Re: Presidential Yacht in legal troubles Honey Fitz was a Kennedy boat. Sequoia, first purchased on the cheap during Prohibition, drifted into being the presidential yacht, was owned for a while by the Navy, and was finally sold out of government ownership in the Carter administration, thus losing the 'USS' designation. She was chartered for some presidential events, notably by Reagan and Bush ...
I always liked the 45' Consolidated motor yacht "Rum Runner" in the Paul Newman film Absence of Malice. Boaters Ian and Ngaire Carline of New Zealand passed their boat Nan through the Peterborough Lift Lock on Friday, the 99th lock that they have gone through since starting a voyage in Maine heading towards Georgian Bay.
Perhaps it is a yacht phenomenon. Those are the types that push the envelope and get the speed results on the race track ( which of course includes windward performance as one of the more important criteria.)
In order to help finance the trip, Matt came up with the idea of sponsoring pond yacht building and competition for a pond yacht of the famous boat. Kids all over the US were inspired to build and race. Whole families were taken up by the fever and hundreds of them were built and raced in pools and ponds across the nation.
Originaly the pond yacht model compition of the R boat were used to raise funds to sent the boat back to the R Boat Nationals at Larchmont NY back in the mid twenties. With West Coast skipper Matt Walsh at the helm "Pirate" won the R Nationals that year and brought the trophy back to the West Coast.