through the gaps of the breakwater. It will be after lunch and Bob will be stripped to the waist, and he'll say, "Come on, Joe, Kathleen, Bobby and David, Courtney, Kerry, come on, Michael, and even you, Chris, and Max. Call your mother and come for a sail." One of the children would say, "What about the baby?" And the father would reply, "Douglas can come next year."  They'd push off from the landing, the sails of the Resolute catch the wind, and the boat tips and there are squeals of laughter from the crew and Bob says, "I think today is the day we'll tip over." And there are more squeals. And the Resolute reaches toward the end of the breakwater.  He will dive overboard and catch hold of the line that trails behind, inviting the children to join him. Child after child jumps into the water, grabbing for the line and those who appear to miss are pulled toward it by his strong and suntanned arms. 

Again, that's Ted Kennedy's words. 

BOB OAKES:   The imagery is incredibly powerful. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, and so much of the lives of the Kennedys are filled with those kinds of memories. I really think one of the powerful things about the Victura -- this is a book about a sailboat -- but it's really more so a book about a family and what made a family strong. And they all have memories like that and as I said, every day was an adventure, and they all have their own adventures that they'll recall for you.

BOB OAKES:   It's so interesting to me that in writing that letter, Ted chose to write about Bobby and the family sailing.

JAMES GRAHAM:   It's also of interest that so often when somebody dies in the Kennedy family and a eulogy is given that there are tales of sailing together. I mean, one of the things I often say, what motivated me to write the book, why I thought it was a good idea -- it's just the story of a little sailboat, right? When Ted Kennedy died, a lot of people got up and gave eulogies, many of them here in this building and some at a church in Boston. President Obama gave a eulogy. But four different people got up and in order to boil down the essence of who Ted Kennedy was, they told stories of sailing with him on the Victura. One of which was Senator John Culver, who told a wonderful story; you can watch it on YouTube or go to my website, TheVictura.com , and see it. It's definitely a wonderful story to hear.

BOB OAKES:   Eunice, talk a little bit about Eunice for a moment or two. You write that she was the best of the sailors among the daughters.

JAMES GRAHAM:   You know if you said to her, "Were you the best of the sailors among the daughters?," she would immediately say, "No, the best, period." [laughter] Men, women, all. She absolutely believed she was the best of the sailors.

There's one moment when they were out racing together and Eunice was on the boat, and they're racing along and she somehow – this is not evidence as her skill as a sailor, but it's illustrative. They're sailing along and somehow she fell out of the boat. They're going down wind so they're flying the spinnaker, which is that big parachute, or balloon-shaped sail, hard to raise and lower. So she comes up and starts treading water and she waves to the sailors, "Keep going round the mark, come around and come and get me on the next leg of the race." So she treaded water for 15 minutes or something like that. That was how committed she was to racing and winning and competing. 

BOB OAKES:   She sailed with fierce intensity and wild daring recklessness. And what you just said is really a pretty perfect example of that. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah. She was often compared to Joe, Jr. in terms of her bravery at the tiller. 

BOB OAKES:   She was such an accomplished person in life on dry land. Do you think that the way she sailed matched the seriousness and purposefulness in the way she approached life? She had several jobs or careers and worked tirelessly for people who were mentally or physically challenged.

JAMES GRAHAM:   The wonderful thing about the Kennedy family is all the things that kind of come together and grow the family. They had a daughter named Rosemary who was intellectually disabled, and Eunice was very close to her. Eunice was also an athlete. She played tennis I believe for Stanford and was a great sailor. And isn't it wonderful that that combination of things after she became an adult and the President took office, she was able to convert those two passions into forming the Special Olympics?  There's apparently a biography being written about Eunice, and I really think we need that because she really redefined how Americans in particular, and really the world, understand people with intelligence disabilities or disabilities of all kinds. It's a really remarkable contribution that I think in history she'll be noted for. People have said she would have made a great President herself if she had been born in a different era.

BOB OAKES:   Certainly was driven in life and, circling back to sailing, you point out in the book that despite a bunch of accidents over the years and some serious illnesses, she sailed well into her 80s and sometimes had to force a nurse or two, she dragged them on to the sailboat just so she could get out onto the water.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, Chris Kennedy told me a story. He was coming in from a day of sailing and Eunice was heading out to go sailing with a nurse in tow, the crew, and Chris asked her, "Where are you going?" "Going sailing." "Well, wait a minute, let me call one of my brothers to go with you." "Why? You don't think I can sail myself?" [laughter] But she definitely loved sailing. 

There's a moment I describe in the book in which she was very near death and not feeling very well. Ted, who was also ill, went to visit her. They spent several minutes and in an effort to cheer her up, decided to go through the brothers and sisters and ask which of these were serious sailors and which were not serious. So Ted threw out Jack: "Serious," she'd say. And Kathleen: She'd say, "Not serious at all." And run through the list and then of course Ted had to ask her, "Who is the best sailor of all?" "I am," she said. [laughter] I've already said that that would be her answer. 

BOB OAKES:   So let's spend a few minutes talking about Ted. We picture Ted, I think, mostly on his beloved Mya, but he loved the Victura as well.

JAMES GRAHAM:   He did. He was really an outstanding racer and took racing very seriously. He also saw it as a way to connect with his children and with nieces and nephews, who were now fatherless by 1968. He took his children out often sailing for a few days. Patrick's described … He had an annual father/son outing where they'd go out on the Victura and go camp, sail on Martha's Vineyard, or wherever the winds happened to be blowing, where the boat would go.  He clearly saw that as a family time. It was something he loved to do. And it worked because the children clearly loved it, too.

They're all, so many of them have now acquired boats of their own and sail as well.

BOB OAKES:   When I ask about the development of sailing, so to speak, in Ted's mind, when he was younger, long before he became the lion of the Senate, he lived in the shadow of his brothers. And you wrote here: "For years to come, no matter his accomplishments, Ted's status as a Presidential younger brother made him seem even less self-made than the other sons of Joe Kennedy. The exceptions were accomplishments racing the Victura, where nepotism gave no aid." He had independence and a sense of self-accomplishment on that boat.

JAMES GRAHAM:   That's a good point. If you think about it, he was always in the shadows of such accomplished, older brothers and sisters. But as a skipper in a sailboat race, the name Kennedy meant nothing. Either you won or you lost. And he must have loved that, that he could prove himself in that way. It's kind of an amazing thing that President Kennedy, when he was President, did not race, to my knowledge, much at all, if at all. But he loved coming out and watching his younger brother Ted race sailboats. So he'd be out there on the Presidential yacht watching Ted race around in the Victura.

BOB OAKES:    Late 1940s, Edgartown Regatta, a special moment, you write, for both Jack and Ted on the Victura. Jack was in Congress at the time, wanted to sail the race and asked Jack[sic] to crew. And the Congressman flies in at the eleventh hour. Tell us what happened. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Apparently, you're supposed to have a ticket or be on the boat and the rules did not allow for this, but Ted and the family friend, or cousin I guess, Joe Gargan, were on the boat waiting for Jack to arrive. They were late to get to the starting line, but they really wanted to sail with their Congressman brother Jack. Jack, the plane lands and he runs out in a suit and his briefcase to the end of the dock, jumps on the Victura, goes down below, changes clothes. Comes out and they make their way. I think they can hear the starting gun in the distance, but they rush out and get in the race and it was kind of a cloudy, rainy, misty day. I don't remember what the outcome of that race was, but they …

BOB OAKES:   You wrote that Ted gave Jack the tiller and when they got to the starting line, Jack could see the line that the other boats were sailing in, so he went in another direction. He took a chance in order to see if they could catch the rest of the participants.

JAMES GRAHAM:   That's right. I had forgotten about that. They really did know how to read the waters. I'm a Lake Michigan sailor, and there's no such thing as a tide in Chicago. But here the tide going in and out is a big factor in sailboat racing and they were really, really good at that. And that might have been a factor in that particular race.

BOB OAKES:   One by one, you wrote, they caught the other boats and finally eked out a victory at the end. I imagine that had to be one of many, many memorable moments for Ted on the Victura.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, there are so many stories of the Kennedys sailboat racing and coming from behind. That's part of the family lore, those various races. There's one other one about Jack when he was a youngster, coming from behind, even though the gaff rig busted and yet somehow he managed to win the race. I think that is a metaphor for life; Ted sailing is a metaphor for life. That notion of coming from behind is something that politicians really understand well, because so often somebody comes from behind in an election.

BOB OAKES:   You write about how after Jack and Bobby passed, Ted would sail the Victura out at night just to think all by himself.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, imagine the trauma of losing both your brothers. By that time, he'd also lost Joe, Jr. and his older sister Kathleen, now Jack and Robert. For days, he would go out sailing alone at night under the stars and collect his thoughts. There are other stories of the Kennedy family really enjoying sailing at night. There's a wonderful passage from Eugene O'Neill that Patrick Kennedy read at a funeral for his sister Kara, in which O'Neill writes about sailing at night and gazing up at the stars.

BOB OAKES:   You think sailing at night for Ted gave him a sense of purposefulness again? Certainly, his relatives thought it helped him focus.

JAMES GRAHAM:   I think so. The Kennedys are famously Catholic, but I think that they connect with their Maker as much at sea as anywhere. Kerry Kennedy told me that she never really feels closer to God than when she's out on a sailboat at night. I think that really puts life in perspective when you're out there on the water and experiencing the infinite sea. John F. Kennedy famously had on his desk, the Resolute, a little plaque that said "Oh, God, the sea is so great and my boat is so small." I believe that plaque is here in the Museum, if I'm not mistaken.

BOB OAKES:   Amy says yes. Summer 1994 – I'm wrapping up in a few minutes -- get ready with your questions – summer 1994, in the grips of a tight US Senate race. I remember this well, I covered this race as a reporter, that race with Mitt Romney. Looked for a while like he might very well lose, even the Senator's own campaign polls had the race nip and tuck or dead heat. Senator had to be concerned. And the afternoon before everyone knew what would be an extremely important first debate, he asked his driver to take him here to the Library so that he could stand and reflect near the Victura. Tell us about that. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   He did. It was the afternoon of a debate. He's down in the polls, or the polls had him and Romney neck in neck, more or less, and some polls had him behind. You know when you're a challenger to a guy like Ted Kennedy, being on the stage with him as an equal, challenging Ted really is a boost to your campaign. So it was a really crucial debate between Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney. And just to collect his thoughts, he came here and walked around the lawn. I think he sat on a bench somewhere outside part of the time and also must have spent some time with the sailboat. He said later that it was just a chance for him to collect his thoughts and reconnect with his values and the memory of his brothers and sisters. 

There was a line in the debate -- I don't remember exactly -- but he was challenged on a scandal in which the family was accused of profiting on some kind of a real estate deal involving the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, I believe. He basically responded by saying,

"Our family has paid too high a price to try to profit financially from public service."

