How many guests does Puritan take?

Puritan sleeps 8 guests and can take 12 guests for day cruising.

When was Puritan built?

Puritan was built in 1931 by Electric Boat Company to a design by John G. Alden, with her most recent refit in 2023.

Puritan is 38.4 metres (126 feet) long.

How much does it cost to charter Puritan?

€57,500 per week low season; €63,250 per week high season; Les Voiles de St Tropez €70,000; prices subject to VAT. Contact Classic Charters for availability and full terms.

classic sailing yacht for charter

Puritan

Built 1931 · Refit 2023 · 38.4 m · 126 ft · 8 guests · 7 crew

At a glance

Puritan is a 38.4 m (126 ft) classic sailing yacht built by Electric Boat Company in 1931 and refitted in 2023. She sleeps 8 guests with 7 crew. She is available for crewed charter from €57,500 a week, cruising the Western Mediterranean and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Puritan is a 38-metre gaff schooner, designed by John G. Alden and launched in 1931 at the yard that built the US Navy’s submarines. Nearly a century on, she still races the great classic regattas of the Mediterranean.

Born in the Depression

John G. Alden drew Puritan in 1929, before he had a client for her. The Wall Street Crash cost him his first buyer, and the design passed to Edward W. Brown of the New York Yacht Club, who had her built by the Electric Boat Company at Groton, Connecticut, better known for building the US Navy’s submarines. Her steel hull was riveted and welded using the yard’s submarine methods, and she was launched on 25 April 1931.

Alden gave her a rare feature for a yacht of her size: a centreboard, raised and lowered with a winch on deck. With it up she draws less than three metres, so she can reach anchorages and harbours that other yachts of her size cannot.

From California to the Navy

Brown died that first winter, and in 1933 Puritan was bought by Harry J. Bauer, president of the Southern California Edison Company. She sailed to California through the Panama Canal with a 17-year-old Sterling Hayden in her crew, years before he became a Hollywood actor. He later wrote about the voyage in his autobiography, Wanderer.

Bauer kept her for almost three decades. In 1942 she joined the US Navy as Puritan IV and patrolled the coast off San Diego until 1943, returning to Bauer after the war. In 1957 he lent her to the American Museum of Natural History for a three-month scientific expedition to western Mexico, logging more than 4,000 miles. The scientists named a group of land snails Puritanina after her, and a bat Bauerus after her owner.

Rescued, and racing again

After Bauer’s death she changed hands several times, chartered in the Caribbean and was eventually abandoned in Mexico. In 1972 Bill and Patsy Bolling found her in Miami, “a rust bucket with nothing working” in Patsy’s words, and rebuilt her in Fort Lauderdale over 21,000 working hours. The following year she won the Mystic Seaport schooner race.

Under her next owner, the Austrian inventor Oskar Schmidt, Camper & Nicholsons gave her a major restoration in Southampton, and in 1980 she won her class at the first Classic Yacht Regatta, at Newport, Rhode Island. As her captain at the time recalled, before that regatta “what we call classics today were called old boats”. From 1989 she spent a quarter of a century with the Italian industrialist Arturo Ferruzzi, based in Antibes.

Puritan today

Since 2015 she has belonged to Tomas de Vargas Machuca, who also owns the 1937 Alden schooner Orianda, and she has had work every year since: new topmasts, a new teak deck, her hull re-plated where needed under the eye of a surveyor, and her engine rebuilt in 2023. The International Schooner Association was founded aboard her at the Régates Royales in Cannes in 2018, and in 2019 she won the Trophée Monaco Classic Week, the regatta’s highest award, for restoration and elegance. She races at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez every year.

Her owners give 15% of her charter income to marine conservation.

Aboard

Eight guests sleep in four cabins, each with its own marble bathroom: the master cabin, two VIP cabins aft with queen beds, and a fourth cabin whose leather sofa becomes a queen bed, with a Pullman berth above. The full-width saloon, panelled in pine beneath a butterfly skylight, has a U-shaped dining table for eight.

On deck, a long table between the masts seats up to ten, the foredeck is laid out for sunbathing under an awning, and the deckhouse holds the chart table and a leather sofa. A crew of seven looks after you, and her toys include water skis, a wakeboard, a paddleboard, snorkelling gear and two electric bikes. Her owner’s rule for his own cruising is simple: if there are more than eight knots of wind, Puritan goes sailing.

Highlights

Designed by John G. Alden and launched in 1931 by the Electric Boat Company
A 38-metre gaff schooner with a lifting centreboard for shallow anchorages
Won her class at the first Classic Yacht Regatta, Newport, 1980
Winner of the Trophée Monaco Classic Week, 2019
Eight guests in four cabins, each with its own bathroom, and a crew of seven

Planning a charter aboard Puritan

What a week costs

From €57,500 per week

The listed rate is per week, plus VAT for the country of embarkation where it applies, plus 20% to 25% APA for a sailing yacht: the advance provisioning allowance for fuel, food, drink and berthing. VAT is only on the charter rate.

Rates are indicative and can vary with timing and location, and are sometimes negotiable. That’s our job.

How charter costs add up

Who she suits

She sleeps 8 guests: room for a family or a group of friends.

For day charters and events she takes up to 12 guests.

She is chartered for classic regattas as well as cruising.

Where she cruises

Eastern Mediterranean, Greece, Turkey, Croatia. West Med Italy, France Corsica Sardinia.

Home port: Rome.

The classic regatta calendar

Puritan: questions answered

How many guests does Puritan take?: Puritan sleeps 8 guests and can take 12 guests for day cruising.
How many crew are on board Puritan?: Puritan has 7 crew.
When was Puritan built?: Puritan was built in 1931 by Electric Boat Company to a design by John G. Alden, with her most recent refit in 2023.
How long is Puritan?: Puritan is 38.4 metres (126 feet) long.
How much does it cost to charter Puritan?: €57,500 per week low season; €63,250 per week high season; Les Voiles de St Tropez €70,000; prices subject to VAT. Contact Classic Charters for availability and full terms.
Where can I charter Puritan?: Eastern Mediterranean, Greece, Turkey, Croatia. West Med Italy, France Corsica Sardinia.