Original POWER
“Money, money, money!” So sing the trio of characters played by the actors Meryl Streep, Julie Walters and Christine Baranski in the 2008 film Mama Mia while, most significantly, they watch a classic motor yacht at sea in the distance. Soon afterwards they are seen enjoying life on board: Streep as a figurehead at the bow, then taking the wheel while wearing the elderly captain’s hat, sitting on jetskis on the foredeck, dancing along the side decks, operating the telegraph controls, being waited on and massaged on the sun deck. The yacht in question was Haida G and a decade later – rechristened Haida 1929, her original name with the addition of the date – she emerged from Pendennis Shipyard at the end of a mighty restoration.
was built to a Cox & Stevens design by Kiel shipbuilders Krupp Germaniawerft in 1929. Her first owner was American Max Fleischmann whose family company made its name and money from the manufacture and revolutionary use of yeast in the baking process. He kept her in Santa Barbara from where he voyaged far and wide between Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico throughout the 1930s. In October 1940, was bought by the US Navy and converted for military service – including the addition of a 3.5in gun on the foredeck – and.
