By Stephen Rappaport

Some of those tycoons made the trip aboard long, lean, fast motor yachts built at renowned shipyards such as Lawley, Consolidated and Herreshoff.

Brooklin Boatyard’s Brent Morey surveys Aphrodite’s sophisticated engine room. For all practical purposes, Aphrodite is a new boat, but most of her hardware is original. The burnished instrument panel that once monitored her twin Packard engines now keeps track of two 1,000-horsepower Caterpillar diesels. The teak deck is new, but the anchor windlass is original. A pair of Michigan wheels drive Aphrodite. Although the propellers are a standard item, the struts and the stainless steel rudders (on the shop floor) were custom machined. STAFF PHOTOS BY STEPHEN RAPPAPORT

Often pushed by 1,000 horsepower gas engines, these elegant commuter yachts, many 70 feet long or more, carried their owners down Long Island Sound and through the Hell Gate at speeds of 30 knots or more.

Then came World War II. Most of the commuters were turned over to the military. Stripped of their luxury appointments and painted Navy gray, they joined a rag-tag fleet of converted yachts that served the nation as harbor patrol and anti-submarine vessels.

The post-war years were hard on the commuters. After the war, a few of them were returned to their former owners but, ultimately, most passed into new hands. Often, those hands had neither the skill nor the capital to maintain big, elegant wooden boats.

By the 1970s, most of the commuters were gone — sunk, wrecked or fallen to the chain saws, but a few survived. Of those, a handful came into the possession of people with the vision and ability to restore them to their former glory.

Late in 2003, one of those survivors, the legendary Aphrodite, arrived at the Brooklin Boat Yard to undergo a total rebuilding. Earlier this month, on a golden autumn day, the yard launched the restored Aphrodite, the product of some 33,000 hours of painstaking work.

Although not as widely known as some of its competitors during the 1920s, the Purdy Boat Co., of Port Washington, N.Y., gained a reputation for building fast, elegant custom motorboats for discerning clients such as T.E. Lawrence.

Battered like many businesses were during the Depression, the yard got a lift in 1936 when financier John Hay “Jock” Whitney placed an order for a new 74-foot commuter.

The contract called for a price of $90,000 (about $1.23 million in today’s dollars) and required that the new boat have a top speed of 38 mph.

Aphrodite, the product of that contract, was launched in 1937. Double-planked in Philippine mahogany over steam-bent white oak frames, the boat was 74 feet long, with a beam of 14 feet 6 inches, a draft of just 3 feet 5 inches and a displacement of 23 tons.

For the next 25 years, except for a period of Coast Guard service during World War II when she ferried President Franklin Delano Roosevelt up the Hudson River to and from his home in Hyde Park, she remained in the Whitney family.

She cruised Long Island Sound with a guest list that included film stars such as Fred Astaire, Sir Laurence Olivier, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, tycoon Henry Ford II and presidential adviser Harry Hopkins.

In 1962, after Whitney returned from four years as Ambassador to Great Britain, he donated the boat to a youth training program and Aphrodite’s long decline began.

The boat passed through the hands of several owners and, by the 1970s, had become derelict. She was stripped of her engines and hauled into a marsh to rot.

In 1983, a shipwright who operated a boatyard in the same place where the Purdy yard had been, bought Aphrodite’s hulk, had it towed back to its birthplace, and began her first restoration.

The shipwright kept the boat, living aboard her with his family for part of the time. In 2000 her present owner, Charles Royce, purchased her in Florida and brought her to Watch Hill, R.I.

A highly successful mutual fund manager, Royce had the ability to back a rebuilding project worthy of Aphrodite’s heritage.

The boat was in rough shape when it arrived in Brooklin in fall 2003. Her old diesel engines, installed in an earlier restoration, were exhausted, as was the boat itself.

At some point in her post-Whitney history, Aphrodite sunk. According to Brian Larkin, who oversaw the restoration project at Brooklin Boat Yard, the crew actually found barnacles in the boat when they began to take her apart.

The first step in the restoration project was to carefully document the boat’s appearance and construction details because most of the original Purdy plans had disappeared.

Next, the yard installed several temporary forms inside the boat to maintain the shape of the hull.

Then the work really got under way. First, the deck, cabin and interior were completely removed, leaving only the bare hull. Then the crew built an entirely new backbone, stem and floors from white oak, the same material from which the original structure had been built.

Once the new backbone was complete, the original planking was removed and temporary ribbands were attached to the original frames.

Next, the crew steam bent new white oak frames into position and removed the old frames. (The sharply bent frames in the way of the boat’s torpedo stern are built of laminated mahogany.)

Once the new backbone and framing were completed, the original planking was removed and, by early last September, the last piece of original wood was removed from Aphrodite.

With the hull framed up, the crew installed interior structural elements. They then began replanking the hull with two layers of glued and copper-riveted Philippine mahogany. Last came the installation of the engines and the reconstruction of the boat’s interior.

Aphrodite’s interior reflects what Larkin described as “simple elegance.” Her large salon, forward owner’s quarters (located just abaft an open cockpit where Whitney supposedly read the morning newspaper on his way to work) and small guest stateroom are finished in white-painted V-matched cedar with varnished mahogany trim.

The cabin soles are varnished Douglas fir. The galley, in the salon, is simple, with varnished mahogany countertops. The most interesting interior features are the large, crank-operated windows in the head and salon.

Quarters for a crew of two, finished to the same level as the owner’s stateroom and include their own head and shower, are located aft. Entry is from the boat’s aft cockpit. Entry to the engine room is from the crew’s quarters.

One of the most striking features of Aphrodite’s appearance is her tightly rounded torpedo stern.  That is the part of the boat that most viewers likely are to see.

Aphrodite is powered by a pair of 1,000 horsepower, electronically controlled Caterpillar C18 diesel engines. Each engine drives a four-blade 27 foot by 29 foot Michigan EQ propeller on a double-tapered stainless steel shaft through a 1.29:1 ratio Twin Disc MGX 5135 transmission.

The shift function is handled by Twin Disc EC300 electronic controls. A Mastervolt 12 kW diesel generator provides AC electrical power.

The new Aphrodite has been clocked at 38 knots (about 43 mph) and will cruise at 23 to 25 knots with her engines turning 1,800 rpms.

With Aphrodite likely to be used mostly for day cruises, her bridge, situated atop a stand-up engine room, is simply equipped. A large stainless wheel at the custom-fabricated hydraulic helm stands out amidst the varnished mahogany and the polished brass of the original engine controls and the skylight binnacle for the compass.

The electronics suite includes VHF radio, radar, GPS-chart plotter, and depth sounder, all from Raytheon.