Historic yacht pieced together for more than $2 million after capsizing

Pinned to the rocks, listing in the current, the stately yacht appeared doomed. John Jacobi and his guests had been carried to safety by a passing boat. The skipper remained on board as water surged through the hull. Only the shoal off the San Juan Islands kept the boat from disappearing under the waves.

It seemed an ignominious end last summer for the 100-foot Malibu, once a trophy to wealth that had become a cherished relic of Northwest boating since its christening in 1926.

And worse, it happened on a clear day — not the victim of a mercurial ocean but of bungled navigation.

"It's one of the last of its kind," said Jacobi, the 62-year-old founder and chairman of Windermere Services, the umbrella company for Windermere Real Estate franchises, and the company that owns the yacht.

One year, thousands of work hours, several insurance disputes and a handful of dockside rumors later, the historic yacht is back in the water and nearly fully restored. The final repair tally is expected to reach $2.4 million, Jacobi says. That's about twice what his company paid for the yacht three years ago.

The boat's insurer, which declared it a total loss and wanted to sell it for salvage, is picking up roughly half the tab. The rest will come from Windermere, which uses the boat mainly as a fund-raising tool for the Windermere Foundation, a separate nonprofit that benefits homeless and low-income families. None of the repair money will come from the foundation, Jacobi said.

Jacobi says he prefers to think of himself not as the Malibu's owner but its steward. And although he admits he thought long and hard about the costs of restoring it, he said he was determined, especially because the Malibu was nearly lost under his watch.

It's unlikely Jacobi will ever be able to sell the boat for what he's put into it. "We made a conscious decision with our company and our family to go ahead with it," he said.

"It's not an investment. It's more about preserving the boat for the enjoyment of the community."

Designed by noted local naval architect Ted Geary, who created sailboats and yachts for some of the West Coast's wealthiest, the Malibu is known for its elegant lines and rounded stern, called a fantail. It was built on Lake Union by the Blanchard Boat, regarded for 60 years as one of the finest wooden-boat builders on the West Coast before it closed in 1969.

As rich as the Malibu's lineage is its lore. It was built for the Rindge family, whose property holdings included half of what is now Malibu, Calif. During World War II, the Navy commissioned the yacht to patrol the California coast, according to research by past and present owners. The boat was painted gray, twin machine guns were mounted on the decks, and a crew once reportedly dropped a 400-pound depth charge over a passing Japanese submarine.

The boat was restored to its original condition after the war, and over the years it played host to celebrities, notably Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews.

One legend, true or not, says it was once raided by pirates off Mexico's Baja California peninsula.

The Malibu is the largest Blanchard-built motor yacht remaining, said Stephen Wilen, a local boat historian.

So the decision to rebuild the Malibu was praised by the local boating community.

"These old boats, the classics, are getting scarcer and scarcer," said Steve Hansen, a wooden-boat broker and owner of Hansen Yachts in Seattle. "So when someone does this, it's special."

The boating community wasn't quite as kind last July, when the boat capsized on the rocky shoal off the San Juan Islands. The accident happened in a well-charted hazard area near Wasp Island.

Rumors flew that the new skipper was from California and unfamiliar with local waters. In fact, he had grown up in the area and knew them well, Jacobi said. Other false rumors had Jacobi himself at the helm.

Talk also spread that Jacobi was balking at repair costs and that the boat might end up as scrap.

Jacobi wrote a letter to fellow Seattle Yacht Club members to quell the buzz.

"The boat had been a fixture at the yacht club for many years, and I thought it was important to set the record straight," he said.

Jacobi said the captain, who came highly recommended, was trying to avoid some fishing boats when he veered into the dangerous passage. One of the passengers, Bellingham attorney Jack Ludwigson, was familiar with the treacherous waters and warned Jacobi.

Jacobi questioned the captain.

"He told me he thought he could squeeze through," Jacobi said.

Seconds later, the boat "just made this awful, grinding noise that boats make when they hit rocks," Ludwigson recalled.

Within minutes the interior was flooded, and the boat tilted sharply to port. The six passengers and three crew members, all uninjured, donned life vests. They tried to escape on the shore boat, but it was jammed in place. The passengers gathered on the starboard hull, now jutting into the air, and waited until a passing boat picked them up about 15 minutes later.

"It was a frightening experience," Jacobi recalled.

The captain, who is no longer with the boat, spent the night on board until salvage crews could arrive.

"He apologized profusely," said Jacobi, adding that he was never angry. "The guy made a mistake."

The yacht stayed on the rocks another day before the Manson Construction Company arrived with a barge and crane and hauled it back to Seattle.

The Malibu was placed on blocks at Foss Shipyard on Lake Union, where shipwrights surveyed the damage. The rocks had ripped a hole the size of a bathtub through the 2-1/2-inch-thick wooden hull on the starboard side. They had whittled away chunks of the keel and bow, and pressed in another 2-foot section of the hull on the port side.

But for the shipwrights, working on the historic wooden boat was a rare opportunity.

"It's getting to be a lost craft," said Lou Schaefer, who oversaw the project for Foss, whose parent company once owned the Malibu.

Painstakingly, a team carved new framing beams from old-growth fir. More than 100 planks, each 2-1/2 inches thick, were steamed and contoured to the frame, becoming stiff as they cooled. The old caulking, along every seam in the hull, was removed and replaced with cotton and oakum, treated hemp fiber.

The twin diesel engines had to be rebuilt. And every electrical system was replaced, including hundreds of yards of wiring.

Removing the planks, the shipwrights found and fixed rotted timber and other damage. Without the accident, it may never have been discovered.

"I would say Windermere has added, conservatively, 60 years of life to this boat," said Greg Gustafson, who is leading the restoration project on the Windermere side.

Jacobi, meanwhile, said he winced at the rising costs. But, nonetheless, he battled to keep the boat's insurers from selling it for salvage.

"I was galled," Jacobi said, "because I knew it wouldn't be put back together."

He also hired a new captain, Stephen Gordon, an experienced skipper who has admired the boat since childhood.

"I think she's beautiful," said Gordon, 55. "I'm looking forward to cruising her and seeing how she handles."

Finally, in May, the boat was lowered into the water for final repairs. Immediately, water burst in steady streams through seams in the crew quarters and the engine room. Windermere braced for more costs. But within days, the planks expanded naturally and sealed the leaks.

"We all breathed a sigh of relief, because nobody wanted to haul the boat back out of the water," Gustafson said.

The Malibu, which already has gone on a limited test run in Lake Washington, is expected to be fully refurbished by August.

And Jacobi has something brazen in mind for the first voyage: a return trip past the rocks of the San Juans.

"I want to thumb our noses at them," he said. "Actually, I'm planning to do more than thumb my nose."

Ray Rivera: 206-464-2926 or rayrivera@seattletimes.com