BOB OAKES:   We're on the same page, because I actually have that called up right here. I remember that moment in the debate back then. When you cover a lot of politics, I think every now and then you can find a moment or two where you can actually see a campaign change right in front of your very eyes. That happened once to me in the race for President that John Kerry was nominated for. We were out in Des Moines, Iowa, and he had been slipping, slipping, slipping and at that moment, on that one particular day, he gathered a bunch of veterans together and it was a very, very moving moment at an event near his campaign headquarters. The energy in the room was incredible, and you could feel the momentum in that Democratic primary swing back to John Kerry at that moment.

It was overpowering.

I remember this line in that debate and you knew when he said that line, you could hear it on the other end of the televisions all across the Commonwealth, people saying, "Wow, that is a campaign-changing moment." I think he had one of those moments at that time. You wonder, if he would have been able to call that up had he not been here that afternoon, reflecting on his life with his brothers and the boat right next to the Victura.

JAMES GRAHAM:   One of the wonderful things about the story of the Victura is, as I said, it's the story of the family, it's not really just the story about John F. Kennedy as a 15 year old boy sailing it. It's that relationship between John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, and Robert and then Joe, Jr. and the others. What I really love is that with the construction of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate nearing completion, that that boat – I hope that that boat becomes more a symbol of the family and the relationships between them and what that chemistry meant than just about John F. Kennedy. Because I think that's the real story of the Victura.

I will also say that I think that sailing together was a really powerful shared experience. It was deliberately pursued by people like Ted Kennedy trying to connect with his children. There's really valuable family lessons from that, in that if you can find something to share with your children and your cousins that is a really wonderful shared experience – it doesn't have to be sailing, it can be anything. It could be fly-fishing; I think you fish for trout, right? It could be quilt making, it could be all kinds of things – but find your own Victura as a family and I think you'll do well. 

BOB OAKES:   I've dragged my kids on many fishing trips. Okay, questions from the audience. Step up to the microphone.

Q:   I have a question. I don't know if it's in your book but in Jacqueline Kennedy's, the tapes that came out, her long interviews with Arthur Schlesinger, one of the last things he asks her is when was President Kennedy most relaxed, and she said on a boat. Because there was no telephone.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, yeah, and certainly that photo from the Sports Illustrated spread really shows it. There's another news account at the time when he's President and he's with Ted and they're coming in from a cruise on -- might have been the President yacht coming back to Hyannis, it must have been Hyannisport -- and they see the Victura, winds blowing 30 knots or something like that and they look at it and they just say to each other, We've got to go out. So the President and Ted go out sailing. So clearly, he relished those moments. . 

Q:   Then just one quick question – the grandchildren of the next generation, the Shrivers, the Smiths, the Kennedys, who are some of the most outstanding sailors in the family?

JAMES GRAHAM:   I know that Robert and Ethel's son Joe really spent a lot of time with Ted and became an avid sailor. I know Max has raced a lot with the family. Chris Kennedy, who I came to know because he lives in the Chicago area, actually owns the boat – after they gave the Victura to the Kennedy Foundation for this Museum, they acquired another Wianno Senior and named it Victura. That has now come into the hands of Chris, although many of the members of the family sail it.  So I'm not sure if any one of them really stands out. Certainly, Joe, and Ted Kennedy, Jr. was a very good competitive sailor. I think his name shows up as a winner of many races.

Q:   I had the pleasure of running into the Kennedys several times in Maine. They used to go sailing there quite a bit. Is that in your book? And how much time did they actually spend up there?

JAMES GRAHAM:   In Maine. I don't really know the answer to that, but I know that there's a story of Robert and Ethel taking the children up to Maine sailing. The story was that they used to navigate with roadmaps instead of nautical maps. [laughter] And the rocky coast of Maine is not a place you want to take lightly. 

But that was an incident where Kathleen Kennedy, now Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, was not with them and fell off a horse, on their way to Maine. So a Coast Guard boat came to give them the news and Robert jumped off the boat and swam in high waves and everything else, swam across the water to the Coast Guard boat so he could get ashore to be with Kathleen, to be with her and attend to her injuries.

Q:   You had spoken before about the PT109. I've often wondered, it's sort of known that Jack Kennedy had sustained a very bad back, or had a back problem and he also had Addison's disease. Did he sustain his back injury during World War II, or was it due to something else?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Well, he had back issues prior to World War II. Whether that incident aggravated his back injuries, it's hard to say. I mean, after that incident, he was able to do all that swimming, so his back must not have been bothering him very much then. But I think it's been said that many people after World War II said that John F. Kennedy injured his back on PT109. In fact, I think he had injured it earlier. And he didn't necessarily correct those reporters who said that so it's not entirely clear how the back conditions were sustained.

Q:   You open the book by quoting the Tennyson poem Ulysses . I just wonder if you can talk about sort of what that meant to the family and how it entered family lore, et cetera. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Thanks for bringing that up. Ulysses , of course, is a Tennyson poem from the 19 th century based on Homer's Odyssey of the legend of Odysseus, who was a great mariner. And it all started with a little ten-year-old girl named Jackie Bouvier who memorized the poem with the help of her grandfather when she was only ten years old. When she became engaged to John F. Kennedy, she recited the poem from memory to him. Jack was just delighted by it and it became his favorite poem, and he used it in speeches. 

There's one moment when he was running for President and he wanted to conclude his speech with words from that poem, but couldn't remember them. So he writes, "Jackie, give me the last words that begin with 'Come my friends.'" She proceeds to write several lines of that poem, starting with "Come with my friends, tis not too late to seek a newer world."

And of course after John F. Kennedy's death, Robert Kennedy took up that poem himself and began using it in speeches. He published a book called, To Seek a Newer World , taking a title from that. Then, when Robert F. Kennedy died, Ted Kennedy became under prominent consideration for the Presidency and his greatest speech was in 1980 at the Democratic National Convention, when he was conceding the race to President Carter and he gave his famous "Dream shall never die speech." But before he got to that concluding line, he quoted from Ulysses.  

To this day, there are grandchildren of that generation of Kennedys who memorize portions of that poem, sometimes performing it for the family at the dinner table. Conor Kennedy recently, who's I think is 18 years old and a grandson of Robert and Ethel – he's more famous for having dated Taylor Swift [laughter] -- but he also memorized the poem in its entirety for a class of his own.

BOB OAKES:   Before we go outside, we started by talking about doodles and we're going to finish by going back to art.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Before I go to this, I do want to say one quick word. I really wanted to say a word of thanks to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, because their support of my research here for this book was really, really invaluable. Of course, they preserve the boat but I spent a lot of time in the Library doing research and the help of the Library staff and all these photographs, the one that I love so much of John and Robert, I had not seen it anywhere but I found it here in this Library.

But one of the indications of how much this boat meant to the Kennedys as a family and especially a generation of the Kennedys who were the children of Joe and Rose, in 1963 the three sisters -- Jean, Patricia and Eunice -- decided that what their three brothers really wanted for Christmas were paintings of the sailboat Victura. And they commissioned an artist named Henry Koehler, who's in this photo, in the fall of 1963 to go out to Hyannis Port and go out on a boat. It might have been the Honey Fitz or it might have been the Marlin, I'm not sure. A powerboat. Joe Kennedy, Sr., who was an invalid at this time because of a stroke, they gave him a ride on the boat with him as this artist Henry Koehler drew sketches of the sailboats.  So here you have the President, the Attorney General of the United States, and Senator Ted Kennedy together, very important people in this country at that time and the sisters think that the thing that they most really want for Christmas are paintings of the Victura.

So Henry Koehler made these paintings. This is one of Jack and Jacqueline, and then this is of Ted and Joan Kennedy, and then nother one of Robert and Ethel. And in the fall of '63, as he's working on these paintings in his New York studio, one of the sisters wanted to come by and check on the progress of his work. So she came by the studio. Henry turned off the radio because he didn't want the gathering to be disturbed so they could have a conversation. The sister looked at the paintings. He can't remember which sister it was. He just said it wasn't Eunice; it was one of the other two. The sister thought the work was great, and she walked out the door and headed down the street. And the phone rang and it was the artist's, Henry Koehler's fiancée, saying, "Do you have your radio on?" "No." "The President's just been shot."  He ran out the door to see if he could find that Kennedy sister, and she was long down the block somewhere. He found out later that the sister learned of it from someone who recognized her on the street, a stranger had grabbed her and said, "Your brother's just been shot." 

But these paintings were nonetheless finished. He thought he'd lose the commission as a result of that. But he finished the paintings and delivered them for Christmas. Jacqueline had to accept for her husband.

BOB OAKES:   I said this the other day on the radio -- sorry about the cough, still coming off a cold -- I said this the other day on the radio and let me conclude– first of all, before I conclude I want to say that James is going to go downstairs next to the boat and take some one-on-one questions from you, if you want to question him there.  But on the radio the other day, at the end of our other interview, I said that this book -- if you love the story of the Kennedy family and you love a great story about how a family develops together through one shared interest -- this book is a gift. It's a real gift. And thank you very much. I appreciate it.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Thank you, Bob.  [applause]

JFK: a president with a passion for boats

Most members of the Kennedy family shared a love of boats, of recreational and competitive sailing, and John F. Kennedy, one of America's most famous presidents, was no exception. Throughout his life, he sailed and raced a variety of boats, winning multiple awards in yachting competitions. After all, he began sailing long before graduating from Harvard, long before becoming a senator, a war hero or even a president and it remained a passion of his throughout his lifetime.

The Kennedy sailing tradition

A prominent political dynasty, the Kennedys are renowned for their involvement in public life, contributions to the United States and the world, as well as a series of family tragedies, the most notable being the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. A little know fact, however, is that the Kennedys were avid and successful sailors.

John F. Kennedy and his eight siblings were introduced to yachting by their father, Joseph Kennedy, who was chairman of the Maritime Commission, as well as holding many other important positions, particularly in finance. Interestingly, despite their wealth and ability to afford huge luxury yachts, the Kennedys preferred to sail in smaller, sport boats they could steer and pilot themselves.

Joseph Kennedy encouraged his children to learn to sail from a young age, sailing together as a single crew, or competing against one another. It soon became clear that most of them had a natural flair for sailing. The most successful of them was JFK, winning numerous awards for his sailing achievements, such as victory in the Nantucket Sound Star Class Championship cup in 1936. Both his brother Joseph Jr. and sister Kathleen were also very accomplished sailors.

Read stories of other famous personalities and sailors:

Albert Einstein: the passionate sailor

The most famous female sailors of all time

The sailboat Victura, his lifelong companion

The first boat JFK helmed was a 22-foot Olympic sailing boat named Flash II . It was at her helm that the President learned the basics of sailing and went on to win several major American regattas.

President JFK on his sailing ship Victura.

