JAMES ROBINSON TAYLORretained included some winches and, perhaps most
significantly, the steering pedestal and windlass which
were made by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company.
All of the butternut-panelled interior had to be
temporarily removed to allow access to the hull repairs
but just before that was done Cannell’s nine-year old son
made an interesting discovery. “We had heard a rumour
that Jascha Heifitz used to take his Stradivarius violin on
board and kept it in a secret compartment,” Cannell
said. “One weekend my son was on board and he found
the trigger by accident and the secret compartment
popped open. But unfortunately there was no
Stradivarius there!”
Although the secret violin compartment wasn’t
retained, the layout is otherwise now virtually the same
as the original and it gives a picture of how life was.
“My understanding is that Jascha was a terribly formal
person,” said Kim, “and he didn’t want any crew to mix
with guests – hence there was a forward hatch for the
crew, a stable door for serving food and three heads
which is quite a lot for a 40ft waterline boat.”
The focsle has two pipe cots, a heads compartment
and access to the foredeck through a hatch covered
in a curved bronze sheet. The galley lies directly
aft, with a stable door leading aft to a saloon,
fold-up berths to port and starboard. Aft of that is
a curved staircase up to the companionway hatch,
which is offset to starboard. Moving aft there is a
heads to port and a twin cabin to starboard, then a
Below:
Serenade’s
launch at
Wilmington
Boatworks,
California, in 1938full-beam heads which contains a heads to port and
shower and wash area to starboard. And finally the
owner’s cabin which has a double berth to port and a
single to starboard, and a sliding hatch above – more
useful for communication with the cockpit than for
access, as it has no washboards.
The restoration at Cannell’s – described by Kim as “a
lot more work than anticipated, but then restorations
always are!” – was carried out by the same team of
people, led by John Anderson and Bill Buckholt, who
restored the New York 40 Marilee [soon to feature in
Classic Boat].
But soon after the work was completed, Kim, who
had been expecting to move to New York, found himself
starting a new job in London instead. “I considered
taking Serenade to Europe but it would have been a big
commitment,” he said. “I sailed her in Maine when I
was home but my kids were super-young and I never had
the time to use her properly.” Kim put her on the market
and at the end of 2014 sold her to a retired art dealer, of
French origin and now living in Switzerland. She would
come to Europe after all.
Serenade’s new owner was born in Algeria and
learned to sail there, aged 14. In the summer of
2014, a friend lent him the 1938 Johan Anker-
designed Eileen. “I had first seen Eileen 30 years
before and I thought that one day she would be
mine,” he told me. He tried to buy her from his
friend but that didn’t work out.