Adventuress was launched in 1924 at the yard of William Fife & Son of Fairlie, Scotland (Fife Yard No. 718). Commissioned by her original owner Norman Clark Neill, she was designed by the legendary William Fife as a fast seaworthy cruiser.

One of several heirs to a Scottish family who made their fortune from the manufacture of weaving looms, Norman Clark Neill was an avid yachtsman who mainly participated in six-meter racing before and after the Great War. In addition to Adventuress, Clark Neill commissioned five other yachts from Fife. Following the war, he became a member of the British Seawanhaka Cup team sailing Reg, a Fife built six-meter. His uncle, Kenneth Clark, commissioned some 25 yachts during his lifetime, including the Fife built Kentra (1923).

Adventuress
ca. 1926

Adventuress was Clark Neill’s largest Fife design and was originally rigged as a Bermudan schooner. She was built during the winter of 1923-24 at the Fife yard and launched that spring. Rumor has it that the first captain of the vessel had an affair with a guest’s wife and was shot dead aboard the vessel by the enraged husband. While extensive efforts to confirm this have proved futile, to this day the former captain’s ghost is said to haunt the vessel – slamming doors on calm days, walking off with small hand tools and causing other assorted mischief aboard. Efforts to eradicate the spirit proved futile when several Wiccans brought aboard to ”smudge” the boat (burning rosemary and sweet grass) determined that the spirit was kindly and deserved to remain aboard.

Adventuress was sold in the mid-1930s to a new owner who kept her in the Mediterranean. She remained there for the next forty years, during which time she was commandeered as a German patrol boat during the Second World War. She was scuttled at the entrance to the harbor at Ville Franche sur Mer at the end of the war and remained there for several years. When raised she was completely refit as a stem head ketch – the rig that she eventually carried for fifty years.

During the period following the war, known as Isabelle, she had several French and Italian owners, one of whom had her delivered annually between the Mediterranean in the summer season and the Caribbean in the winter. Although her logs have been lost over the years, she is said to have crossed the Atlantic somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 times. Host to numerous dignitaries over the years, she has been sailed by senators, one serving president and several Hollywood celebrities.