John F. Kennedy's greatest love, however, was his second boat, the Victura , a 25-foot sloop he received from his father for his 15th birthday. JFK kept this classic wooden sailboat throughout his life, often taking his entire family out on it during his presidency. As it was easy to handle, it was on the Victura , that he taught his children Caroline and Johnny Jr. to sail. In fact, the Kennedy family kept the sailboat long after his death and sailed it for more than 50 years. Today, she sits with her bow pointing out to sea in front of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Kennedy's love of yachting and boats, as well as his love of the sea, provided a welcome respite from his tumultuous presidency. Even while the administration was negotiating the Cuban missile crisis, it is said he was sketching drawings of yachts and often used sailing-inspired phrases in his speeches: 

"We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of preeminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war."   JFK

Captain JFK and the sailboat Victura

All the President's ships

After JFK became president, he almost immediately acquired an official presidential boat, the 62-foot yawl Manitou , on which he not only sailed with family, but also welcomed Hollywood stars, statesmen and other notable personalities. This 1937 performance yacht, made of mahogany with teak planking, had caught his eye when he was just a senator. And as soon as he took office, he converted it into an office, from which he could communicate not only with the White House, but also the Kremlin. Manitou was quickly dubbed the "Floating White House".

Other official presidential vessels included the motor boat Marlin and the presidential yacht The Honey Fitz, which   John. F. Kennedy used on a regular basis, as had former presidents, such as Truman, Eisenhower, Johnston, and Nixon. The Kennedy family spent most of their summer weekends and holidays with close friends on this yacht, where it is said he was at his happiest. In fact, it was aboard The Honey Fitz  that Jackie Kennedy threw him his last birthday party just months before his assassination. 

"It is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea — whether it is to sail or to watch it – we are going back from whence we came." JFK

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Author Discusses Kennedy Family's Tradition Of Sailing The Victura

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• Shannon Dooling

Ever since the opening of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in 1979, the Kennedy family sailboat Victura returns each May, remaining on display through the summer and fall.

The crew from Crosby Yacht Yard in Osterville, where the boat is stored each winter, erects the 25-foot wooden sloop on a stretch of grass facing the Boston Harbor, careful to set the boat on a tilt, as if it were sailing into the wind.

In his new book, "Victura: The Kennedys, A Sailboat, And The Sea," author James Graham dives into the Kennedy family's relationship with sailing, and the role this handcrafted sailboat plays in their legacy.

"You know, I look at [the Victura] and I see brothers and sisters and cousins having fun together, learning to sail together, passing that heritage down from one to the next, and I just see a family," Graham told WBUR.

Here are highlights from Graham's interview with Morning Edition host Bob Oakes:

On the Kennedy family sailing heritage

One aspect of the story I tell is the fostering and development of the Kennedy brand and it really started as early as the mid-1930s, when Joe Kennedy was just emerging as a political figure and invited news media to come and photograph his children on sailboats. Even the 1934 Boston Globe had a photo of Jack and Bobby on the bow of the Victura. And of course, that famous photo in 1953 on the cover of LIFE magazine with a young Sen. Jack Kennedy and his fiance, Jacqueline. That boat is so inextricably tied to the family image.

On John F. Kennedy's relationship with sailing

There are numerous little doodles that he drew of sailboats and sailboats that look just like the Victura. Even the evening before he died in Texas he left a doodle of a sailboat in his hotel room.

That image, it's a touching aspect of the life of John F. Kennedy that even in these trying times, like the Cuban missile crisis, you'd see doodles of a sailboat as though he were trying to mentally transport himself away from the trouble of the day, back to the joys of sailing and the sea.

On the love of sail races

Coming in second was never good enough. And there is kind of a constant theme throughout their lives, stories of coming from behind. And that really, I think, was a life lesson for them. They learned from sailing that you could be several lengths behind in a race and still catch up and win a race. Certainly in politics, that's a valuable lesson to learn early.

On Ted Kennedy's love of the Victura

He loved sailing it from his own childhood. There's a story of his older brother Joe Junior sailing with him when Ted was very young. Joe was frustrated with Teddy's lack of knowledge of sailing and picked him up and threw him in the water. And then Joe Junior jumped in after him and retrieved him. But despite that early experience, he loved the sport.

After John and Robert Kennedy died, Ted certainly must have felt that sailing the Victura and other boats was a great way to reconnect with his nephews and nieces who were then fatherless. I think Ted, too, particularly after his brother Robert was assassinated, easy to imagine how shocking that moment must have been, and to just collect his thoughts he would go off and sail at night by himself. And I think that even when you're the president or you're a senator, like Ted Kennedy was, and tragic incidences occur, that going out to sea helps put it all back into perspective.

• More Photos: The Kennedys' Love Affair With The Sea And The Sailboat 'Victura'
• WBUR Series: November 1963: Remembering JFK

Bob Oakes Senior Correspondent Bob Oakes was a senior correspondent in the WBUR newsroom, a role he took on in 2021 after nearly three decades hosting WBUR's Morning Edition.

Shannon Dooling Investigative Reporter Shannon Dooling was an investigative reporter at WBUR, focused on stories about immigration and criminal justice.

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Deceased , Historic

1917 - 1963.

A President of the United States and an avid yachtsman, John F. Kennedy helped bring sailing to the forefront of the American public’s mind.

Though he sailed many large yachts, Kennedy favored small boats throughout his life, appreciating the simplicity, intimacy and ease of handling that a good little sailboat provides. It’s not surprising, therefore, that the 26-foot Wianno Senior sailboat Victura – a gift from his parents for his 15 th birthday – remained his favorite throughout his life.  It was the boat on which he taught many others, including his wife, Jackie, to sail, and it was the boat that captured and held his imagination throughout his life.

Kennedy loved competitive sailing. In 1938, sailing with his older brother Joe for Harvard, he won the MacMillan Cup, the East Coast Collegiate Championship, outsailing two future America’s Cup skippers. On display at the JFK Library are the Nantucket Sound Star Class Championship cup that he won in 1936 sailing his boat, Flash II , and a smaller cup for the Hyannisport Yacht Club race to Edgartown.

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John F. Kennedy: The Yachtsman President

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As the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy was a towering figure on the world stage, embodying an era of hope and progress. But behind his image as a statesman, there existed another persona, one less known but just as defining – John F. Kennedy, the Yachtsman President.

Kennedy’s love for the sea began in his youth, nurtured by summers spent in the coastal town of Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. There, the future President discovered not just the call of the ocean, but a lifelong passion that would accompany him well into his presidency.

His yacht, the Victura, was a constant presence in his life, a 25-foot Wianno Senior class sloop built by the Crosby Yacht Yard in Osterville, Massachusetts. This particular class of sloop, a single-masted sailing boat with a fore-and-aft rig and single headsail, was and still is, a popular choice for both racing and pleasure sailing. The Wianno Senior class was named after the Wianno area of Osterville, Massachusetts, where these boats were first conceived and crafted.

She was designed with a full keel, which extended the entire length of the hull, offering stability in heavy winds and seas. The full keel also included a cutaway forefoot, reducing wetted surface area and increasing speed potential. In combination with her design, Victura’s overall weight of around 4,400 pounds added stability, but also required a skilled hand to navigate effectively.

Victura was equipped with a marconi rigged main and a jib. The Marconi, or Bermuda rig, characterized by a triangular mainsail, allowed for better windward performance. The sail area, approximately 338 square feet, was sizeable enough to harness the wind efficiently but not overwhelmingly so.

The deck of the Victura was relatively Spartan, designed for functionality rather than luxury. It would typically contain the essential controls and rigging required for sailing, such as the helm, winches for the sails, and cleats for securing lines.

The interior of the Victura, while modest, was functional. Given the boat’s purpose—racing and day sailing—there was little need for substantial accommodations below deck. However, there would likely have been space to stow gear and provisions, as well as some form of simple seating or berthing.

In essence, the Victura, like other Wianno Senior sloops, was a seaworthy, reliable, and nimble vessel, designed to provide an authentic and engaging sailing experience. Her design and features reflect the seafaring traditions of New England’s coastal communities, an apt match for a seaman like John F. Kennedy.

This vessel was no simple pleasure craft, but an essential part of Kennedy’s identity. It was a gift from his parents on his fifteenth birthday, and the Victura would carry Kennedy through numerous sailing regattas, family outings, and moments of solitude that he so often sought on the open sea.

The Victura was a vessel of simplistic beauty, characterized by a glistening white hull and a single, towering mast that hoisted a canvas of sails. The intimate quarters below deck spoke of a boat built for racing and leisure, rather than grandeur and luxury. Yet, it was within these confined spaces that Kennedy found solace and quietude, the soothing rhythm of the waves serving as a counterpoint to the demanding pace of his public life.

Kennedy’s companions on the Victura were as varied as the seascapes he sailed. From his brothers and sisters to friends, dignitaries, and his wife Jacqueline, all experienced Kennedy’s love for sailing firsthand. It was on the Victura that Kennedy courted Jacqueline, their shared journeys on the boat becoming a metaphor for their life together. Those who accompanied him on his maritime voyages often spoke of his transformation when he took the helm – from a dedicated statesman to an enthusiastic sailor, his eyes lighting up with the same zeal that marked his speeches.

Perhaps the most pivotal moment in Kennedy’s sailing career came in August 1936, when he won the Nantucket Sound Star Class Championship. Kennedy was a competitive racer, his skill and tactics refined by hours spent at the helm of the Victura. His victories on the water were a testament to his tenacity and strategic acumen, qualities that would later guide him during his presidency.

The Victura was more than a boat to Kennedy – it was a symbol of his youth, his competitive spirit, and his love for the sea. His relationship with the boat was often reflected in his speeches, where he used nautical metaphors to inspire a nation yearning for direction and progress.

Following Kennedy’s untimely death in 1963, the Victura remained a poignant reminder of a President whose life was inextricably tied to the sea. Today, the Victura is carefully preserved at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston, her hull still gleaming, her sails furled. Each year, on Kennedy’s birthday, the Victura is launched into the sea, a tribute to the Yachtsman President.

John F. Kennedy’s maritime legacy is a narrative of passion and commitment. It is a testament to a man who, despite the weight of his office, never lost sight of the boy who first fell in love with the sea. His story serves as a reminder that even in the face of immense responsibility, one can find solace and strength in the pursuit of personal passions.

From the shores of Hyannis Port to the Oval Office, the Victura carried Kennedy on a journey unlike any other. As we look back on his life, we are reminded that before he was a President, before he was a statesman, John F. Kennedy was, and will always be, a sailor. And in the silence of the sea, his legacy continues to resound, a beacon of hope navigating the course of history.

What sparked JFK's passion for sailing?

JFK's passion for sailing started at a young age, nurtured by his family's love for the sea and the location of their home overlooking Nantucket Sound.

What was the name of JFK's personal sailboat?

JFK's personal sailboat was named Victura, a 26-foot Wianno Senior sloop.

Where is the Victura now?

The Victura is now displayed at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

What role did JFK play in the navy during World War II?

JFK served as a skipper of PT-109, a Patrol Torpedo Boat during World War II in the Pacific Theater.

