Her lines were drawn at the Madison Avenue office of Sparkman & Stephens — the New York firm that, in the same decade, produced Dorade, Finisterre and a steady run of America’s Cup defenders. The drawings travelled across the Atlantic to Cantieri Costaguta of Genova, the Ligurian yard whose name once stood for the finest wooden yachts in Europe. There, through 1959 and into the spring of 1960, the hull was built up plank by plank: oak frames, mahogany planking, teak decks slow-grown to the close grain her designers had specified.

She sailed her first Med that summer. Sixty-six seasons on, she is still working the same coast. Three owners have polished her brass and renewed her canvas. Roman, the fourth, has held her for three — restoring her below decks to the original drawings, replacing nothing that could be saved.

She is not a modern boat. She is, however, exactly the boat the Mediterranean was built to carry: low in the water, generous on deck, sweet under sail. She will take you out at the hour of your choosing, and she will bring you back when the light has turned to honey.

What we offer is not a tour. It is an afternoon on a private wooden yacht, with the man who knows her better than anyone else. We sail the same coves the postmen and the fishermen of the Elaphiti have always sailed, and we eat where they eat.

The hull was caulked the old way and the deck-seams payed with pitch. Bronze and inox fittings are originals. She is a boat that asks for care, and gives a great deal of pleasure in return.

You are welcome aboard her.