Tuesday, August 11, 2015
The Helene
Another boat was buried in the shipyard.
This particular boat was the Helene and was built by the Defoe Shipyard in my hometown of Bay City, Michigan. She was launched in 1927 and is 105 feet long. She is powered by two GM 525 horsepower GM diesel engines.
She was owned by Charles Sorenson who was General Manager of the Ford Company.
I'm not sure who she is currently owned by, but it looks like she is also wallowing here.
I crewed and lived in the crews quarters the summer of 1978 at Keans. A correction to the above, she was a single engine 12 71 Detroit diesel. A bow thruster was added after I was crew member.
ReplyDeleteMy father was a deckhand on the Helene back in the early 70's, and my uncle was the First Mate. I remember listening to some amazing stories of their trips on this fabulous yacht. Sad to see her in this current condition.
ReplyDeleteMy uncle had a 1929 huskin hacker that was Doc next to the Helene back in the 70s the 80s when she was still running are Keens if he was personal friends with the captive his name is Captain bill and it's sad to see that great photo of Detroit in that current condition it's a historical landmark in my opinion should we Preserved
ReplyDeleteFor a summer while in college I worked on the Helene...probably 1955. The owner had brought the boat back to the U.S. from England where it had been abandoned in a shipyard. My recollection is that it had been pressed into service during WW II as a weather ship and was stationed in the Azores. The owner I worked for sold the Helene to C.M Verbeist. Later in my life I had a business relationship with “Verbey” and I remember that a son had a model of the Helene made for his dad’s birthday. One day I arrived to work on the yacht and adjacent to gang-plank was a small mountain of (railroad) rails cut to about three feet...I wondered what that was all about. What it was, it was ballast to be placed in the bielge to replace the weight lost by the installation of a smaller, but more powerful engine...John and I stacked the ballast in the bielge. We did things like: varnish the wooden cap on the boat rails and sanded the hull from a wooded raft.
ReplyDeleteThe Helene had a single screw, so the captain had to be a skilled artist at using a “spring line”. The last time I saw her...she was tied off the end of a dock at the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club, where I was a member. My co-worker John (long time friend and fraternity brother) was visiting from Connecticut...we had lunch and I kept his back to the boat harbor. After lunch from the clubhouse he saw the Helene and aboard was a guy named Gary, who worked on the Helene after I left - incidentally, Gary was known in yachting yachting circles as a skilled tradesmen in boat restoration. R.R.T. November 7, 2020
My name is Rich Davisson. I crewed on the Helene with my buddy from ULS Bob Wieringa when CMV owned it - this was the summer of '75 and '76 as I recall. It was a great gig for a couple of dumb college kids. We got our classmates to crew occasionally. Took a wonderful trip up to Mackinaw. On the way home we were running with a bad storm seeking refuge in Tobermory, ON. As we turned for the harbor we took two major waves off the transom which completely wiped out the deck furniture. Because of the storm surge the harbor's water level was slowing rising and falling. This would push our fenders off the breakwall and so we had to spend the night babysitting. Late that night I had the great idea to lubricate the fenders with liquid dish soap. Worked great but it reacted with the hull paint. We then spent plenty of quality time repainting the hull when we got back.
ReplyDeleteAfter Verbeist died the boat was sold to the Dean family I believe. I lost track of it until I saw these sad, sad pictures. Please, someone rescue this grand dame!
My name is Julie and my dad is Gary Malone. We are sitting here and reminiscing of the good ole days my dad worked on and skippered The Helene from 1953 to 1964 with John Simpson and Jay
ReplyDeleteWindish and then Mike Peltier. We kept the boat down at Grey Haven, where Garwood's mansion was there. Bob Renolde bought lower end of Grey Haven where the boat was kept.
Who's RRT? my dad is trying to remember you. He's guessing Roy Trombley?
I crewed on the Helene during the summers of 1968 and 1969 when CM Verbiest owned her. It was a great experience to be on this yacht. CM Verbiest used to call her the Queen of the Great Lakes and it seems no expense was spared in maintaining her. She probably was the Queen after the Delphine left the Detroit area in 1962. During one summer, we went up to the Defoe Shipbulding yard where she was built and met the Defoe brothers. LIke someone else posted, she was a handful in a following sea. In Saginaw bay she was rolling quite a bit due to her slim (151/2 foot beam) and we had fasten things down such as table lamps, etc. It was interesting operating in the freighter channel, getting so close to the freighters. I still remember her radio number WX7011 (I’m pretty sure). We typically would leave for sailings from her Keene’s Detroit Yacht Harbor 3 or 4 times a week, usually to the St. Clair River where we would stop for lunch at the St. Clair Inn or Stew Cunningham’s Fisherman’s Wharf. Sometimes we would travel down river but didn’t stop as I remember. Verbiest used her to take out client’s in his insurance agency business and for family sailings. The Verbiest family was incredibly gracious and kind to the crew members and treated us almost as part of the family. As another poster commented, it was a challenge to dock her because of her large single screw and we had to use spring lines to pull her in. This was before any bow-thrusters were installed.
ReplyDeleteMy middle name is Helene. I was born in 1937 while my father was Captain of the Helene and she was owned by Robert Brown from Clearwater fl and Michigan. My father’s name was Varise Patton Mountain.. l have a beautiful print sent to me from Mr Dean.. I’m sorry that she doesn’t look like that now ..
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