Description

Aphrodite Commuter Yacht

FULLY BUILT AND READY TO DISPLAY MUSEUM QUALITY YACHT MODEL

LARGE MUSEUM QUALITY MODEL
RC READY - hatches open for easy installation of RC, prop and motor equipment (not included)
Dimension Approx.: 35″L x 7″BEAM
The model is already built, NOT a model ship kit

When the Aphrodite slid into the water at the Purdy Boat Company in Port Washington, New York, in May 1937, she was built for speed, elegance, and the rarefied world of America’s East Coast elite. Commissioned by financier and future U.S. ambassador John Hay “Jock” Whitney, she was the pinnacle of the “commuter yacht” era — long, sleek, and fast enough to whisk her owner from his Long Island estate to Wall Street in under an hour.

At 74 feet, with a clipper bow, beaver‑tailed stern, and a gold‑leaf name glinting on her transom, Aphrodite was a floating expression of 1930s American luxury. Her forward cockpit often carried the Herald Tribune for Whitney’s morning ride, while her varnished mahogany and graceful lines made her instantly recognizable on Long Island Sound.

Her guest list read like a Hollywood premiere. Fred Astaire, Shirley Temple, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Sir Laurence Olivier, Henry Ford II, Harry Hopkins, and Nelson Rockefeller all stepped aboard at one time or another. Shirley Temple even celebrated a birthday on deck. Aphrodite was more than a yacht — she was a social stage, a symbol of the glamour and optimism of prewar America.

Everything changed after Pearl Harbor. On December 8, 1941, Whitney donated Aphrodite to the U.S. government. By April 1942, she was commissioned as CGR‑557, a Coast Guard auxiliary vessel. Her wartime duties were surprisingly varied. Sher was a PT boat test platform, a Torpedo screen for the Queen Mary, Escort vessel for President Roosevelt’s Hudson River trains, and a VIP transport for military and diplomatic figures

She even ferried Roosevelt himself between Hyde Park and Washington. The glamorous commuter yacht had become a hardworking wartime asset.

After the war, Whitney’s life changed, and by the 1960s he no longer needed a large yacht. Aphrodite was donated to Anthony Drexel Duke for his East Hampton youth program. By the late 1960s or early 1970s, she was renamed Moonfire and slowly deteriorated — hauled ashore, weathered, and forgotten, with weeds growing around her hull. For a time, it seemed the once‑famous yacht would quietly rot away.

Her revival began almost by accident. In 1983, marina owner John Pannell was approached by a buyer who believed the derelict Moonfire was actually the lost Aphrodite. He was right. Pannell began restoring her, and after the buyer’s death, he took over the project himself, eventually returning the yacht to her former glory and earning awards for the restoration.

But her greatest transformation came in 2000, when investor Charles “Chuck” Royce purchased her in dire condition and sent her to Brooklin Boat Yard in Maine. Over 40,000 hours of work, shipwrights rebuilt her from stem to stern — new propulsion, steering, tanks, wiring, and interiors — while preserving her unmistakable 1930s Purdy design. The result was a masterpiece: a yacht reborn, faithful to her heritage yet ready for modern service.

Today, Aphrodite is home‑ported in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, where she offers private excursions and charters. Her varnished mahogany gleams, her lines are as elegant as ever, and her history accompanies every voyage — from Wall Street mornings to wartime patrols, from abandonment to resurrection.

She is one of the finest surviving commuter yachts of her era, a floating reminder of American craftsmanship, social history, and the enduring allure of classic wooden boats.