My brother Denny called me a few days before we arrived at my mom’s. He said he met a guy in Manitowoc who had a 77-foot (end to end) sailboat moored in front of the Cobia Submarine Maritime Museum on the river.
He was walking along the riverfront one day the week before and got to talking with the fellow who owns the boat. Exchanging names, the owner, a man I’ll call JR, said he thought our last name sounded familiar. Denny told him he had a sister his age and he said he thought he remembered my full name. They talked a bit more and when JR learned from Denny that I was coming to town the following week he asked Denny to invite me to stop by the boat.
The day after Randy and I arrived in Manitowoc, my sister Patti came over and we decided to head down to the riverfront to see if JR was around. On our way I got a call from Denny who lives about 50 miles away, saying he’d just arrived at mom’s. We waited for him and the four of us approached JR’s sailboat. He was indeed around, recognized Denny, and after introductions, invited us all aboard for a tour of the vessel which we learned had quite a storied history.
The name of JR’s boat is Utopia and is officially listed as a 65-foot staysail schooner. It was designed and built in 1946 by Fred J Peterson, the owner of the famed shipbuilding firm, Peterson Builders, Inc. in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, as his personal yacht. Fred’s vision for Utopia was for a boat that could cruise for extended periods of time. Utopia first sailed in 1947 across the Atlantic and back, and in 1956, Fred and his crew took her on a 3-year round-the-world cruise that included stops at ports in the Azores, Tangiers, Gibraltar, Canary Islands, Trinidad, Havana, Tonga, Galapagos, the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and spent several months in Malaysia. It is estimated Utopia has logged more than 60,000 miles.
JR told me he’d had his eye on this ship for years, but the first time it became available it needed so much hull work that he passed on the opportunity. In 2016 the Peterson family donated the boat to the Inland Seas Education Association in Suttons Bay, MI. Work began on the hull and other parts of the boat by Seefeld Boatworks. Extensive pictures of the project can be found here. Several years later, with the onset of the COVID pandemic, sailing enrollment significantly dropped off. Around that time the US Coast Guard requested that some structural modifications be made to the vessel to increase its safety for student sailors. Consequently, the Education Association found that continued financial investment in this boat was no longer practical and/or mission advancing. When they put Utopia up for sale, JR noticed it was again available. It was then that he and his wife discussed it and finally, after JR dreamed about the boat for more than 30 years, they acquired it.
JR is a super friendly guy with a twinkle in his eye. The yacht is obviously seaworthy as they sailed it from Michigan to Manitowoc, but he and his family are slowly refurbishing the 75-year old deck and cabins. Much of the original mahogany had been painted over the years. He told me that while the women in the family would like to strip and stain it to its original beauty, after doing a small portion, they may have decided the project is too massive to undertake.
JR showed us one of his favorite things on the vessel, a stove on swinging hinges to keep it upright at all times, even in rolling seas. Because the yacht was built for long ocean voyages, it has features that most boaters never think of in preparing for a short excursion. It was a fascinating and informative tour on the kind of vessel we’ll probably never have the opportunity to experience again in our lifetime, even though we live in Florida, land of a zillion boats.
As we were departing JR and I tried to determine why our names were familiar to each other. I had a friend in late grade school whose last name was similar to his. That wasn’t it. My mother had already told me that she and JR’s mother used to have coffee together years ago. We both graduated from high school in Manitowoc the same year, but he went to the Catholic and I went to the public high school. Working backward, I asked if he went to Holy Innocents Grade School. He said that no, he’d gone to St. Boniface, and bingo, there was the connection. We were in the same grade school class from Grades 1-4, after which my family moved to the other side of town and I finished my primary grades at a different school. We even both remembered our 4th grade teacher’s name….Sister Mary Ellen.
What a series of wacky coincidences that allowed us to reconnect after 60-some years and allowed me and my family to experience a tiny taste of past luxury and adventure on the water! We grew up around boats and all love the recreation water affords. We have a first cousin who crewed with Dennis Conner in America’s Cup in the late 1980s, Denny was in the Navy on the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, and I’ve been on one cruise, but that’s as close, until this week, as any of us have come to a sailboat or yachting. It was a really fun and enlightening experience.
I thank JR for his kindness to us and how open and forthcoming he was with his time and the information about Utopia. I pray he and those he loves find the spirit of the boat’s name for the rest of his life.
P.S. Randy and I are leaving Manitowoc to meander back to Florida this morning. We plan to visit some dear and long-time friends in Nashville and Atlanta along the way. It’s been a wonderful trip. My heart is full.
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