I’ve used this column to ask Soundings readers to share their stories about their own boats and on-water experiences and I’ve received a lot of interesting responses. Recently, I got a note about an unusual classic design.
Jan Moniz is a USCG-licensed captain in Warren, Rhode Island, who has a thing for Dyer Boats. She owned a 16-footer in the past, and then bought a 20-footer, which was fully restored by The
Anchorage Inc., the builder of Dyer Boats, also located in Warren. In 2017, Tad Jones, president of The Anchorage, got wind of an old fiberglass 29 that was sitting in a field in upstate New York, in desperate need of repair. He contacted Moniz to find out if she had interest in buying another Dyer. He got her attention when he told her the boat (shown above) had been owned by Marjorie Merriweather Post, American businesswoman, socialite and philanthropist, and owner of the General Foods Corporation.
“The boat is called Merriweather and it was built in 1963, one of the only Dyers built in the commuter style,” says Moniz. “Mrs. Post used it to ferry guests to and from her Camp Topridge estate in the Adirondacks.” In 1973, when Post passed away, she left the property to the state of New York, including the boat, according to Moniz. It was converted by state troopers for use on lakes. Later, it was sold to a private individual, who then sold it someone else. It ended up in a field in Wilmington, New York, where it sat for years.
Moniz, who has a charter business on the Warren River, decided to invest in the boat’s restoration. “I want to own a boat that was owned by a woman who owned her own business,” she says. So, she put up the money to get the boat out of the woods of New York and back to Warren, where Jones is now the project lead on the rebuild. Soundings will cover the makeover in a future issue.
I enjoyed learning about Moniz’s interest in the Dyer, in large part because her passions seem closely aligned with those of our Soundings audience. Says Moniz, “Anyone who loves history and boats would most likely agree that the Merriweather is worth saving.”
This article was originally published in the November 2023 issue.
