starboard-slide

Ketch-rigged motor-sailor with twin 180hp screws
Lemsteraak-type yacht
Modeled after Dutch Canal boyers
Built by De Vries Lentsch, Amsterdam 1947

full-slide

79.3 ton displacement, 7'2" draft, 18'4" beam
75' on deck, 65'7" at waterline, 90' over-all
6 staterooms, sleeps 12
Built-in piano, 35 ton air conditioner

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She was last seen in the early 1980's
on the Miami River, Florida.
The last known photographs of the Pious Puffin
appeared in two Cayman Island tour brochures
in 1979 and 1980.

Jon was once asked, “What would you want, if you ever did find the Puffin?” My initial response was that it would be wonderful to see the stained glass windows from the salon again. We have now traveled to Amsterdam twice, and have visited many ship museums throughout the U.S. and Europe. As yet we’ve never seen a Lemsteraak yacht that comes even close to the style and luxury of the Pious Puffin. If I could change anything – it would have been to preserve her in some sort of museum context. The uniqueness of the Puffin was reinforced by a recent trip to Turku Finland, where the museum there indicated that the first steel-hulled ship ever built in Turku was in 1950. The Puffin was built with a steel hull in 1947. Sadly, it appears that this website will be the closest we will come to sharing the Puffin with the world.
Jon and MC, 2012

In 2018 we went to Miami Florida and visited the last suggested locations; Jones Boatyard and Stone Age Antiques. No evidence was found to indicate that the Puffin or its contents were ever there. All leads have now dried up.

History of the Pious Puffin II

This history was begun by Ken and Lue Curtis in order to register the Puffin under the U.S. flag in 1976. It was required for them to document all ownership of the vessel back to its beginnings. Their search turned up most of the For Sale ads and they were able to gather a considerable amount of information from the original shipyard and some past owners.

Their son, Jon Curtis, began this website in 2006 and since that time people have been sending more information and stories. The hope is not only to fill in more of the missing details of her past, but eventually to know what has become of her in the present. If you have more information or corrections, please connect with us. (Unless specific permission has been granted to include these stories, the names have been edited out.)

  • 1947 De Vries Lentsch, Amsterdam - The Pious Puffin II was a Lemsteraak yacht built in Amsterdam just after World War II by the Dutch shipbuilder, De Vries Lentsch. She was delivered near the end of that year to her first owners on the French Riviera.
  • 1948 Captain Cunningham-Reid, Gibraltar - On February 18th, 1948 the Puffin was registered to Captain Alec Stratford Cunningham-Reid of the British Royal Air Force and a Member of Parliament. However the purchase of the yacht was financed by his then American mistress Doris Duke Cromwell, and was never completely paid for.
  • 1956 Russell Crenshaw, New York, Panama - Russel Crenshaw, President of Walker & Crenshaw, International Public Relations, sailed the Puffin to the new world and registered her in Panama, though mostly kept her in various ports from New York to the Bahamas. They were featured in a 1957 Yachting Magazine article.
  • 1959 Edwin Belcher Jr, Florida - While missing from the list of owners determined by the Curtises, a For Sale ad in the January 1959 issue of Yachting Magazine gave a hint that there may have been another. Edwin Belcher Jr. of Belcher Oil Company was the missing owner, and the first to bring the Puffin to Miami Florida.
  • 1965 Josephine Forrestal - Sometime after a For Sale ad dated February 1965, Josephine Forrestal, widow of Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, purchased the Puffin. The purchase may have only been for the purpose of donating the Puffin to Bob Jones College in the name of her late husband.
  • 1967 Bob Jones College, Jacksonville Florida - Josephine Forrestal donated the Pious Puffin to Bob Jones College and on February 23, 1967 it was featured in the dedication of the James V. Forrestal Library. But by August of 1968 the Puffin had been de-masted in an encounter with a bridge.
  • 1969 Bill Siebert, Richmond Virginia - Mr. Siebert purchased the Pious Puffin II without masts, and began a major restoration. The U.S. did not permit boats with foreign built hulls to be used for charter, so Bill appealed to the U.S. Congress, under the assumption that she had once been owned by the Secretary of the Navy.
  • 1974 Ken & Lue Curtis, Dubuque Iowa - Taking possession on January 14, 1974, the Curtises enjoyed registering the Pious Puffin II in Dubuque Iowa. Technically, by lowering the hinged masts in St. Louis, she actually could have made it up the Mississippi to Dubuque. Unfortunately, they never got to sail her beyond Chesapeake Bay.
  • 1978 The Caymans - We still do not know who purchased the Puffin in 1978, except that it was a collection of individuals from Houston Texas. Reports of Puffin sightings anchored off the Holiday Inn on Grand Cayman filtered back for the next couple years ... and then stopped.
  • 1979 Return to Florida - December 1979. Nothing further was known of the Puffin until this website went online in 2006. Since then we have learned that she was returned to the U.S. at the end of 1979, and may have been salvaged at a shipyard in Miami, Florida. But her final whereabouts are still not known.