 The 62' Double-Ended "N" Class Sloop SERENADE was re-launched on June 20, 2000 after almost a year of intensive work that included removing her deck and all of her interior and replacing all her frames. SERENADE's restoration includes a new laid and sheered and caulked solid teak deck, new stem, new stern stem, complete refastening, new frames, new deck houses and new hatches, a considerable amount of new hull planking, new systems including a new engine and related systems, new mast step and bronze mast partners, and a considerable amount of repair and restoration to her lovely Butternut paneled interior. Sea trials proved SERENADE to be remarkably fast and powerful. As with our experience rebuilding the Potter 8 Meter ANGELITA, our hats are off to SERENADE's designer for his skill in designing fast lines and his superb eye for proportion, aesthetics, and detail.
Besides SERENADE's extraordinarily graceful lines, she is remarkable for the excellent quality of her construction by Wilbo, and her unusual originality. She has been preserved with almost every piece of her original hardware including her Herreshoff windlass and Herreshoff binnacle.
Potter became known as the Herreshoff of the West Coast. His lovely double-enders were works of art. But in those days the most activity in American yachting was centered in the East around the New York Yacht Club, the Eastern Yacht Club on Boston's North Shore, and Long Island Sound's Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club. California was just too remote in that era to earn Potter and the excellent craftsmanship of Wilbo the recognition they merited. Sadly, Potter left instructions to the executor of his estate that after his death all his drawings be destroyed. In our restoration of ANGELITA, we had to recreate plans from what sources were available. Luckily, SERENADE was almost entirely intact, because only one sheet of her original drawings has survived.
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SERENADE was designed by Nick Potter and built in 1938 by Wilmington Boatworks. She was built for violinist Jascha Heifitz who kept her in Newport Beach. One of Heifitz's great friends was Humphrey Bogart who learned to sail on SERENADE. Other celebrity owners of SERENADE include Jacques Cousteau and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Like another of our projects, the recent rebuilding and restoration of the 52' double-ended 8 Meter ANGELITA, SERENADE was designed by Nick Potter. Potter is not so well known as some designers of the golden era of classic boats, but his pedigree was inferior to none. Potter grew up as a boyhood friend of L. Francis Herreshoff and later worked in the design office of L. Francis' legendary father, Nat Herreshoff. Later Potter worked along side his childhood chum, L. Francis Herreshoff, in the Starling Burgess office in Boston during the period of some of Burgess' most important designs. Eventually Potter settled in Newport Beach, California and supervised the construction of many of his designs at the nearby Wilmington Boatworks. Potter always maintained his ties to the Coast and remained active in New York Yacht Club affairs including sitting on the America's Cup defender selection committee.
