Sweet Freedom is a Duffy 35 hardtop express that was built in 2000 by the Atlantic Boat Co. of Brooklin, Maine. She rides a built-down lobster boat hull with a fine forefoot and flat after sections “producing good speed and the excellent ride that Duffys are famous for,” says the builder.

This is a Down Easter with workboat roots as a platform for commercial fishing and lobstering, but she can be set up several ways for cruising — for example, with a galley-up or galley-down, and with a combination head and shower or a head with a separate shower.
There is standing headroom below, and the main cabin can be lengthened or shortened to accommodate saloon and cockpit layouts. She can also be built with a flybridge. Atlantic offers all of its boats completely finished or as a kit finished to any stage of completion.
Sweet Freedom is configured as a dayboat and overnighter. The interior plan is open, with the galley immediately to port down the companionway. The enclosed head is opposite to starboard. A large V-berth forward has a filler cushion, and there is a shelf for a television, along with 110-volt AC outlets and a 12-volt DC outlet.
She has electronic Stidd helm and companion seats, along with two manual Stidd guest seats aft. Features include a bow thruster, hydraulic steering, a freshwater cockpit washdown, a hot-and-cold cockpit shower, varnished exterior wood trim and stern bench, and a microwave, refrigerator and hot-and-cold pressure water in the galley.
She measures 35 feet overall — 33 feet, 4 inches on the waterline — and has a beam of 11 feet, 10 inches. Power is a single 440-hp Yanmar 6 CXM-ETE diesel for a cruising speed of 19 mph and a top end of 23 mph. Atlantic Boat Co., (207) 359-4658. www.atlanticboat.com
Dividing the loot
Sweet Freedom, the Duffy 35 built for Christie Brinkley by Atlantic Boat Co., of Brooklin, Maine, attracted serious interest when it came up for sale in 2008. And why not, says broker Leslie Quarrier, who handled its sale to Tom Pipoli and Charlie Klewin for Boatworks Yacht Sales in Essex, Connecticut. “It was beautiful, well-priced, well-built and well-known,” she says.
It was well-known because it made headlines as part of Brinkley’s well-publicized divorce from Peter Cook. Proceedings began in July 2008 in a Suffolk County, New York, courtroom, and among the issues to be resolved between the supermodel and the architect was the distribution of assets, which included several homes, seven watches, a model airplane — and the 35-foot Duffy. The Down East lobster yacht with the distinctive blue hull was described in the press as the “family fishing boat.”
When the divorce was granted to Brinkley, it was ruled that Sweet Freedom would be sold and the money donated to charity, according to published reports. Brinkley’s attorney said that her portion would be donated to a shelter for domestic violence victims in East Hampton, New York.
See related article:
June 2015 issue