Castro's Mystery Motoryacht

Gianma and the voyage that changed the world.

- Peter Swanson

We are driving on a country road, digging into the history of a storied motoryacht—the 58-footer named Granma that brought Castro to power. We’re in a 1956 Ford that originally belonged to my driver’s grandfather. Ivan is a nice kid. He’s well educated. He’s not a member of the Communist Party, but he is a Cuban patriot and a believer in the Revolution.

“Ivan,” I ask. “Do you know what ‘granma’ actually means?”

“Of course. Granma is the name of the Comandante’s boat, the one that brought the revolutionaries here from Mexico. It is also now the name of the province where the boat landed, and it is the name of our national newspaper.”

“Did you know that ‘granma’ is an English word?”

“I did not,” Ivan says, surprised.

“In English, it means abuelita, little grandmother. They say it was the name given to the boat by the Yankee that owned her before Fidel.”

1943, A BUILDER IN BROOKLYN

Finding Granma’s origins turns into an Easter egg hunt. Particularly frustrating is the fact that the Cubans, despite a passion for scholarship and a devotion to Revolutionary mythology, appear to be institutionally disinterested in Granma’s life before she comes into Castro’s possession.

Mexican accounts suggest she was built in Louisiana, but maybe that’s because Baton Rouge is the last address of her American owner. Granma’s picture is passed around to various naval architects, boat builders, and restorers, authors and historians. Maybe she’s a Higgins, some suggest. That’s the famed New Orleans builder of PT boats and landing craft. Others say she looks like a Huckins, a Jacksonville, Florida, builder who also built defense craft during the war.