Shenandoah of Sark

Hardly any yacht offered for charter today has lived as many lives as this one. Theodore Ferris drew Shenandoah for an American banker, taking his cue from the hull of Meteor III, the schooner of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Townsend & Downey launched her in New York in 1902. Of all the yachts Ferris designed, she is the only one still afloat, and her keel, her frames and her ship's bell are the originals.

The list of owners reads like a twentieth-century novel. Her second owner, a German aristocrat, kept her only briefly: when war broke out the British military took her over. Later an Italian prince gave her the name Atlantide and threw lavish parties on board; a Danish count bought her on the spot at one of them, took her five hundred miles up the Amazon and, in the Second World War, had her masts and engines taken off so the occupiers could not use her. After a murky spell in the Caribbean she was impounded in France in 1962 and left to decay for a decade, until Baron Marcel Bich, of the ballpoint pen, restored her and gave back her first name. Much later she was rebuilt again at McMullen & Wing in New Zealand, and in 2010 she was shortlisted for best refitted yacht at the World Superyacht Awards.

She is not a museum. Her current owners have taken her round the world three times, to Madagascar, the South Pacific and as far as South Georgia. Under full sail she leans and drives hard, and guests are welcome to haul and steer alongside the crew, some of whom have served aboard for decades.

Below decks the mood is a well-kept classic: white bookshelves, brass fittings, a baby grand Steinway in the saloon. The owner's cabin runs from side to side, with a double and a single bed; behind its bookcase, a concealed door opens onto the chart table. The three other cabins are doubles, one with a removable bunk for a child.

She is for sailors, history lovers and families with children old enough to remember the week. If the plan is mainly lounging by a swim platform with a stack of toys, a modern motor yacht will serve you better: on a schooner of this age, the rig and the deck are the whole point.