How did JFK's love for the sea influence his presidency?

JFK's love for the sea provided him with a relaxing escape from the pressures of the presidency. He often spent time sailing in the waters of Cape Cod.

Did JFK continue sailing during his presidency?

Yes, JFK continued to sail during his presidency, with sailing being one of his favorite pastimes.

What did JFK say about the sea?

JFK once stated: I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because...we all came from the sea.

What was JFK's role in the navy?

JFK served as a naval officer during World War II. His leadership and heroism were showcased when he led his crew to safety after their Patrol Torpedo Boat, PT-109, was rammed and split in two by a Japanese destroyer.

How did sailing shape JFK as a leader?

Sailing taught JFK critical leadership skills, including decision-making, teamwork, and resilience. These skills proved invaluable during his naval service in WWII and his presidency.

What is the significance of JFK as a yachtsman?

As a yachtsman, JFK embodied the virtues of sailing—leadership, courage, resilience—and left an indelible mark on the sailing world. His legacy continues to inspire sailors around the globe.

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John f. kennedy: world war ii naval hero to president, they sank my boat.

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Photograph by Frank Turgeon Jr.

President John F. Kennedy is arguably one of America’s greatest U.S. Presidents. Elected in 1960, he brought an energy and grace to the Oval Office. His humanity in pursuing civil rights in the United States elevated him to a visionary level of both Presidents Lincoln and Washington. Yet, he is also the first and possibly only US President to be faced with one of the world’s most critical moments when the United States and the Soviet Union were on the verge of engaging in global nuclear thermal warfare in 1962. This would be a post-World War II event that could plunge the global climate into a nuclear winter and kill millions. The Soviets were establishing missile bases in Cuba 90 miles from the tip of Florida. Was the Russian Premier Khrushchev testing the young Kennedy? Kennedy made a pivotal decision by ordering the U.S. Navy to create a blockade around the Caribbean Island of Cuba. The world held its breath and waited to see who would back down first. Kennedy prevailed. 

John F. Kennedy’s strength of character and leadership was influenced by many aspects of his life. One of the most influential periods could easily have been his tenure as a naval combat officer in the South Pacific fighting the Japanese following the attack on Pearl Harbor. His ability to make quick decisions under stress with the welfare of those around him would be put to the test like no other on a fateful August night in 1943. It was one of those moments he learned you do what you’ve got to do.  He was lauded a hero for which he said "it was involuntary, they sank my boat". 

"Any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction, 'I served in the United States Navy,'" wrote President John F. Kennedy in August 1963.

From Harvard Man to Naval Officer

Frank Turgeon and Turgeon Studios

Young John F. Kennedy’s future was one of privilege and opportunity with his graduation from Harvard University in 1940.  He had previously attended the London School of Economics and was entering graduate school at Stanford University in California when he paused, with all of America to intently listen to President Roosevelt’s galvanizing declaration following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor ending with “a date which will live in infamy”. Young Kennedy’s nation was now at war. 

Older brother Joe joined the Navy and was training to be a pilot.  John whom friends and family called Jack, wanted in on the action too. The problem was Jack had a bad  back and it was doubtful the Navy would take him.  The family patriarch Joseph Kennedy relied on a few well-placed connections to help his second eldest son.  The elder Kennedy was the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain and good friends with Captain Alan Kirk who was the Director of Naval Intelligence.  This was the break young Jack needed to get his foot in the door and he was soon assigned as an ensign in the Naval Reserves serving in intelligence.  His initial duties with the Navy were modest at best shuffling between office bound assignments stateside.  Ensign Kennedy’s next big break came when he was able to attend Officers Training School in the late summer of 1942.  This set him up for his big chance he had so longed for where he could contribute and command as an officer.  It was a calling based on his skills and passions from a life of growing up on Cape Cod among the sleek and fast luxurious wooden hulled motorboats effortlessly skimming across the waves on weekends.  A Patrol Torpedo (PT) Boat skipper had arrived ready for duty.               

Ensign John F. “Jack” Kennedy was finally was at the helm of his own boat with the salt air spray in his face and the ocean chop bouncing him and his crew across the waves aboard the roaring PT 101 .   The 101 was a 78-foot Higgins boat which was one of two variants the Navy was fielding along with the slightly larger Elco PTs.  His time aboard the 101 was only for training with the Navy’s Motor Torpedo Squadron Four located in Melville, Rhode  Island and  later for testing in the tropics in Panama, but it gave the young officer the thrill of commanding a roaring wooden hulled boat across the sea but this time with a compliment of torpedoes and  heavy machine guns.  The PT boats were the US Navy’s concept for quick attacks and for close in shore support.   

Combat Command and the PT-109

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade (JG) Kennedy entered combat with an assignment to Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Two based in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific in 1943.  It was there he boarded “his” PT boat.  Finally he had his first combat command.  It was the PT-109.  She was an Elco type.  The bigger of the two variants by about 10 feet complete with a formable array of torpedoes, heavy machine guns and depth charges.   No time to waste for the young Kennedy as he skippered the 109 with several other PT Boats away from the Solomons towards the Russel Islands as the US Navy prepared for the invasion of New Georgia.  Soon Kennedy and his crew of eleven sailors were conducting nightly attacks on Japanese barge traffic frantically attempting to resupply their isolated garrisons in New Georgia. The US Navy used the lightning speed of the PT boat to attack with quick surprise launching torpedoes and strafing the enemy craft with 50 caliber heavy machine gun rounds.  The boat’s speed allowed for a quick exit before counter attacks could be a serious threat.  

The crew of the 109 also found themselves on patrol in and around the remote islands serving as lookouts for the larger more formidable Japanese destroyers and cruisers that may attempt to attack US warships or US Marines on beach heads in the New Georgia-Rendova area. The only real weapon the PT boat had when facing off with the venerable much larger and heavier destroyers was speed, the quick release of torpedoes and a rapid exit before the large guns of the destroyer could attempt to fix their targets.  The PT boats and their crews would easily succumb to a single blast from a destroyer’s heavy guns.   It was speed or nothing.  

Collision with a Japanese Destroyer

United States Navy

The 109 joined fifteen PT boats on patrol on a dark night in early August 1943 to intercept Japanese warships in the straits.  Fellow PT skipper Ensign George Ross with his boat out of commission joined Kennedy aboard the 109.  The group engaged several Japanese destroyers firing their complement of torpedoes and withdrawing, but due to the unreliability of American torpedoes in the early stages of the war the attack did not affect much damage.   Kennedy and crew on the 109 stayed in reserve with a few other boats to protect against counterattack by lingering as the attacking boats withdrew.  Kennedy kept his speed to a crawl hoping to keep the wake and noise to a minimum in order to avoid detection.   At 2 a.m. Kennedy noted a vague silhouette of vessel approaching in the darkness.  His first thought was another friendly PT boat slowly approaching.   Soon he realized it was the massive Japanese destroyer  Amagiri  traveling at 40 knots.  Kennedy attempt to steer his boat into a firing position but before he could react, the massive destroyer slammed  broadside into the much smaller wooden boat  cutting the   PT 109  in two in ten seconds.  Ironically the Japanese destroyer didn’t even realize that they had struck an enemy vessel and kept motoring forward soon out of earshot.   The tremendous impact had thrown  Kennedy into the cockpit where he landed on his bad back.   As the chaos and short lived ensuring flames doused by the destroyer’s wake subsided, Kennedy and 4 of his sailors clung to some wreckage of the 109.  He called out into the darkness and could hear 5 other members of his crew somewhere in the darkness of the now quiet sea.   Sadly two of his sailors were killed upon impact with the destroyer.   Kennedy, a champion swimmer from his time at  Harvard made his way to his forlorn crew pulling them all to the relative safety  of the floating wreck of the 109.   

Stranded at Sea

Collections of the U.S. National Archives and the Naval Historical Center

With dawn’s early light Kennedy was able to finally survey the extent of the chaos from the night before.  Surrounded by Japanese ships in the area and facing the uncertainties of the sea Kennedy pondered  "fight or surrender". He would later go on to  state, "There's nothing in the book about a situation like this. A lot of you men have families and some of you have children. What do you want to do? I have nothing to lose."  Towards the end of the following day he made the command decision to abandon the sinking wreckage of what once was the PT-109 and lead his men by swimming three miles towards the faint outline of a tiny island on the horizon.   An officer who leads from the front and takes care of his men, Kennedy gave one of his wounded sailors a life jacket and then proceeded to tow the hapless sailor whereby Kennedy had to secure the tow rope in his teeth so he could have his arms free to swim. 

After hours of swimming in the open Pacific Ocean, the crew of the 109 had finally made it to dry ground.  Exhausted, they took their rest.  Quickly Kennedy knew the island would not offer much due to a lack of food and water and with little respite from the blazing tropical sun.  As his crew gathered their strength after a full day of surviving in the unpredictable ocean, Kennedy set out once again but this time alone to swim the arduous route he knew the PT Boats had taken through the islands hoping to find a friendly vessel or a better island to gather his crew.  His search provided little and he returned to his crew.  After spending several days on the barren little island, Kennedy surveyed his sailors' welfare and abilities and knew they had just enough strength to make yet another long swim to a larger island he spotted in the distance.   The crew set out for a second arduous journey again with Kennedy tending to his wounded sailor.  After 4 days with no food or water and exhausted, the crew of the 109 led by Kennedy crawled on to a beach of a second larger island where they found coconut palm trees.  Finally they had found shade, food with the coconut meat and hydration with the coconut milk.       

11 ALIVE…NEED SMALL BOAT…KENNEDY

Confident that his crew was safe and secure, Lieutenant JG John Kennedy and his friend Ensign George Ross knew they had one more exhausting swim to make.  They set out for yet a third trek this time to the tiny Island of Nauru several miles away faintly seen on the horizon where they were confident they would find local friendly natives.  The locals of Naru must have been stunned when they witnessed the two American men wade ashore.  The natives were trusting towards Americans after witnessing poor treatment at the hands of the Japanese.   They were willing to help.  Kennedy couldn’t risk attempting to canoe with the natives for fear of being seen by a Japanese patrol boat or plane.    He instead cut a message on a coconut that read   "NAURO ISL…COMMANDER…NATIVE KNOWS POS'IT…HE CAN PILOT…11 ALIVE…NEED SMALL BOAT…KENNEDY".  He then handed the coconut to one of the natives and said, "Rendova, Rendova!,"    

The next morning the natives returned with food and supplies.  Kennedy discovered along with the provisions a letter from the coast watcher commander of the New Zealand camp.  The letter directed for Kennedy to return with the natives whereby the New Zealand forces would unite him with U.S. forces.    Not long after their rendezvous, Kennedy’s feeling of elation must have been immense as he watched the  PT-157  rumble over to greet him.  Shortly after picking up Kennedy, his crew of 10 sailors saw the 157 roaring towards their little island.  After six long days, their skipper came through and they were going home.  

