Pedigree restored along with old yacht
By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist
Her name is Moe Ipo, Sweetheart to Sleep With. At 65 she may be past her prime and old-fashioned, as pleasure yachts go.
But don't underrate her femininity or charm. The Moe Ipo has captured the hearts of Denise and Steve Holmes, who saw her lonely and bedraggled at the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor, cast off by her most recent lover.
"We were walking along the pier and saw a 'For Sale' sign," said Denise, owner of a health care company. "I've always wanted to live on the ocean. I said, 'Look at that old boat. Let's buy it.'"
"I told her she was crazy," said Steve, a radiologist at The Queen's Medical Center.
What they have since discovered is that the ugly duckling has a pedigree unparalleled on the waterfront. Now, restored to regal splendor, a princess in white with brass portholes, the Moe Ipo is one of a kind. Her story is a fascinating link to Hawai'i history.
That link extends to the Falls of Clyde, Honolulu's old square-rigger, a vessel greatly admired by a boy who became a master carver and taught woodworking at Kamehameha Schools in the 1930s. He built an elegant model of the Falls that went to sea in the cabin of the Moe Ipo, built by the wood carver's son-in-law, A.F. Stubenberg, owner of a foundry in Kaka'ako.
What the Holmeses bought was not any old secondhand yacht, but a unique vessel that may be the only surviving classic pleasure vessel built in Our Honolulu.
"A.F. Stubenberg was my grandfather," said attorney Jim Stubenberg. "He was so interested in boats that he built the dry dock and boatyard at Ke'ehi Lagoon. That's where he built the boat. It was one of only three of his own design and construction. The other two are gone.
"As his oldest grandson, he took me on interisland fishing trips when I was 10. We hauled on board 500-pound marlin."
A.F. Stubenberg named the boat Mary C., after a daughter.
The boat was taken over by the Navy after the Pearl Harbor attack and served as a fireboat in Hilo Harbor. After Stubenberg's death it was sold numerous times and renamed the Moe Ipo.
Now it boasts two bedrooms and two baths below deck. Amidship is a grand salon 50 by 15 feet. You could play tennis on the top deck.
The Holmeses said they sold their home on Pacific Heights to pay for the restoration.
"A boat is a hole in the ocean you pour money into," said Steve. "The plumbing was bad, the wiring shot. We had to replate the hull. These Vietnamese welders are magicians."
"It was a diamond in the rough," said Denise. "To me it's amazing to save our history, to preserve our heritage."
The boat is about 70 feet. The only other surviving vessels locally built of the same size and era are the last three Hawaiian sampans in Kewalo Basin.
