Fog may have shrouded the reappearance of the classic 33-metre superyacht Mariette off Kinsale Harbour County Cork yesterday, but there was no mistaking the silhouette of the two-masted gaff schooner.
Designed and built by Nathanael Greene Herreshoff in 1915, Mariette arrived in Kinsale after a one-day voyage from Falmouth on the English South Coast.
Mariette was built as "Project 698" by Nathanael Herreshoff, at his Bristol, Rhode Island yard, for prominent yachtsman Harold S. Vanderbilt.
She was part of a series of seven large schooners built between 1903 and 1905 by the Herreshoff shipyard. Mariette and her sister-ship, Vagrant, are the last of this series still in service.
Yesterday's arrival into Kinsale was not a maiden voyage to West Cork as Bob Bateman's photos below document; Mariette sailed in 17 years ago, cutting quite a dash at the Fastnet Rock in the summer of 2006.
(Above and below) Designed and built by Nathanael Greene Herreshoff in 1915, Mariette is pictured off the Fastnet Rock in 2006 Photos: Bob Bateman