A New Command: The PT-59 and Choiseul Island

United States Navy Archives

After a few months of healing up in the rear but still wanting to stay in the fight, Lieutenant JG Kennedy requested another PT boat.  In October 1943 he took command of  PT-59 .  Kennedy, possibly doubtful of the Mark 8 and Mark 14 torpedoes’ abysmal performance decided to discard her torpedo tubes and convert her into purely a gunboat.  He had two 40-millimeter anti-aircraft guns installed along with an additional array heavy machine guns. Reflecting on his battle experiences Kennedy did ballistics tests on heavy armor plating he had mounted along with his gun positions to ensure his crew’s survivability.  

Kennedy’s venerable PT boat proved its valor when the 59’s crew sprinted towards Choiseul Island.   Fifty US Marine of the 1 st Marine Parachute Regiment were clinging to a beach head with an overwhelming Japanese force on the verge of over running them and pushing them into the sea.  Kennedy and his crew roared in with guns blazing long enough to provide suppressing fire as the Marines made their way to the 59. The Navy crew loaded all Marines aboard, including several wounded.   Kennedy had a severely wounded Marine taken to his bunk.  Small arms rounds were hitting the wooden boat and bouncing off the armor plates Kennedy had installed.  Kennedy gunned her engines and roared away from Choiseul.   To his dismay the wounded man taken to his bunk had expired due to his wounds.   He carried the rest of the grateful Marines to safety.  

A Hero's Welcome Home

John F. Kennedy Library and Museum

John F. Kennedy was promoted to Lieutenant and continued as the skipper of the PT-59 but by 1944 the injuries sustained with the collision with the Japanese destroyer sent him stateside to receive treatment and physical therapy at Castle Hot Springs, a military hospital in Arizona.  Sadly older brother Joe was killed in action piloting a British Mosquito night fighter in a top secret operation.  John  was honorably discharged in 1945.  He would later undergo back surgery as a young U.S. Senator 8 years later.    

For his service in World War II, John F. Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal (the highest non-combat decoration awarded for heroism) and the Purple Heart.  He also kept and had preserved the coconut shell with his inscrption   "NAURO ISL…COMMANDER…NATIVE KNOWS POS'IT…HE CAN PILOT…11 ALIVE…NEED SMALL BOAT…KENNEDY"   Years later when he was asked how he had become a hero, John F. Kennedy replied casually by saying “it was involuntary, they sank my boat”.  Perhaps he was thinking these thoughts as he was contemplating his heroic stance in 1962.  He had no choice but to order a naval blockade and stand firm, America’s cold war enemy was placing missiles in America’s backyard.    

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John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site

Last updated: February 11, 2021

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You Could Own JFK’s Sailboat

By Alison Levasseur

Photography by Heritage Auctions

On May 18, Flash II —the Star Class sailboat owned by President John F. Kennedy and his brother Joseph—will be offered at Heritage Auctions, in Dallas. “The Kennedy brothers made quite a name for themselves in the Nantucket Sound Fleet racing circuit with this boat in the late 1930s,” says Mark Prendergast, director of trusts and estates at the auction house. “It’s also been the subject of extraordinary and painstaking restoration. Not only is it a piece of American history, it’s also seaworthy and ready for adventure.” The opening bid for the 22-foot-long boat is $100,000. Watch the video below to learn more about its provenance.

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By Benjamin Reynaert

Jack Kennedy and his sailboat

Jack Kennedy and the Victura

President John F. Kennedy’s beloved sailboat Victura, Latin for “about to conquer,” was a birthday gift from his parents when he turned 15. He soon started winning races, eventually becoming one of the best collegiate sailors in New England.

It was on that approximately 25-foot Wianno Senior, built in 1932, that he taught his wife, Jackie, to sail, and the Life magazine photos of them at sea branded the young couple as vital and daring. When Kennedy was on shore, he doodled pictures of the sloop, and the Oval Office at the White House was a shrine to sailing. The biggest piece of seafaring memorabilia was Kennedy’s desk, made from the timbers of the HMS Resolute, abandoned by the crew after it got locked in ice in the Arctic.

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Every winter Victura is taken from its spot on the lawn of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Dorchester to winter in the Crosby Yacht Yard in Osterville. The boat yard, founded in 1850, is still building boats like Kennedy’s, now out of fiberglass instead of wood.

This year the return of Victura to the Kennedy Library will be celebrated at 1 p.m. May 18 with a talk by James W. Graham, author of “Victura: The Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea” (ForeEdge). Bob Oakes, host of WBUR’s “Morning Edition,” will be the moderator.

Double winner at Triangle Awards

For the first time in the 26-year history of the annual Triangle Awards, the book named the best debut novel also has won the prize for best LGBT fiction. The double winner is Sara Farizan’s “If You Could Be Mine” (Algonquin), about a 17-year-old in love with another girl in Iran, where homosexuality is a crime. Farizan, the Massachusetts-born daughter of Iranian immigrants, was deeply closeted until college. The awards are sponsored by the Publishing Triangle, an association that fosters the publication of books written by LGBT authors and/or with LGBT themes.

Boyle wins Thoreau Prize

T. Coraghessan Boyle, for whom the state of the earth is a gnawing issue, is the 2014 winner of the Henry David Thoreau Prize for Literary Excellence in Nature Writing. The PEN New England prize, established in 2010, will be awarded to Boyle at 6:30 Wednesday evening at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames St., Cambridge.

Boyle’s two dozen books of fiction include “When the Killing’s Done” (Viking) about endangered wildlife on California’s Channel Islands and “A Friend of the Earth” (Viking) about environmental degradation in the United States in 2025. A couple of years ago, Boyle told The New York Times that his timing was off with that novel: “I projected 2025 for the effects of global warming to really disturb us, but I should have cut that by 10 years. It’s so depressing. You read any environmentalist — there’s not a breath of hope for our species.”

■  “Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot” by Ace Atkins

■  “Delancey: A Man, A Woman, A Restaurant, A Marriage” by Molly Wizenberg (Simon & Schuster)

■  “Supreme City: How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America” by Donald L. Miller (Simon & Schuster)

Pick of the Week

Alden Graves of Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vt., recommends “The Plover” by Brian Doyle (Dunne): “In this lyrical novel, a solitary sea journey for an epically disillusioned man named Declan O’Donnell evolves into a rousing adventure. O’Donnell’s small boat becomes the refuge of a number of unexpected — and largely unwelcome — passengers, all of them anxious to leave their former lives bobbing in the ship’s wake.”

Jan Gardner can be reached at [email protected] .

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Selling J.F.K.’s Boat

By John Clarke

After going up for auction on Monday, with a starting bid of a hundred thousand dollars,  President John F. Kennedy’s boat  is still for sale. Nobody has yet taken the chance to add their name to a long line of owners, ranging from the young President to, far less reputably, a pot smuggler.

The sailboat is a twenty-two-foot International Star sloop, a class designed by the draftsman Francis Sweisguth in 1910, according to Heritage Auctions, which organized the sale. The relatively tall mast and narrow hull give the boat a massive mainsail, which made it extremely responsive and sensitive to touch but also meant it was tricky to handle and required tremendous skill to race. The Star class has been used for the Olympic keelboat event since 1932, with the exception of the 1976 games. More than eight thousand Stars have been built since 1910. Kennedy’s boat, Star No. 721, was built in 1929 and 1930 by the original owner, H. B. Atkin, of Manhasset Bay, Long Island. Atkin raced it under the name Jubilee from 1930 to 1933.

It was swift and impressive enough to catch the eye of the teen-aged Kennedy and his brother Joseph, who already owned a Star class boat (No. 902), which they called Flash. The Kennedy brothers bought Jubilee in 1934 and renamed her Flash II (records show that they sold the original Flash in 1936). It quickly became John's favorite racing boat and gained a reputation among East Coast sailing clubs as being the fastest in its class. Jock Kiley sailed against Kennedy in the waters of Nantucket Sound, and he insisted that Flash II, not Kennedy’s sailing skills, was to thank for the streak of wins. According to Tazewell Shepard’s “John F. Kennedy: Man of the Sea,” the ribbing proved too much for Kennedy, who in the summer of 1936 finally made a proposition to Kiley: let's swap boats and race. Shepard writes:

Flash II with Jock Kiley at the helm jumped to an early lead. The boat was running true to form, when in the middle of the race both boats were becalmed. As a little breeze began to stir, Jack took a different lark, as he often did. In the trailing position, he was the first to feel the effect of the wind. He hugged the shore line where the breeze was freshest and began to close the distance, managing to pull ahead at the end and—just barely—to win the race. There was no more switching of boats after that.

Kennedy went on to win the Nantucket Sound Star Class Championship that year, and then competed in the 1937 Atlantic Coast Star Class Championships, winning one race by a massive four-minute margin. He raced Flash II at Harvard, as well, and won the prestigious McMillan Cup on the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis, in 1938.

Kennedy joined the Navy in 1942 and shipped off to the Pacific, where he sailed on a much bigger vessel, the PT-109. Flash II, meanwhile, passed along a series of owners: Millard Vanderwald, of Casco Bay, Maine, sailed her under the name until 1948, when he sold it to Ken Schwartz, of Larchmont, New York. Schwartz raced her out of Larchmont Yacht Club for two years before selling to Richard Percoco, of Mamaroneck, New York, who bought her with money he earned from delivering newspapers. He sold the boat to Charles Morgan in 1962, who in turn sold it to D. William Ehler, of Clearwater, Florida, in 1963, the year Kennedy was killed, for a reported three hundred dollars. In 1972, the boat was moved to a shed, which is where it remained until Ehler died, in 1996, at which point the vessel went up for auction.

Enter Gregory Olaf Anderson. Anderson had the idea to restore the old boat and, based on its historical pedigree, sell it for at least a million dollars. He assembled a group of investors and purchased the boat for nineteen thousand eight hundred dollars at an auction in Monticello, Florida, in 1996.

With the help of a shipwright at the Marblehead Trading Company, a boatyard in Massachusetts, Anderson stripped off several layers of fibreglass to expose the original wood hull, repaired the old spruce mast and keel, replaced the pine deck, refinished the hull, and spent weeks applying eleven coats of paint. Finally, after the fittings were polished and the teak varnished, the boat was ready. Anderson and his investors sunk approximately seventy thousand dollars into Flash II, according to court documents, and occasionally exhibited the boat at nautical museums and boat shows. "I'd like to see somebody sail her for a summer and then give her to the museum. That would be great,” Anderson  told the Associate Press  in 1997. "I'd love to be the crew."

But Anderson would never get the chance. In December, 2001, he was arrested in Arizona with more than thirteen hundred pounds of marijuana in his truck and was sentenced to eighteen months in state prison. Anderson was in fact transporting the marijuana for one of his investors; after his arrest, he agreed to stay silent in exchange for payment—including the investor’s share of the Kennedy boat. After his release, Anderson was still planning to sell the boat when, in 2004, it was  seized by the Drug Enforcement Agency : Anderson’s investor was coöperating with the authorities, and tipped them off to the likely pot-financed sloop.

