Hemingway's Muse

Pilar After Decades of Turmoil.

- Stephenie Hollyman

History

Pilar was a sassy fishing boat with a shiny black hull. She carried a phonograph, slept six, and had two engines—one for trolling, the other for cruising. The cruising engine propelled her to a top speed of 16 knots. For most of her event-filled 27 years as Ernest Hemingway’s faithful sport-fishing companion, she berthed in Cojimar, Cuba. Wheeler Yacht Company, her builder, named this model a “Playmate cabin cruiser,” but Hemingway disagreed. Instead, he said his boat was “a functional fishing machine, sturdy, reliant and built to take the worst weather and sweating in any kind of sea.” He remained faithful to her until he had to leave Cuba in 1959, one year before his suicide. Hemingway, who cast aside longtime friends and left behind three broken marriages, referred to Pilar as the “one true thing” in his life.

Wheeler built Pilar for Hemingway in 1934 at its yard in Brooklyn, New York. Hemingway had commissioned her construction for $7,495. Having just returned from Africa with the 1933–34 Wheeler catalog he had brought on his safari, the author visited Wheeler’s shipyard to make a down payment. The payment of $3,000 was advanced by Arnold Gingrich, then editor of Esquire, as payment for future articles. As part of the commission, Pilar was customized to include a ladder-back fighting chair and a wooden roller bar across the transom, which was lowered 12 inches to assist in bringing fish into the cockpit. Hemingway named the boat after the nickname he gave his second wife, Pauline.