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PILAR BOAT
Pilar was a 38-foot
fishing boat owned by Ernest Hemingway. "Pilar" was a
nickname for Hemingway's second wife, Pauline, and also
the name of the woman leader of the partisan band in his
1940 novel The Spanish Civil War, For Whom the Bell
Tolls. Hemingway regularly fished off the boat in Key
West, Florida, Marquesas Keys, and the Gulf Stream off
the Cuban coast. He made three trips by boat to the
Bimini Islands, wherein his fishing and boxing exploits
drew much attention and remain part of the island's
history.
In addition to fishing
trips on Pilar, Hemingway contributed to scientific
research, including collaboration with the Smithsonian
Institution. Several of Hemingway's books were
influenced by time spent on the boat, most notably The
Old Man and the Sea (1953) and Islands in the Stream
(1970). The yacht also inspired the name of Playa Pilar
(Pilar Beach) on Cayo Guillermo. The opening and other
scenes in the 2012 film Hemingway & Gellhorn depict a
miniature boat replica.
The Pilar boat was
constructed in the Coney Island yard of the Wheeler
company, now of Chapel Hill, NC (which also built Fidel
Castro's "Granma"), and delivered to Hemingway at Miami.
Hemingway sailed the boat under its power from Miami to
Key West through Hawk Channel.
During World War II,
Hemingway used his Pilar boat to search for German
U-boats in the Caribbean waters. Pilar was outfitted
with communications gear. His minimal armament included
a Thompson submachine gun and grenades. Hemingway
wrote about his intent to attack if he spotted a sub.
His hunting for U-Boats inspired the third act, "At
Sea," in his novel Islands in the Stream.
Hemingway was an avid
fisherman and a great contributor to the development of
the sport. During his three Bimini trips which started
in April 1935, Hemingway perfected fishing techniques
for tuna. He was the first person to land a giant tuna
unmutilated. Known as "apple-coring," it had been
expected for sharks to attack fish as they tired and
were near the boat. His technique involved applying
constant pressure to the fish. He found that a tuna's
primary defense against sharks was speed, and as the
fish tire, they became easy targets. He used a Thompson
sub-machine gun to shoot at sharks that would appear as
the tuna tired and neared the boat. He also discovered
marlins had a defense mechanism in their swords and
noses that made them unattractive to sharks but that
tuna lacked such a defense.
Hemingway
caught numerous record-breaking fish from his Pilar
boat. In 1935, he won every tournament in the Key
West-Havana-Bimini triangle, competing against notable
sportsmen. In 1938, he established a world record by
catching seven marlins in one day. He was the first
person ever to boat a giant tuna in an undamaged state.
This effort was attributed to him pulling the fish into
the boat before it had tired, thereby preventing sharks
from eating it. Hemingway kept meticulous fishing logs,
including guests, weather, current conditions, fish
caught, and other information. During the first summer
of owning the boat, an aspiring writer, Arnold
Samuelson, served as a deckhand and recorded the
dictated logs on paper. He subsequently typed out the
logs on display at the John F. Kennedy Presidential
Library and Museum. Samuelson later wrote an account of
the summer in book form, published posthumously by his
daughter.
Named
after him, The Hemingway Fishing Tournament has been
held in Cuba since 1950. It is a four-day tournament
where contestants go for marlin, tuna, wahoo, and other
fish using a 50-pound fishing line. Hemingway won the
first three years it was held.
While on
Bimini, Hemingway wrote magazine articles for Esquire
and worked on his novel, To Have And Have Not. His
reputation as a big game angler began to grow. He landed
many giant tuna and marlin. He also staged boxing
matches with the locals, offering $100 to anyone who
could last a few rounds with him. His fighting was not
contained to the ring. During a dockside brawl, he
punched and knocked out Joe Knapp, a wealthy magazine
publisher. Hemingway at first lived in boat Pilar. He
later moved to a cottage near Brown's Dock and
eventually, a room at the Compleat Angler Hotel.
Hemingway
also contributed to the knowledge of Atlantic marine
life. During his first visit to Cuba onboard Pilar,
Hemingway hosted Charles Cadwalader, director of the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and Henry
Fowler, the Academy's chief ichthyologist. These two
scientists were in Cuba trying to determine the taxonomy
of marlin species. They attempted to determine if white,
blue, black, or striped marlins were different species
or just color variants of the same species. As a result
of their efforts on the boat, they reclassified the
North Atlantic marlin variants.
We build this primarily wood model
of the Pilar boat the following sizes: 24" ($2,790), 30"($3,550),
36" ($4,470),
40" ($4,900),
and 48" long ($6,590).
Models are built per commission only. We require only a
small deposit (not full amount, not even half) to start
the process. The
remaining balance won't be due until the boat is
completed.
Please click
here for
leadtime.
For display case, click here:
Model Ship Display Case
Learn more about the Pilar
boat here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilar_(boat)
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