The boat was auctioned off by the U.S. Marshals Service in 2005, where it was purchased for a hundred and twenty thousand dollars by its current owner, Frank Harvey, a Houston businessman who volunteered for Kennedy's 1960 Presidential campaign and now collects Kennedy memorabilia. Flash II had been sitting in his backyard under a tarp. After a decade, Harvey was ready to sell Kennedy's boat. He said that he's downsizing.

Harvey told me that Anderson turned down an offer for eight hundred thousand dollars before he was arrested and sent to prison. Anderson, according to court documents, believed that he could sell it for more than a million. "That was the biggest mistake of his life," Harvey said. "I think Olaf got screwed."

But Harvey thinks that Flash II is worth a million dollars, too—a figure largely based on Kennedy nostalgia. He also believes that Anderson's ownership adds to the boat’s story. "It puts a little romance in it," he says. "I can't see it hurting the value."

That romantic patina was not enough to move the boat, however. On Monday, there were no bidders. So, for the next two weeks, Flash II is on the block for a hundred thousand dollars.

It’s an emotional buy, Barbara Beigel-Vosbury, the executive director of the International Star Class Yacht Racing Association, said. Prices for a Star in good condition—one not owned by a U.S. President or a drug dealer—can range from five hundred to fifteen thousand dollars. But for Flash II? “The buyer will be a Kennedy aficionado who will pay whatever they think it’s worth,” she said. “It’s like buying Picasso. If you love Picasso, you’ll pay wherever it is they ask.”

Mark Prendergast, a director at Heritage Auctions, said that the boat did succeed in drawing attention to the rest of the Kennedy auction items, which included J.F.K.’s back brace (sold for twenty thousand dollars) and a collection of cameras owned by Jackie Kennedy (sold for $8,125). “It was a tough thing to sell,” Prendergast said about Flash II. “It's very specific buyer base.”

Ben Miller, who restores boats in Texas, readied the boat for its latest auction and took her out for a quick test sail. Other than a leak around the rudder, the boat is in great condition, he says, though by no means for everyday sailing: the rigging is questionable, and he doesn't trust the mast. "It handled just fine," Miller said. "But it's a boat that belongs in a museum."

Kennedy owned a number of boats in his lifetime, and sailing was never far from his mind. On November 21, 1963, he slept at the Rice Hotel in Houston, before flying to Dallas the next day. Sometime that night, he sketched in pencil a simple drawing on hotel stationary. It was a small sloop, sleek on a full keel.

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An Inside Look at JFK’s Presidential Yacht, “Honey Fitz” [PHOTOS]

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The former presidential yacht, “Honey Fitz”

With the 50 year anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s death upon us, it’s only appropriate that we honor his legacy here on gCaptain by featuring a photo tour of the presidential yacht, “Honey Fitz”.

The 93-foot wooden yacht was originally built in 1931 by Defoe Shipyard in Bay City, Michigan for Sewell Avery, a prominent businessman from Chicago, who mostly used it to cruise around Lake Michigan. The yacht was purchased, or possibly expropriated, from Avery in 1942 by the U.S. government and assigned to the coast guard.

The yacht first gained Presidential status with President Harry S. Truman, who used it mostly as a tender for the much larger, and more lavish, Williamsburg . In all the yacht was used by five U.S. Presidents – Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon – but was most famous for its role as the presidential yacht for John F. Kennedy, who renamed it “Honey Fitz” after his grandfather.

Kennedy is said to have spent some of the happiest times of is life on the Honey Fitz. During he presidency, he would use it extensively to entertain family and close friends, cruising up and down the eastern seaboard from the Potomac River in D.C. to Cape Cod.

The yacht was eventually sold to a private buyer during the Nixon Administration in 1970. Recently, the yacht underwent an extensive, two-year restoration to bring it back to its “Camelot” era glory days it is most known for.

P.S. – Yes, JFK also enjoyed cruising onboard the other presidential yacht, the familiar USS Sequoia, too.

Lone Stateroom:

Wheelhouse:

Dining Room:

President John F. Kennedy with his daughter, Caroline, aboard the Honey Fitz in 1963.

Sources:  http://www.myhoneyfitz.com/

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Pieces of History

John F. Kennedy and PT Boat 59

Today’s post is written by archivist Dr. Greg Bradsher.

When one thinks about President Kennedy’s naval career in World War II, what most often comes to mind is his command of Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109.

Thanks to the 1963 movie PT 109 , adapted from the 1961 book PT 109: John F. Kennedy in World War II by Robert J. Donovan, Kennedy’s wartime exploits with PT-109 were well-publicized and became part of the Kennedy legend (see Stephen Plotkins’s “Sixty Years Later, the Story of PT-109 Still Captivates” in the summer 2003 issue of Prologue .)

What few people realize is that after the loss of PT-109, Kennedy was given command of another boat: PT-59. Actually, the last scene in the movie PT 109 shows Kennedy and this boat sailing off into the sunset to begin new adventures on his path to the White House.

The story of Kennedy and PT-59 begins on the morning of August 2, 1943, in the Solomon Islands, when PT-109. Lt. (jg) John F. Kennedy, USNR, was in command when PT-109 was rammed by a Japanese destroyer and sunk. Kennedy and the surviving crew members were rescued on August 8, and Kennedy was then sent to Tulagi Island to recover.

But Kennedy was eager to get back into the fight, and he was soon was assigned to command PT-59. He reported to the new boat (technically the PTGB-1, Gunboat No. 1) on September 1.

During the next five weeks, PT-59 was converted into a gunboat for use against Japanese barges in the northern Solomon Islands. The four torpedo tubes were removed and replaced with additional .50- and .30-caliber machine guns behind armor shields. The 20-millimeter anti-aircraft gun on the stern was replaced by 40-millimeter antiaircraft guns fore and aft that could be lowered to fire on ground targets. With the refitting completed, Kennedy took his boat to the base at Lambu Lambu Cove on Vella Lavella Island.

When PT-59 arrived on October 18, it was sent out on patrol with two other PT boats across the New Georgia Sound to the northwestern tip of Choiseul Bay on Choiseul Island, an important Japanese barge base.

The PT boats were ordered to block the western and southern approaches to Choiseul Bay and intercept barges. At this point the Japanese were frantically moving troops by barge in anticipation of American landings in the northern Solomons. Kennedy, now promoted to full lieutenant, took PT-59 on eight similar patrols during the next ten nights.

On November 1, Kennedy participated in a rescue mission to Choiseul Island where Marines, part of Lt. Col. Victor H. Krulak’s Second Marine Parachute Battalion(1st Marine Parachute Regiment, First Marine Amphibious Corps) had been surrounded by Japanese forces, and needed to be evacuated. This mission, told in the fall 2010 issue of Prologue , was a successful one, although one of the wounded Marines died in Kennedy’s bunk aboard PT-59. Interestingly, this dramatic rescue mission was depicted in the movie as having been accomplished by PT-109.

On the night of November 5, Kennedy led three PT boats to Moli Point and Choiseul Bay, where they attacked Japanese barges. During the next week and a half, PT-59 would prowl off Choiseul Bay looking for barges.

Kennedy’s final action was on the night of November 16, when he took PT-59 on an uneventful patrol. On November 18, a doctor directed Kennedy—who was mentally and physically exhausted and had lost 25 pounds over the preceding three months—to go the hospital at Tulagi.

Kennedy gave up his command of PT-59 that day and left the Solomon Islands on December 21 for the United States. He left the Navy on physical disability in March of 1945. Soon, he would begin his career in Congress. As for PT-59, she remained in the Solomon Islands until August 1944, when she was transported back to the Motor Torpedo Boat Training Base in Rhode Island.

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5 thoughts on “ john f. kennedy and pt boat 59 ”.

What is the basis for the PTGB-1 designator? I’ve never seen any such designator in official records and it isn’t consistent with contemporary practice.

I do know the British, who started off WW2 with torpedo boats earlier than the US, referred to as MTBs or Motor Torpedo Boat. They too had a version of the torpedo boat with the torpedos deleted in exchange for more and heavier guns.

The “PT” in a PT boat is an abbreviation for patrol torpedo. So, putting this together, a PT boat is a patrol torpedo boat. It was used in the Second World War by the U.S Navy.

Who was Kennedy’s XO on PT59?

Robert Lee “Dusty” Rhodes lt(jg)

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JFK, the sailing President

20 Feb JFK, the sailing President

“I really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it is because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it is because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it we are going back from whence we came.”

 –  President John F. Kennedy speaking at the America’s Cup in Newport, RI in 1962.

Before John F. Kennedy was President of the United States – indeed, before he met Jacqueline Onassis, before he was a U.S. senator, a Congressman, a Naval hero, a Harvard graduate – he was first a sailor. It could be argued that for JFK sailing was not only his first love, it was the love of his life.

He began sailing at a young age with his family. As a racer JFK won several events, including the Nantucket Sound Star Class Championship Cup in 1936, and the MacMillan Cup and East Coast Collegiate Championships in 1938. Even as president, he took time to sail in the waters off Hyannis, Palm Beach, and on the Potomac. For JFK sailing was a respite, a way to (at least temporarily) escape the heavy burdens of his office.

JFK owned many boats, but one boat remained his favorite throughout his too brief life. On his 15th birthday, his father Joseph Kennedy gave him a 25 foot Wianno Senior, a classic wooden gaff-rigged sloop made nearby on Cape Cod. JFK named her Victura ,   Latin for “about to conquer” – fitting for a young man with big dreams. He went on to other, larger boats – most notably the Sparkman & Stephens designed S/Y Manitou , and the Presidential motor yacht Honey Fitz   –  but it was Victura that captured and held his imagination and his heart.

JFK enjoyed sailing Victura for her simplicity, ease of handling and performance. It was on Victura that he taught Jackie and his children Caroline and John Jr. to sail. There are many photos of the Kennedy family and JFK sailing  Victura , and in those pictures there’s no mistaking the huge grin on his face. It is the smile of a man who loved his boat and loved sailing it. Friends said that he often told them he was never happier than at the helm of Victura .

The next day, hotel staff were cleaning the suite when they learned JFK had been shot in Dallas. In the trash, they found a simple pencil drawing of a sailboat that looked much like Victura , beating through the waves.

The Kennedy family kept Victura and sailed her for almost 50 years. Today, Victura stands on the lawn of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston , with her bow facing out to sea. A moving and fitting tribute to our sailing President.

Did you enjoy this? Here’s another piece of sailing history you might like:  A Shamrock for St. Patrick’s Day  

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A chance to own John F Kennedy's racing sailboat

John F Kennedy’s Star Class racing sailboat, Flash II , is up for auction with an opening bid of $100,000.

