Designed and built by William Fife & Son at Fairlie, Scotland, in 1924, ADVENTURESS is one of the great surviving schooners of her era. At 83 feet, she represents a late masterwork by Wm. Fife III: elegant, powerful, beautifully proportioned, and emblematic of everything that continues to draw us to classic yachts.
By the time ADVENTURESS came to Rockport Marine, she had already lived a long and meaningful life, including being seized and used by the Germans as a patrol boat in World War II. Toward the end of the war, she was scuttled at the entrance of Villefranche-sur-Mer, where she remained for several years. She has spent almost her entire life in continuous service, carrying nearly a century of history and earning every hour of the restoration she needed.
Restoring her required deep structural work, historical judgment, systems integration, careful research, and a team capable of seeing both the boat in front of them and the boat she had been in 1924. Rockport Marine’s design office served as historian, archivist, artist, and engineer — roles that have become an important part of the yard’s work over the last sixty years.
For Rockport Marine, work like this is why we show up everyday. As Sam Temple has said, “We learn the most through restorations — the historical context is enormously important to our new construction. When a man-made object, especially one requiring great care, lasts 100 years, you know the design and the structure have worked.” Historic boats carry the decisions of earlier designers, builders, owners, and crews. Restoring them well means listening closely, understanding what matters, and knowing where modern innovations can support the original intent without getting in the way.
The restoration of ADVENTURESS was comprehensive. Over roughly 70,000 hours, Rockport Marine rebuilt her structure, converted her back to her original schooner rig, and built the interior, systems, and deck entirely anew. The goal was not to create a replica, but to allow ADVENTURESS to emerge as herself again entirely: structurally renewed, historically faithful, and ready for offshore passage-making.
Her woodwork, rig, and hardware were designed and built by Rockport Marine and Fairlie Yachts. The spars were built in Sitka spruce to Fife’s drawings, with laminated box-section lower masts that allow wiring to be concealed inside the rig. Throughout the project, desirable details from other Fife yachts of the period were studied and incorporated where appropriate, allowing ADVENTURESS to return to service in a form that was historically grounded rather than frozen in time.
The result was a schooner that looked and felt nearly as she had in 1924, but with the reliability and handling expected of a yacht intended for real passage-making. Upon her relaunch in 2012, ADVENTURESS reclaimed her Lloyd’s Register ✠100A1 classification and went on to receive prestigious Restoration of the Year and Concours d’Elegance honors in 2013.
Since returning to the water, she has proven the value of the work in the best possible way: by sailing. ADVENTURESS has completed multiple Atlantic crossings and logged more than 25,000 bluewater miles. In 2022, she returned to Rockport Marine for further work, and she was later re-surveyed with recommendations completed in 2024.
A century after her launch, ADVENTURESS remains what she has always been: a stunning marriage of beauty and purpose, a rare classic schooner, and a vessel of uncommon grace.
She is now offered for sale through Rockport Marine and Sandeman Yacht Company. To see the full brokerage listing, click the link below.