Traveler was built in 1945 on Man-O-War Cay in the Abacos by William H Albury.
Her frames are horseflesh
and the major timbers are madeira, both tropical hardwoods of great strength and rot resistance
(Lysiloma). Planking is long-leaf yellow pine.
The hull was towed to Miami where it was completed
over a 4 year period to a design by William Atkin by the legendary sailboat captain Art Crimmins.
She was launched in 1949, rigged as a ketch with marconi sails as the first sailboat licensed for
charter in the United States.
Art Crimmins and his future wife, Peg, sailed it for 10 years as a
charter boat first out of Miami and later out of Nassau. They made 187 Gulf stream crossings in
the first three years before moving to the islands. They had an extraordinary list of customers
including Arthur Godfrey, Burl Ives, Jack Paar, Johnathan Winters, Phyllis Diller, John Heinz (of
pickle fame), Frances Langford and a host of business and popular figures. The boat was so well
known that a TV series, TROPICAL HAZARD, was made in 1953 featuring the boat and Captain Crimmins.
The boat was featured in travel brochures, magazines (cover of Newsweek magazine in 1954), and
stories were written about it and Art Crimmins in Sports Illustrated and Time Magazine.
Cover from
Traveler,
Victoria Royono Lloyd, 1997
In 1997, Peg Crimmins (using the pseudonym, Victoria Royono Lloyd)
wrote a book about the boat and her life with Captain Art entitled TRAVELER.
The boat
was sold in 1959 to a prominent Washingtonian, Russell Train. Russell Train became EPA administrator
in the Nixon administration and later headed the Environmental Defense Fund.
In 1973 the boat was
sold to Captain Jim Hogan and his wife Kathy, who sailed it in the Carribean and the Chesapeake
for nearly 40 years. In 1992, they stripped the hull, cold molded it with three layers of diagonal
strips of eastern spruce, followed by two layers of fiberglass cloth. The bottom got three layers
of cloth with the intermediate layer of kevlar. The decks and cabin were also fiberglassed. New
masts were made in Vermont and a new sail plan and rig was designed by Charles Wittholz, the most
well known naval architect in the mid Atlantic.
In 2011, the boat was sold to
John Brown, who had a complete restoration done in 2013-14. This included a new rudder, repair of
much of the decks and bulwarks, all new standing and running rigging and new blocks. All work was
done with an eye toward the unique history of the boat with the nylon running rigging selected to
appear as manila and the stainless steel standing rigging swaged, parceled and served, new belaying
pins as needed and new parrel beads and jaw leathers. Blocks are older style, mast hoops have been
replaced as needed.
Specifications:
LOA 47½', LOD 40', Beam 12', Draft 5' 9"
Power: Perkins 108 diesel 40 HP
Gross weight 16 tons, Net weight 11 tons
Fuel 75 gallons, Water 60 gallons
Main mast 50' above water