The American president was a teenager when he and his brother, Joseph, began racing the yacht. The Kennedy brothers competed on board Flash II in the Nantucket Sound Star Fleet from 1934 to 1940.

“One of the only things JFK loved more than politics was being on the water, his family was prodigious sailors, yachtsmen and racers,” says Mark Prendergast of Heritage Auctions, which is offering up the classic yacht for sale on May 18, 2015.

Implied in her name, Flash II is the second Star Class racing boat to be owned by the Kennedy family – the first Flash was sold in 1936, after Flash II was deemed the superior boat by handily winning the Nantucket Sound Star Class Championship that year.

In the last two decades, Flash II has a history nearly as well-documented as her famous presidential owner. She was owned by car and yacht restorer Ole Anderson who lost the boat to a seizure by the US Drug Enforcement Administration in 2004, when Anderson was convicted as marijuana trafficker. Flash II was sold at auction in 2005 to Frank Harvey of Houston, Texas, who doesn’t sail but who has a special place in his heart for the boat as Harvey once helped on Kennedy's presidential campaign.

“It’s amazing to own this boat if you’re a Kennedy collector,” says current owner of Flash II , Frank Harvey. “I can’t think of a better piece of memorabilia to own than this. It’s a real piece of American history.”

Flash II has been painstakingly restored to condition that is like new. The boat is a piece of American royalty and history that is an ideal collector’s item for a JFK aficionado or lover of classic yachts alike.

This isn't the first Kennedy sailing yacht up for sale in recent times. The Kennedy family sailing dinghy used by JFK's kids was recently up for auction.

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The PT 109 Incident: JFK’s Heroism During WWII Uncovered in 1943

O n a dark, moonless night in August 1943, a young John F. Kennedy faced a harrowing test of leadership that would later bolster his image as a war hero and significantly impact his political trajectory. The tale of PT 109, a patrol torpedo boat under his command, resonates as a story of survival, ingenuity, and bravery.

It was in the black waters of the Solomon Islands during World War II when the PT 109, with Kennedy at the helm, embarked on a mission to disrupt the Japanese supply lines known as the “Tokyo Express.” The mission took a catastrophic turn when the Japanese destroyer Amagiri collided with Kennedy’s boat, slicing it in two and spurring a dramatic fight for survival.

The collision was sudden and devastating. Two sailors perished, but eleven, including Kennedy, survived the wreckage. Despite a serious back injury, Kennedy’s relentless determination emerged. “So this is what it’s like to die,” he thought as he was flung against the deck. But death was not to be his fate that night.

The survivors clung to the remains of the PT 109, as Kennedy, a former Harvard swim team member, summoned the strength to guide his men to relative safety. “Ship at two o’clock!” had been the chilling warning from a crewman before the destroyer struck, leaving the survivors adrift in hostile waters. Kennedy, displaying a blend of aristocratic poise and naval grit, made a critical decision. They would not wait passively for rescue.

Under his command, they embarked on a treacherous swim to an island known as Plum Pudding, three miles away. With McMahon’s burns still raw and agonizing, Kennedy towed the injured engineer with a strap from his life jacket in his teeth, swimming the perilous stretch of ocean.

Kennedy’s resolve did not wane on Plum Pudding Island. With limited resources, no fresh water, and the constant threat of enemy discovery, Kennedy took action. His nocturnal swims in search of rescue were fraught with danger, once leaving him adrift and disoriented by the merciless currents.

The turning point came when Kennedy etched an urgent plea for help on a coconut shell. This unorthodox message would not only save his crew but also return with him to the Oval Office as a paperweight—a tangible emblem of his valor. The coconut read: “NAURO ISL COMMANDER . . . NATIVE KNOWS POS’IT . . . HE CAN PILOT . . . 11 ALIVE NEED SMALL BOAT . . . KENNEDY.”

Kennedy’s ordeal concluded with a covert rescue operation, a testament to his leadership and resourcefulness. His reputation as a war hero was cemented. Kennedy’s actions earned him the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, and the Purple Heart, marking him as the only U.S. president to receive these honors.

Relevant articles:

– TIL that when JFK was serving in the Navy during WW2, his patrol boat was sunk by a Japanese destroyer. Kennedy led his men to safety with an injured crew member to a nearby island and survived there by drinking coconut milk until they eventually got rescued

– John F. Kennedy and PT 109 , JFK Library

– PT-109 sinks; Lieutenant Kennedy is instrumental in saving crew , History.com

– Remembering PT-109 , smithsonianmag.com

Here's Your Chance to Buy John F. Kennedy's Wooden Speedboat

The gorgeous 17-foot vessel will be offered at auction on October 7.

Kennedy's 17-foot wooden speedboat, "RESTOFUS," is one of the lots in an October 7 auction of items that belonged to JFK and Jackie Kennedy . The 1961 Century Resorter is estimated to sell for between $100,000 and $200,000 at the Guernsey's sale.

Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. won the boat in a church raffle and it soon became JFK's personal boat since his brother Robert F. Kennedy already had a 1962 Century Coronado 21, according to the auction house. The boat's name is a sly reference to the an earlier boat that the Kennedy patriarch had owned called "TENOVUS," which referred to the 10 members that made up the Kennedy family at the time.

"RESTOFUS" got its name as the Kennedy family expanded, and following JFK's death in 1963 it became the property of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. The senator sold it in 1984 to the Bilezikian family, the founders of the Christmas Tree Shops. In 2015, the Bilezikians sold the boat to Peter Eastman, who also purchased a Kennedy sailboat .

Sam Dangremond is a Contributing Digital Editor at Town & Country, where he covers men's style, cocktails, travel, and the social scene.

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No joke pete davidson’s big bucks party boat plan still afloat: report.

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Saturday Night Live buds Pete Davidson and Colin Jost are working with a high-powered architect to keep afloat their dream of transforming a decommissioned Staten Island ferry into an entertainment destination, according to a report.

Just when it seems the nearly 60-year-old John F. Kennedy ferry, which the pair bought two years ago for more than $280,000, was going to be left to rot, Curbed reported Davidson and Jost have hired Ron Castellano to help rehabilitate the vessel.

“It’s going to have a lot of things. I think right now, we have six bars and two venues, operated separately or combined. We have outdoor event space, we have two restaurants”— in addition to 24 hotel rooms, said Castellano, who developed the Garfield at 142 Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights and the Nine Orchard Hotel, which occupies a former bank off Canal Street.

The big bucks venture for a floating nightclub appeared to have turned into an unfunny eyesore with pieces falling off it just last month, The Post reported.

The JFK Ferry is listed on the website for Castellano’s firm, Studio Castellano, as a project he’s working on for “JFK Partners.”

There is no mention of Davidson or Jost.

The project has a budget of $34 million and a floor plan of 65,000 square feet, according to the website.

The venue’s aesthetics will harken back to 1965, when the vessel was built, Castellano told Curbed.

The architect shared he, Davidson, Jost, and their partner, comedy club owner Paul Italia, regularly meet to discuss the ferry.

“They [Davidson and Jost] have input. They see everything,” said Castellano.

A brief video shown on the website last month revealed his renderings for each floor: a top deck furnished with patio tables set with umbrellas, another floor with two rows of hotel rooms that open onto sundecks, and a lower level with two clubs, the outlet reported.

The plan is for the boat to go between Miami and New York City, Castellano said.

Castellano, Davidson and Jost did not immediately return messages Saturday.

When the ship  was auctioned off  in Jan. 2022, it was listed in “poor condition” because of mechanical issues, but the hull was in good shape.

The ferry used to commute up to 5,200 passengers daily before it was taken off duty in 2021.   

Davidson, 30,  warned last year  on Seth Meyers’ “Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers” podcast the overhaul of the boat could take about five years.

He said the plan is to completely gut the inside, which had bench style-seating.

The outside is intended to remain as true to its current form as possible, “The King of Staten Island” actor also said.

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Future USS John F. Kennedy kicks off topside catapult testing

Topside testing of the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System has begun aboard the Navy’s second Ford-class aircraft carrier, the future John F. Kennedy.

The new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, known as EMALS , is one of more than 20 new technologies installed aboard the Ford-class of carrier. The system propels aircraft from the flight deck and significantly reduces manning needs compared to the steam-powered catapult systems on Nimitz-class carriers.

Newport News Shipyard is now conducting so-called “dead load” testing, where it hurls “large, wheeled, car-like structures of graduated weights up to 80,000 pounds” off the bow of the carrier and into the James River, according to American shipbuilder HII. The exercise aims to use dead loads that are similar in weight to actual aircraft.

“The first dead-load launch off the flight deck is a historic moment for [pre-commissioning unit] John F. Kennedy, and a testament to the power of great teamwork between our JFK crew, HII team, and NAVAIR engineers,” Capt. Colin Day, commanding officer of the carrier, said in an HII news release.

“I’m particularly proud of our Air Department and the hard-working Aviation Boatswain Mates who worked tirelessly alongside the engineering and testing teams to get us to this critical moment,” Day said.

Aircraft carrier Ford embarks with full air wing for first time

The ship will now operate with the full air wing during the composite unit training exercise ahead of a deployment later this year..

Unlike the Nimitz-class steam catapult system, EMALS utilizes stored kinetic energy and solid-state electrical power conversion to complete its mission. This allows a “high degree of computer control, monitoring and automation,” according to Naval Air Systems Command .

The system was one of several that came under scrutiny due to delays and cost overruns on the Ford. But Navy leaders assured reporters in 2022 that the system was up and running smoothly.

For example, the Ford’s Air Boss Cmdr. John Peterson, told reporters in October 2022 that the EMALS system dramatically changes operations and streamlines manning requirements.

“The change between steam and electric, it’s pretty wide ranging from the standpoint of our manning and equipment,” Peterson said. “So, from a manning perspective, we’re an optimally manned carrier.”

Sailors assigned to the pre-commissioning unit John F. Kennedy work alongside HII and Naval Air Systems Command counterparts during the first “dead-load” testing of the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS). (MC2 Alexander Timewell/U.S. Navy)

“What that means is we’ve got less sailors but the equipment allows us to operate, launch and recover aircraft with far fewer sailors,” Peterson said. “And, depending on the watch station, we have one watch station where 24 sailors on a Nimitz-class carrier are now replaced by a single sailor, working in an air-conditioned space.”

The JFK is under construction at HII’s Newport News Shipyard in Virginia, and commissioning is slated for 2025.

Topside testing began last month, following “no-load” testing to try out the shuttles independently, according to HII.

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See aboard the ex-supercarrier John F. Kennedy, the scene of one of the greatest military pranks of all time

• The ex-USS John F. Kennedy was the last conventionally-powered carrier built for the Navy.
• The aircraft carrier was also the site of one of the greatest military pranks.
• After nearly 40 years of service, the flattop was retired and sold to scrap dealers for a cent.

The ex-USS John F. Kennedy, the retired first-in-class aircraft supercarrier , is headed to the scrapyard following a nearly 40-year service.

