Sailors of the early twentieth century knew the reputation of Purdy Boats. “Anybody that wanted their boat kept like it was going to be in Tiffany’s window, that’s where you went, to Purdy’s”, one commented. That reputation for quality, not only in maintenance but also design and manufacture, led many captains of finance and industry (such as Walter P. Chrysler, Nelson Doubleday, Williams L. Mellon and Herbert L. Pratt) and boating enthusiasts (like Harold Stirling Vanderbilt, Adrian Iselin II, George Ratsey, and Charles F. Chapman) to buy their boats from the yard on the shore of Port Washington’s Manhasset Bay in the 1920s and 1930s. Yet just twenty years later, this remarkable producer of custom yachts and racing boats had built its last boat. Who were these boatbuilding Purdys – where did they come from, how did they learn their trade, how did they disappear so completely, and what were some of their classic products? Alan Dinn, a grandson of Ned Purdy, has compiled a rich, authoritative history of the Purdy Boat Company based on official company documents and correspondence and reminiscences of family members and boat owners. The intriguing story of the Purdys is augmented with many photographs and line drawings of classic Purdy Boats.