Sailing Penobscot Bay aboard the ZARA - Herreshoff Marine Museum

March 19, 2024

Sailing Penobscot Bay aboard the ZARA

A rare & candid glimpse of the Golden Age of Yachting

Sailing Penobscot Bay aboard the ZARA

ca. 1910

by Margi Hofer

Descendants of Charles Frederick “C.F.” Hofer (1860-1929) recently donated a group of ten photographs capturing an outing aboard ZARA, a Herreshoff Bar Harbor 31, during the summer of 1910. The photos bear the later annotations of Hofer's son, Philip Hofer (1898-1984). Hofer, a wealthy industrialist from Cincinnati, brought his family to Camden every summer beginning around 1900 and built a grand Shingle Style “cottage” along its rocky coastline. He named the estate “Armsleigh,” a nod to the family of his wife, Jane M. Arms (1859-1944). So began the family’s love of the Maine coast and of sailing, a sport still enjoyed by C.F.’s great-great-grandchildren.

In the photos, C.F. Hofer is in the company of a group of young, nattily dressed passengers including his niece Hildegard Ault (1885-1942, from Cincinnati), James Hennen Legendre (1893-1939, from New Orleans), and Albert Chatfield Gilbert (1887-1948, from Utica). Like the Hofers, the Ault, Legendre, and Gilbert families summered in Camden, built rambling cottages by the ocean, and figured prominently in the local social scene. At the helm is Hofer’s captain, Fremont Nelson Arey (1880-1958), a native of Camden. Close inspection of the photos yields intriguing details, from the elegant attire and millinery worn by the passengers (Photo 1), to the yacht owner caught mid-nap (Photo 2, behind Capt. Arey).

Photo 1

Photo 2

Hofer, a noted yachtsman, was active in the Camden Yacht Club. In 1912, for instance, he served as vice commodore and was on the regatta committee. C.F. purchased the ZARA in April 1907 from former owner H.B. Whittier of Boston, perhaps enticed by its reputation as “a very fast boat.” (ZARA was not C.F.’s first yacht: prior to acquiring her, Hofer owned the NOROTA, a 54'6" William Gardner designed cutter built in 1895.) Periodic mentions of ZARA in the local newspapers indicate that C.F. continued to sail her at least through summer 1914, and suggest that she was used primarily for pleasure outings. In 1908, the Bangor Daily News recounted a frightening mishap on one of those excursions:

Yacht ZARA, belonging to C.F. Hofer, one of the summer colonists at Beauchamp Point, met with an accident today that for a time imperiled the lives of the party on board. With a party from the cottage the boat was proceeding to the races at Dirigo Island, when a squall of unusual violence struck her and carried away the mast and with it all the rigging. A strong southwest wind prevailed in the bay, and the water was unpleasantly rough for a craft with no motive power, and for several hours the boat drifted at the mercy of wind and wave. Her plight was at last observed by some of the cottagers at Beauchamp Point, and the Camden Yacht Clubhouse was notified of the accident…

That late summer misadventure may not be the only instance of ZARA losing her mast. C.F.’s son Philip Hofer, who inked the annotations on the photos, recalled in his memoirs that it was a regular and not entirely unintended occurrence. He recounted, possibly with some embellishment:

...He [C.F.] broke the mast on his yacht “ZARA” regularly every October because [he was so proud] that the ZARA, a Bar Harbor (Herreshoff) 31-footer would not tip over. Well, after he had broken the mast for three years in a row, he asked the Willis Yard in Southwest Harbor if they couldn’t make a mast that would hold. It was the only thing he was prepared to pay for; he liked to pinch pennies, but never on the ZARA. The answer came from Mr. Willis in a good Maine twang: “No, sir. We haven’t learned yet how to make masts fool proof!

The photos reveal that on that summer day in 1910, the winds were conducive to a brisk sail, at least for part of the afternoon: Photo 3 shows ZARA with full mainsail and a satisfying heel, the helmsman bracing his legs against the cockpit’s opposite bench. A highlight of the excursion must have been catching a good view of the LYNDONIA, Cyrus H.K. Curtis’s 163-foot luxury steam yacht launched in 1907 (Photo 4). At anchor in Camden Harbor, with Mount Battie and Mount Megunticook looming in the distance, the LYNDONIA's decks are crowded with passengers and its steam launch is alongside in mid-hoist. C.F. knew Curtis well: in 1912, the publishing magnate served as commodore of the Camden Yacht Club while C.F. was vice commodore. After a business meeting of the club’s directors in August 1913, they adjourned for a sail on the LYNDONIA.

Photo 3

Photo 4

C.F. sailed ZARA through at least 1914; by 1917, Lloyd’s Register listed her owner as Albert W. Finlay of Quincy, MA. ZARA traded hands at least seven times between her first owner in 1903, J. Montgomery Sears (1854-1905) of Boston, and her final listing in Lloyd’s in 1940. The last recorded “sighting” was a post in Wooden Boat Forum in 2010 by a private owner in Florence, AL who had plans to restore the century-old hull.

The main construction drawing for the Bar Harbor 31, courtesy of the MIT Museum; you can explore the full list of drawings related to the BH31 class here.

Margi Hofer, museum director emerita at the New-York Historical Society, is an independent curator. Her husband Andrew is a great-grandson of Charles Frederick Hofer.