As inconceivable as it might sound, for a short time boats were built in the infield at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Carl Fisher loved to race. It didn’t matter if it was bicycles, automobiles, or boats. His obsession with boat racing initially resulted in him having speed boats and cruisers built by Consolidated Shipbuilding on the Bronx River in Morris Heights, The Bronx. In 1906, Consolidated Shipbuilding built a twenty-nine foot runabout, Presto, and the Eph, a thirty-four foot launch named for his favorite dog. Over the years, Consolidated Shipbuilding built numerous boats and cruisers for Fisher.
Fisher often used the same names for his boats. Another Eph was ready for delivery in November 1909. Not willing to wait until the following summer, Fisher decided to sail the yacht down the Mississippi River to Florida. It was on this boat that Fisher and his party became stranded on a sandbar in Mobile Bay during a storm. The yacht would later be sailed on to Miami, from which his friend, John Levi suggested that Fisher visit the small town. He did, and the rest is history.
In 1910, Consolidated built the Eph VIII. In 1911, they built an eighteen-foot boat, the Eph, a thirty-nine-foot boat and the Rover, an eighty-two-foot cruiser. In 1911, Consolidated Shipbuilding built Fisher an eighteen-foot boat, the Raven and the Raven II, a fifty-five-foot cruiser. In 1912, they built a sixty-six-foot cruiser Shadow and a twenty-eight-foot hydroplane.
Fisher was so pleased with the work that Ned and Gil Purdy did on his boats at Consolidated, he hired them in 1914 to build some boats in Indianapolis and set them up in the infield. This was the beginning of Purdy Boat Works.
Needless to say, land-locked Indianapolis was not the most conducive place to build boats and in late December 1916, they relocated to the northern end of Miami Beach on Biscayne Bay. While in Miami Beach, the Purdy Boat Works built glass-bottomed boats for a Miami Beach hotel. They also built cruisers for Harry C. Stutz and Arthur Newby along with Carl Fisher.
When Jim Allison built his aquarium on Miami Beach, he contracted with the Purdy brothers to build a boat in which to collect fish samples in 1920. Launched on August 18, 1920, the Allisoni wasthirty-five-feet long with an eleven foot beam, and drew only four and one-half feet of water. Powered by a two-cylinder engine, the Allisoni had a center well which could hold up to 1,000 specimen fish. While it could travel on its own power, when it went to the Bahamas to collect fish, it was towed by either the L’Apache or the Sea Horse, both owned by Allison.
One of the many activities in Miami Beach Fisher planned, was regattas. For the 1917 regatta, he had the Purdy Boat Company in Indianapolis build two fifty-foot boats with a nine-foot beam and a draft of two feet, four inches. The boats were powered by two eight-cylinder engines with 200 horsepower built at Jim Allison’s machine shop in Speedway, Indiana. The boats, the Shadow III and the Raven III had an estimated speed of 31 mph and could carry enough fuel for a cruising radius of 250 miles.
Following World War I, Purdy Boat Company started a second location on the Detroit River in Trenton, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.to cater to northern clients. An advertisement in Motor Boating, September 1919, reflected they had built the Altonia for Arthur Newby, the Whip for Stutz Motor Car Company co-founder Robert E. Maypole, and three Shadows for Carl Fisher. Shadow V set a record traveling between Mackinac Island and Detroit at 26.8 mph, a distance of 306 miles. To set this record, the boat carried an extra 150 gallons of fuel.
Fisher relocated the Purdy brothers to his property at Bayview Colony in Port Washington in 1920. The Purdy Boat Company operated on Manhasset Bay where they designed and built many luxury yachts, Gold Coast racers and racing sailboats. They were one of the premiere builders of custom power yachts and racing boats in the 1920s and 1930s. In May 1925, the company consolidated its operations from Trenton, Michigan, to Port Washington.
In 1925, Purdy Boat built ten identical runabouts, “Miami Special” for Carl Fisher. The boats were twenty-one feet long with seating for four passengers. The Miami Specials were powered by 100 horsepower Scripps F-6 engines which could go forty miles per hour. Fisher then arranged for ten top automobile racing drivers to pilot the boats in a race.
In August 1926, Fisher’s twenty-five-foot speedboat Rowdy won the Dodge International trophy at Port Washington with an average speed of 47.33 mph. There were four twelve-mile heats to the race. Rowdy won the first, second and third heats to claim the championship. In the third heat, it set a lap record of 49.16 mph, the fastest of the day. Fisher’s boat Shadow Vite finished second in the Gold Cup race.
Fisher’s Shadow K was bought by the Venezuelan government in 1937 and was briefly used as a presidential yacht. Known as the El Leandro, the yacht was later used as a patrol boat and an oceanographic research vessel. It was heavily damaged in 1952.
Fisher was so obsessed with boats, that when his 1927 home on Biscayne Bay was designed by August Geiger, it included a boat house large enough for a forty-five-foot speedboat and an apartment for the boat’s captain.
The most famous boat the Purdys built was the Aphrodite, a seventy-four-foot cruiser. Wall Street financier John Hay “Jock” Whitney commissioned the cruiser in 1937 and used it to whisk him from his home on Long Island to his New York City office. Powered by a pair of 1,500 horsepower Packard airplane engines, it had a top speed of 38 knots. It was also a fuel burner—some 300 gallons of aviation fuel per hour. Whitney entertained Fred Astaire, Sir Laurence Olivier, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Henry Ford II, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s advisors Harry Hopkins and Nelson Rockefeller and others on the Aphrodite. It also hosted a birthday party for Shirley Temple. During World War II, Whitney gave the cruiser to the U.S. Navy which used it to carry dignitaries, including President Roosevelt. In 1960, Whitney donated the boat to charity. It then went through several owners. It was discovered in Florida and was restored. The boat is now moored in Watch Hill, Rhode Island.