For Love of the Build

In the early ’70s, John Carbone commissioned a boat to be designed by naval architect Edwin Monk Jr. and built by Miller Boatworks on Washington State’s Bainbridge Island. But Carbone never got to enjoy the 67-foot yacht. In 1978, Carbone—an organized crime boss based in Tacoma, Washington—ended up in federal prison on racketeering charges after his gang burned down several local taverns and topless bars in a turf war. But this isn’t a story about gangsters of the Pacific Northwest; rather, it’s one of a unique boat design and how two sisterships ended up being built instead of one.

The first was Carbone’s boat. After he was sentenced to prison, Carbone left the boatyard with a half-finished build that he’d agreed to pay $400,000 (roughly $1.5 million today) to have built. While many boatyards might have mothballed the project, Miller Boatworks finished the boat. Carbone’s dream was born—and then