Michael Coit, lover of all things vintage, reveals his vast boat collection to Kate Lardy...
When I was about 12 years old, my father bought me a $90 Thompson wooden runabout with a Mercury Hurricane outboard that I kept on the ocean in New London, Connecticut. I thought I was hot stuff, taking my girlfriends out for a ride! That’s what started my love for the ocean. When I got out of school and got the first $2 in my pocket, I bought a 9.1-metre wooden sportfisher and did a lot of fishing.
Fast forward to when I was about 30 years old, I ended up with a 12.5-metre Hatteras on a big reservoir on the Texas-Oklahoma border called Lake Texoma. We went up from Dallas and spent two or three days on it every weekend, and that just cemented my love of being on the water. Then in 1998, when I was living in Rancho Santa Fe, California, I bought a 8.5-metre Boston Whaler that I would take 150 miles offshore fishing, and I kept a Cabo sportfisher in Mexico for six years where the fishing was fabulous.
I got very, very busy in business over the next many years. About five years ago, I started looking at boats again and saw the boat that I’m sitting on now, the 26.3-metre Outer Reef 860 yacht Eagle. I was attracted to it because it looks like a vintage boat. We’ve upgraded it to be more than perfect. We spent a lot of time in Palm Beach, and for a couple of summers we took it up to New England, to all the favourite places where big yachts go. Then a friend introduced us to the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, where I am right now.
I have added to my fleet an L&H 10-metre sportfisher that is 44 years old, which we completely rehabbed to like-new condition. I just acquired a 1961 11.3-metre Merritt sportfisher, the seventh one they built. The previous owner spent a fortune redoing it.
We also have a little 43-year-old Boston Whaler that we rehabbed ourselves. And last year we took delivery of a J Craft named Aquila III that was custom made in Sweden on the island of Gotland. It’s brand new but when you look at it, you feel like you’re in the early days on the Amalfi Coast.
I have all these boats on my hip down here, where I live on board six months a year. We spend summers at our home on a lake in Montana, where I have three boats: a mahogany StanCraft, which is just beautiful, a small fishing boat and a Cobalt runabout. I keep everything in as-new condition. I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth; I had to earn whatever I got, so I value what I have.
I also have a car collection from the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s. I love vintage. I’m an old fart, 85 years old, and have a background in design and art history. Growing up, I could only dream of having just one of these items. Today, everything looks the same; if you’ve seen one boat, you’ve seen the other.
We were invited to the Ocean Reef Invitational fishing tournament and we’re going to do it on our 64-year-old boat. I like being out on it because it gets a lot of attention. When I go fishing, if I don’t catch anything it doesn’t matter to me. It’s the idea that we went out there and we spent the day trying. I just like being on the water.
First published in the April 2025 issue of BOAT International US Edition. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.
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