Moored in West Bay, Traverse City’s largest private sailing yacht is a queen among the charter boats and daysailers with a poetic stature and an easy grace. Her name is Althea, a classic two-masted yawl with more than six decades behind her. In Greek mythology, Althea was the daughter of a king, a queen in her own right and, in some accounts, the mistress of Poseidon, god of the sea. A fitting name for this boat that shines like revered royalty, small waves lapping affectionately against her hull. The low evening sun sets the water to sparkling and the teak deck gleams as the last few passengers climb aboard for a sunset cruise. Captain Brett Derr uses the massive wheel to steer deftly past the tall ships docked at Discovery Pier, then raises the mizzen as first mate Jack Smiley preps the main. Once under sail, the boat glides toward Power Island, the turns so smooth I hardly notice. “She tacks on a dime,” Derr notes; the bay’s consistent winds make this region one of his favorite places in the world to sail. Derr is no stranger to the North’s waters. He captained the iconic Tall Ship Manitou, a replica of an 1800s cargo schooner, for seven years before founding Compass Rose Sailing Company with his wife, Heather, in 2021, a longtime dream inspired by a childhood where summers meant living on a boat.
Derr is a child of the sea. Born prematurely, Derr spent his first few weeks in an incubator. His parents, anxious to get on the water for their inaugural twomonth summer boat trip, tried again and again to convince doctors to let them take their son home early. Derr laughs while telling the story—and also insists it’s true. His parents’ love for the water was fueled by his father’s childhood, spent growing up in upstate New York and spending family vacations in the The Althea still has its original woodstove, an important feature for offshore racers who’d live aboard for many days at a time. The steel construction is modeled after North Sea fishing cutters. A picture in the cabin shows the original signal flag, written partly in Dutch, and there’s a stack of Hudson Bay wool blankets—what the original crew would have used.
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