What delightful serendipity, going out on my boat with
“the kids” before the end of the year, on the Intracoastal, and encountering
JFK’s Presidential Yacht, the Honey Fitz a 92-foot motor yacht built in
1931 by the Defoe Boat Works in Bay City, Michigan. Although five US Presidents have cruised the
vessel, it was JFK who took to her and thus the vessel will forever be
associated with him. The full story is recounted by the JFK Library. The Honey
Fitz is stately, classic, and apt for the time when the Office of the Presidency
was as well.
Our preNew Year’s cruise took us around Peanut Island and past the
Kennedy bunker on the island, built for
him during the cold war and was in readiness during the Cuban missile crisis. His part-time home in Palm Beach mandated the
bunker which can still be visited. See this nifty one minute video for the full story and to see the interior. Undoubtedly, the furnishings are too
primitive for the President-elect (alas, nothing gold-plated).
After the Honey Fitz was retired for Presidential
service, it finally became a charter vessel and the full story of how it was
refitted to meet Coast Guard specifications for such use is told here.
We closed out the year by watching the last sunrise of 2016
over the Atlantic. Hopefully, 2017 and
the next four years will be good to all.