Its legacy will live on in a new supercarrier and stories of the insane prank that once happened on its decks.

First-in-class

The Kennedy was a variant of the Kitty Hawk-class carrier and designated CVA-67 for attack aircraft carrier.

After undergoing a series of modifications, the Kennedy's classification was changed to CV-67, the only ship of its class , denoting that the carrier was capable of supporting anti-submarine warfare aircraft like the S-3 Viking.

The last conventionally powered carrier built for the US Navy

It was the last conventional aircraft carrier built for the Navy, which the Navy has replaced with the nuclear-powered Nimitz- and Ford-class carriers.

The Kennedy was propelled by eight conventional boilers and four steam turbines, allowing it to reach speeds of 34 knots.

As tall as a 25-story building from keel to mast

The massive carrier measured nearly 200 feet in height and more than 1,000 feet in length — if stood on end, it would reach the 84th floor of the Empire State Building.

As wide as a World War I destroyer was long

The flight deck was as wide as a World War I destroyer was long: more than 250 feet at its widest point.

Its armament included two launchers for Sea Sparrow missiles, an automated close-in weapon system, and two Rolling Airframe Missile launchers.

After its maiden voyage to the Mediterranean, the Kennedy participated in 18 official deployments in its 38 years of service.

Notably, the warship participated in Operation Desert Storm after Carrier Air Wing 3, then aboard the Kennedy, carried out airstrikes against Iraqi forces in 1991.

During a six-month deployment supporting Operation Enduring Freedom, aircraft aboard the Kennedy directed more than 64,000 pounds of firepower at Taliban and al Qaeda targets in October 2001 following 9/11.

The greatest military prank of all time

Apart from its history-making service and features, the Kennedy also was the setting of one of the greatest military pranks of all time .

In 1986, the Kennedy was set to relieve the Kitty Hawk-class supercarrier USS America after a six-month deployment in the Mediterranean.

What was meant to be a common change of command quickly turned into a hilarious practical joke, as aviators aboard the America dropped off an unusual payload on the new arrivals: three greased pigs dyed with red, white, and blue food coloring.

Brian Christoff, an aircrewman with the HS-11 helo squadron aboard USS America, shared a video of the event in a since-deleted post on Facebook in 2023.

"We were at the end of a 6-month deployment to the Indian Ocean/Mediterranean Sea," Christoff wrote. "We were being relieved by the USS Kennedy. The fighter jet jocks got with us and came up with this slant, on an age-old tradition, of releasing a greased pig, onto the deck of the relieving ship."

"Three pigs painted with Red, White, and Blue food coloring and lathered in grease," he continued. "The Kennedy never seen it coming!"

It's #NationalPigDay ! Dating back to the early 60s, a prank played by carriers in the Mediterranean was to surprise their relieving carrier by releasing greased pigs on the flight deck. This 1986 video is of a helicopter from USS America dropping off pigs on USS John F. Kennedy. pic.twitter.com/LL6UHnfk0V — U.S. Naval Institute (@NavalInstitute) March 1, 2022

Plagued by budget cuts

In 2005, the Kennedy was proposed to retire due to upkeep costs, freeing up more than $1 billion in the Defense Department's budget at the time.

Two years later, the ship was formally decommissioned "with dignity and honor" and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in October 2009.

Sold for a cent

In 2021, years after it had been decommissioned, the iconic warship was sold to a Texas-based ship-breaking firm for just a cent due to how costly it is to tow and recycle the vessel.

USS Kitty Hawk, which was also sold to International Shipbreaking Limited for a cent, arrived at the scrapyard in Brownsville, Texas , in 2022.

The Kennedy was set to follow in mid-December 2023, but Robert Berry, vice president of International Shipbreaking Limited, said the ship has yet to make an appearance — and he has no idea why.

"I wish I did. I really do. I have a few thousand people poking at me about it, and I just don't have a date," Berry told local Texas newspaper, The Monitor, in late December. "Until the Navy puts out something and tells us something, I don't have anything."

"Anything I say is probably going to be wrong," he added. "By contract, I can't say that much anyway. I really thought we were going to see it in December, but it didn't happen."

'Crying over a rusted piece of metal'

A group of veterans who sailed on the Kennedy during the Vietnam War mourned the ship's impending scrapping. Don Russo, one of the group's founding members, recalled his time serving aboard the supercarrier.

"We were on the same ship at the same time, same division. We worked together, drank together," Russo told local newspaper Grant County News. "I can't tell you all the other stuff — our wives are here."

The group, dubbed "Our Division," toured the decommissioned carrier in an emotional final visit last year.

"Five of us, crying over a rusted piece of metal," they said.

The next JFK

Though CV-67 is destined for the scrap yard, another ship of its name is already at sea. USS Kennedy (CV-79) is the second in the Gerald R. Ford class of nuclear power aircraft carriers.

Officially launched in 2019, the Navy's newest warship touts a hefty $11 billion price tag — albeit $2 billion shy of $13 billion USS Gerald R. Ford.

The carrier recently tested its new electromagnetic aircraft launch system last month, launching heavy cars into the James River to make sure it can handle catapulting actual fixed-wing aircraft.

• Main content

Pete Davidson and Colin Jost’s architect reveals plans for Staten Island Ferry entertainment venue, report says

• Updated: Mar. 23, 2024, 1:15 p.m. |
• Published: Mar. 23, 2024, 12:08 p.m.

Ferryboat John F. Kennedy, bought by "Saturday Night Live" performers Pete Davidson and Colin Jost, is seen at Caddell Dry Dock in West Brighton. (Tom Wrobleski/Staten Island Advance)

• Staten Island Advance Staff

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The plans to transform a Staten Island Ferry into an entertainment venue are no joke, according to the latest from Staten Island-born funnymen Pete Davidson and Colin Jost.

On the website for a firm partnering with the comedians on the endeavor, the old John F. Kennedy ferryboat transformation is listed as having a $34 million budget and a floor plan of 65,000 square feet, according to a Curbed report.

The Staten Island celebrities first announced the project two years ago after purchasing the decommissioned vessel for $280,100.

Renderings of each floor previously posted on the site show a top deck furnished with patio tables, another floor with two rows of hotel rooms that open onto sundecks and a lower level with two night clubs. The accomplished architect behind the design, Ron Castellano, told Curbed that the boat could ultimately boast two restaurants and six bars, with an aesthetic playing off the style of the mid-1960s when the ferry was built.

Colin Jost and Pete Davidson will join forces on a Universal Studios comedy, reports say. (Staten Island Advance)

When asked about Jost’s and Davidson’s roles in the ongoing project, he replied that they provide input and “see everything” going on with the ferryboat.

When asked about where the boat will dock — in reference to past mentions of New York and Miami — he said it “doesn’t have to be in one place” and that it can move between cities along the Eastern seaboard.

In regard to a timeline for when it could be ready, Castellano said the initial construction phase is “sort of underway.”

“We’re just bidding it out as it gets done. That’s going to take a year, and as that happens, we’re tightening the drawings, and as that’s happening, we’re going to find the location.”

Davidson previously joked that he and Jost were “very stoned” when buying the former ferry. Jost later took to Instagram to clear the air and refute Davidson’s claim.

“Is it worse that I was actually stone-cold sober when we bought the ferry?” joked the current “SNL” star in the caption.

Prior to its retirement, the John F. Kennedy was the oldest remaining boat in the Staten Island Ferry’s active fleet, having first been commissioned in 1965. It was retired from service in August 2021.

Davidson, Jost and comedy club owner Paul Italia purchased the ship through an online public auction. According to the original listing, the John F. Kennedy was in poor condition and had to be decommissioned due to mechanical issues. Former crew members claimed the ship was infested with cockroaches and contains asbestos .

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Robert F Kennedy Jr is to revive JFK’s historic “Viva Kennedy” campaign for his 2024 White House bid, despite his family’s claims that his candidacy is “dangerous to our country”.

The vaccine conspiracy theorist, 70, is hoping to explicitly trade off of his uncle’s campaign success by launching a similar appeal among Latino voters.

Mr Kennedy is the most high-profile of the third-party candidates running against Joe Biden and Donald Trump in November’s election, and has qualified for the ballot in several key swing states.

On Tuesday, he will announce his running mate – a requirement to get on the ballot in some states. His most likely pick is Nicole Shanahan, a donor to his campaign, attorney and former wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Other options include Aaron Rodgers, an NFL player, and Jesse Ventura, a former Minnesota governor and professional wrestler.

Polls show Mr Kennedy polling at between two and 20 per cent in national surveys, while his campaign has attracted criticism from his own family members.

Mr Kennedy this week launched a series of Spanish-language adverts and a series of clubs for Latino voters across the US, according to Axios, a political news website.

It is an attempt to replicate his uncle’s success in the 1960 presidential election, where John F Kennedy mobilised a large number of Mexican Americans for his winning campaign.

The bid comes despite objections from Mr Kennedy’s own siblings, who distanced themselves from his presidential bid when he launched it in October and said he did not share the same values as his uncle or father, Bobby Kennedy.

“Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgement,” said four of his siblings, adding that his campaign is “deeply saddening” and “perilous for our country”.

Other members of the Kennedy family have thrown explicit or implied support behind Mr Biden, with dozens of them posing for a photo with the president at the White House on St Patrick’s Day.

Mr Kennedy has a colourful past, and has long stood out from other, more mainstream, members of his family.

The former environmental lawyer has been accused of spreading misinformation on vaccines, including the claim that they cause autism in children.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, he suggested that the virus was a bioweapon “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people,” and claimed that the US had “put hundreds of millions of dollars into ethnically targeted microbes”.

He has long claimed that it is “beyond reasonable doubt” that the CIA was involved in the assassination of his uncle in 1963.

An uphill battle

Mr Kennedy has an uphill battle to get on the ballot in this year’s election, qualifying in just eight states so far. In six, he established a new political party to secure a position on the ballot.

Rules for becoming a candidate vary by state, and established political parties generally campaign against third party politicians.

This year, the Democrats have established an anti-third party unit run by veteran operatives from the Democratic National Committee, who have described Mr Kennedy as a “stalking horse”.

Mr Kennedy has announced he intends to get onto the ballot in all 50 states – a daunting task that will require millions of dollars and signatures from voters across the US.

Although he has enjoyed surprising levels of support after his presidential launch in October, the latest polls show that voters may be coalescing around their historic party preferences now that the Republican and Democrat primary elections have concluded.

The major parties are nonetheless concerned that his long shot campaign could disrupt their strategy in the swing states of Arizona, Nevada and Georgia .

Pollsters generally agree that Mr Kennedy’s candidacy could harm Mr Biden and Mr Trump equally, drawing support from some voters attracted to his unusual brand of anti-establishment vigour and conspiracy theories in an election where both main parties have accused each other of underhand political tactics.

The post Robert F Kennedy Jr copies famous uncle’s strategy for White House bid, despite family anger appeared first on The Telegraph .

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