The American Royal family aka The Kennedys have a strong connection with the sea and boats.
JFK was famously a gunboat commander in World War 2 while later his family were always to be found sailing in and around Hyannis Port.
Son and daughter John Jr. and Caroline Kennedy’s childhood sailboat was a Old Beetle Cat, built by Concordia Co. Inc., in South Dartmouth, Mass.
Another sailboat—similar in style was commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1969, shortly after her 1968 marriage to shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.
The boat was then shipped overseas for John Jr. and Caroline Kennedy to learn to sail while in Greece and returned to Hyannis Port in the 1970s. Jackie later sold it to the Gallaghers, a well-respected Hyannis Port family, and Peter Eastman purchased it from them in the early 2000s.
Now fully restored and wearing its original colours the 12 ft long dinghy will be part of a live auction event in Boston.
Bidding begins February 12-18, followed by a live auction event on February 19 that will take place at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge.
This boat built in Massachusetts and mainly used in the Mediterranean, measuring 12 feet long by 6 feet wide. The boat, constructed in the Winter of 1969–1970, exhibits the original builder’s plate on which is stamped, “Old Beetle Cat, No. 1426, Concordia Co. Inc., South Dartmouth, Mass.”
It has been restored to its original colours, with a sky blue deck and a bright yellow hull. The unusually coloured original paint became evident when the boat was stripped down to bare wood and was additionally confirmed in a letter from Caroline Kennedy.
On the stern’s transom is fastened contemporary cast bronze letters placed in the original drill holes, spelling out the boat’s name as christened by the Kennedys, “Scallop.”