Story
The Fork in the Road
Her lines plan is dated 1965. The build and launch came shortly after, at the height of a cultural moment that gave the world the Eames lounge chair, the Knoll sofa, and the original 911. Iroquois arrived into that era and absorbed it. You can see it in the sheer line, the rake of the stem, the way she sits in the water. She was designed for a world that understood proportion.
Owner Steve Goodrich brought her to Yankee Marina in Yarmouth, Maine as a project in need of a breath of fresh air. The hull was right. The bones were right. What was missing was a point of view.
Designer Paul Waring recognized it the moment he stepped aboard. “I told Steve we’re at a fork in the road,” Waring recalls. “We can explore what’s possible, or we can get the boat back in the water and move along.”
Goodrich chose wisely.
Escaping the Purist Trap
The restomod concept is simple enough to explain: a portmanteau of restoration and modification, you take a timeless original — something whose proportions no one has managed to improve upon — and you refuse to be imprisoned by it.
The automotive world has been doing this for years. Singer’s Porsches. Ricardo Pessoa’s Coolnvintage Land Rovers. Each one honors the DNA while having the confidence to evolve the execution. “You can introduce a whole different feel,” Waring explains, “without tearing the original apart.”
Waring had long believed that the classic American powerboat interior was the most obvious candidate for this treatment. Not poorly made — simply unconsidered. Routine materials chosen quickly, shapes designed to fit the space rather than the life lived inside. Thirty-five years in yacht design had given him a clear view of what these boats could have been.
Iroquois had everything a restomod requires: irreplaceable bones, and an interior that deserved far better.
“Iroquois isn’t a restoration to factory spec. She’s an evolution — a transformation, a true restomod in every sense of the word.” — Paul Waring
A Loft On Water
Waring worked alongside his wife Megan, an interior designer with a precise eye for texture and tone. Together they shaped every material decision and developed a palette that had no real precedent in powerboat design.
The answer arrived material by material, thanks to the remarkable work of Joe Seremeth and the craftsmen at Maine-based WoodLab. Koa paneling whose grain shifts with the light through the afternoon. Circassian walnut furniture, chosen for warmth and weight, and its ability to take on deep character the longer you’re in its company. Woven upholstery balanced against leather-clad millwork. Horizontal wood transitions where paneling meets finished bulkheads, drawing the eye through the cabin and making the space feel composed rather than filled.
“We explored every possible way to use leather and upholstery to create rich texture and depth. The color balance, the material weight — it’s a feast for the eyes.” — Paul Waring
The overall effect is what Waring calls atmospheric. “Like a speakeasy,” he says. “Evocative — with the power to stir something, while the boat itself stays quiet beneath you.”
Systems That Disappear
The engineering philosophy mirrors the design one: sophistication that doesn’t announce itself.
One of the primary ambitions of the restomod process was the complete integration of modern systems into a vessel that carries no trace of them. Modern battery banks handle climate loads for hours without generator noise, delivering the kind of silence that changes the quality of a passage. A single switch brings the entire water system online. Fuel management runs through a touchscreen. The helm station is deliberately spare: two Garmin displays, engine controls, a VHF radio. Starlink. AIS. Nothing more. Nothing needed.
“When you get on board, it comes down to the flip of a switch. The boat is on. It’s ready to run. What the owner sees is a button. Behind it is sophisticated engineering. That’s exactly the point.” — Paul Waring
The result is a yacht that is, in Waring’s words, “far simpler to operate, more efficient, more pleasant — while maintaining its classic feel and origin.”
Built for Living
Steve Goodrich describes the range of what Iroquois makes possible in a single breath: entertaining dockside in Portland’s Old Port with twenty or thirty friends, cocktails on the aft deck as the harbor lights come on. Or scooting up to Camden in just over three hours on her new power plants, anchoring somewhere quiet for the night.
The accommodations flex for however the trip is being used. Two couples. Owner and staff. Extended family across multiple cabins. A week along the Maine coast, somewhere different each night, Nova Scotia within reach if the weather holds.
This is not a boat for showing. It’s a boat for using — repeatedly, intimately, in the company of people who matter.