Photo Provided

Photo Provided

Archie Butt had company this week. The Archie Butt is the semi-submerged hull of an old troop ship that you see from the Ravenel Bridge as you near Mount Pleasant. Archie Butt's ferrocement hull has lain in the pluff mud for 82 years and it's an icon for East Cooper. Anchored downriver a couple of hundred yards off was the yacht SeaFair, the pretentious, five-story, 228-foot, one of a kind floating art gallery owned by the New York couple, David and Lee Ann Lester. For five days SeaFair lay in shallow water well away from the main shipping channel. Commuters descending the second span peered past scantily-clad joggers at the stately craft that showed no sign of activity for almost a week. Apparently the yacht SeaFair was between art exhibits and was just hanging out for awhile in the Holy City, one of its occasional port-of-call cities.

When SeaFair entered Charleston harbor last week, the sailing yacht Mirabella V was tied up at the Mega Dock of the Charleston City Marina. Mirabella V, the 247-foot sailing yacht belonging to Avis Car Rental CEO Joe Vittoria, dwarfed litigator Ron Motley's yacht, Themis, taking up nearly 100 more feet of dock space.

City Marina is home to a hundred yachts that cost more than the average Charlestonian will make in a lifetime, yet last week everything tied up there looked like matchbox toys compared to Mirabella V. These two yachts together, Mirabella and SeaFair, cost an estimated $80 million dollars to build. For the curious, $80 million is the amount the make-over of Johnny Dodds Boulevard will cost the taxpayers when it's done. So, why were SeaFair and Mirabella V here? No one seemed to know. The yacht owners were not thought to be aboard. It is a wonderful coincidence the week that the these sleek watercraft lay in our waters was the week that CondeNast chose to name Charleston the number one tourist city in the United States.

Some here may recall that in April of 1985 rocker Billy Joel married the "Uptown Girl," Christy Brinkley aboard the yacht Riveranda, and for a week one of the world's most glamorous couples honeymooned here on that 147-foot luxury yacht. In the 1960s William F. Buckley's 60-foot transoceanic sailing yacht Cyrano used to slip into Charleston harbor and tie up at the City Marina. The conservative columnist, editor of National Review and host of the long-running PBS show "Firing Line," was spotted more than once reading newspapers on the deck of his beloved yacht and dining at local lunch spots such as the Ice House in the Market.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis passed through town aboard the grand yacht Christina, the flagship of shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis's personal fleet. Local wags claimed that the former first lady was traveling up the coast with longtime friend, Maurice Tempelsman, the New York jewelry millionaire. She was spotted by locals dining at the renowned Perdita's on Exchange Street.

In the late 1990s Charlestonians peered out over the Battery seawall at 151-foot yacht, Highlander, belonging to Steve Forbes, publisher of Forbes magazine. Rumored to be onboard with Forbes were former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Sir Denis Thatcher, General and Mrs. Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense and Mrs. Caspar Weinberger. Police boats hovering near the craft seemed to confirm the rumors. Just before sunset one evening the Highlander's dinghy, a large cabin cruiser in itself, was lowered to the water and the distinguished couples disembarked. A few minutes later they were spotted entering Magnolia's restaurant on East Bay Street. Chef John Varanese tells us that the evening he prepared dinner for the Thatchers, Powells, Forbes and Weinbergers is his most memorable moment in cooking. Besides being a very busy evening, the FBI was everywhere. He says that one restaurant employee could not come to work that evening because he was from Ireland and had suspected links to the IRA.

Old timers recall that in the 1960s there was a chrome reduction company, Air Reduction Corporation (Airco Alloy), a division of its Pittsburgh parent, located in the North area along the Cooper River. A very patrician gentleman of Pittsburg and Palm Beach named Charles Francis Colbert, Jr., was CEO of Airco during that time and he became fast friends with Citadel president, General Mark W. Clark. Upon Colbert's retirement from corporate life, he bestowed his own private yacht, The Southwind, to The Citadel in honor of General Clark. Southwind was a 51-foot motor yacht that boasted double staterooms, a grand lounge, galley and crew quarters, not to mention twin 190-horsepower inboard engines.

Who among us can recall when Miss Budweiser, the trophy yacht of Augie Busch, then CEO of Anheuser Busch, sailed into our harbor in the late 1960s with comedian and Budweiser adman, Ed McMahon, aboard? Miss Budweiser may be the sleekest sailing craft to wear sails in these waters in a hundred years. The Stephens Brothers Yacht Corporation in Stockton, Calif., custom built the magnificent 85-foot boat in 1962. A few fortunate Charlestonians, including the higher-ups at Pearlstine Distributors, got a tour and a local cruise. One recalled the gold-plated fixtures adorning the polished mahogany interior.

Perhaps the most intriguing yacht to be moored here in some time was the converted trawler Caliban of French registry. The Bernard Gallay Yacht Brokerage offered Caliban for sale at a reduced sum from its original offering. The yacht's sales brochure gave the following description:

"Has Charleston become a yacht haven and a playground for the rich and famous?" The answer is "No." Charleston has been a lay-by for the powerful ones afloat since the days of gentlemen pirates such as Captain Morgan and Stede Bonnet. Even in the formation of the new republic, we are told that the Charleston delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia arrived on the Schuylkill River aboard their own private yachts, somewhat to the disdain of the less well-off delegates from New England.

(Dr. Thomas B. Horton is a history teacher at Porter-Gaud School).