Spotted on the plaza at North Cove last week is the classic, 1920s yacht tender “Breeze.”
At the turn of the past century, the world famous yacht designer Nathaniel Herreshoff, provided these beautiful rowing boats as tenders to his large yacht clients. They were light weight rowboats designed for two persons to go ashore or visit other yachts at anchor.
A 1922 photo of Ventura, as originally configured, and, behind the wheel, the legendary Nat Herreshoff himself. Look closely at the yacht tender hanging on the davits off the back for a breezy flash of the past meeting the present at North Cove.
Our North Cove neighborhood fixture, Ventura, carried such a tender. The “Breeze,” seen here, was found by Ventura’s Captain Pat Harris two years ago in a dusty marine consignment shop on Long Island, not far from Ventura’s original home port of Oyster Bay.
“The poor thing was shoved off into a corner and some restaurateur had a chainsaw in hand, ready to cut her down the middle to make a matching pair of wall decorations. No way was I going to let that happen.”