It is made of wood, a 62-foot Sparkman and Stephens-designed yawl built by M.M. Davis and Sons in Solomons Island in 1937 for a wealthy fellow who sailed it in the Great Lakes. Now the boat is nearly fully restored.

History enough, but it gets better.

Manitou was President John F. Kennedy's sailing White House. There is the famous photograph of him at the helm taken in August 1962 on Narragansett Bay, months after he selected Manitou from the sailing craft kept by the Coast Guard. Another photo has a young Sen. John Kerry, who was dating a Kennedy in-law, aboard for a ride.

The president used it to relax, to get away on weekends rather than the 92-foot presidential power yacht he had dubbed the Honey Fitz after his grandfather.

Made of mahogany over oak frames and decked in teak, she was called a "sweet sailor" by the Coast Guard skipper who oversaw her when she was introduced to the president off the coast of Maine.

Retired Capt. Lawrence White, now living in Connecticut after moving there from Annapolis several years ago, said he had skippered the craft while at the Coast Guard Academy.

"We sailed her in a number of races at the academy," Capt. White said. "She was delightful yacht to sail. We liked her appointments, but we never did use the fireplace."

That's right, fireplace. The boat is also graced with a beautiful interior made of butternut, icebox, propane stove, even a bathtub, though tiny. Her original equipment includes the brass Herreshoff steering pedestal and compass. It sleeps three forward, four in main cabin and the main stateroom aft sleeps two.

When President Kennedy was sworn in, Capt. White was stationed in Washington at Coast Guard headquarters. Soon he was tasked to prepare a notebook on the sailing yachts the Coast Guard owned.

"It disappeared up the chain," he said. "A little while later I was advised the president had selected Manitou," he said.

Then he was ordered to the White House to make arrangements. And then detached to headquarters to make the boat ready for the president's use. The presidential yachting was hush-hush, coordinated by the Secret Service, Navy and Coast Guard.

"We got it fitted out and were ordered to waters off Maine by John's Island, where we anchored and waited for the president to arrive," Capt. White said.

With a typical skipper's detachment he called the president's passage "uneventful."

"We were able to manage the conditions and dropped the president off," he said.

A few days later he was replaced by a more junior grade officer, who was a good sailor.

Five years after the president's death the boat was sold as surplus to the Harry Lundberg Merchant Marine Academy in St. Mary's County for $35,000.

Aristotle Onasis, who by then was courting the president's widow, tried to buy the boat twice.

It was used as a training vessel there and after a number of years began deteriorating.

In 1999, the granddaughter of the original owner, James Lowe, bought the boat and soon set about the restoration.

She had Manitou was taken to wooden boat haven Deltaville, Va., where it was hauled, dismantled and painstakenly restored from the ribs up. Work continues still and is nearly complete.

Manitou was brought to the Calvert Marine Museum last spring and put on display as some of the final work was done.

Totch Hartge, of the famous boat-building Galesville clan, brought her up from Solomons on Tuesday and moored her at the family yacht yard overnight.

Mr. Hartge, who runs a prominent marine-insurance business out of Easton, insures it. What better hands to bring her into the sailboat show.

On Wednesday, with a two-woman crew - Mr. Hartge's daughter, Meredith, and Nancy Ryall, a British ex-pat jewelry designer, who has been working all summer varnishing the boat - Manitou set off from Galesville around 8:40 a.m. Also on board were Mr. Hartge's high school buddy, retired Navy Cmdr. John Kennedy and his wife, Cookie, and two writers.

The motor trip took about two hours. Lack of wind most of the trip precluded unfurling sail.

Steady chugging took her out of West River to swing north to Annapolis. Most aboard were quieted by the peaceful early morning sights and sounds. Scores of birds enjoyed breakfast plunging into the center of a pound net. A few watermen cruised by, crab pots stacked on deck, as they made their early morning rounds.

After the turn around Thomas Point lighthouse, Mr. Hartge told a writer taking a turn at the wheel to head for the center tower on Greenbury Point, then later to aim for the middle of the Severn River Bridge.

Once near Annapolis, Mr. Hartge took the wheel, radioed in to the boat show staff and maneuvered in and around the busy harbor awaiting the call to pull into the prepared slip. An hour later, at about noon, he steered in, starboard to the floating dock while all aboard lent a hand with bumpers and lines.

And there it sits, on the outside of Dock D, the dock farthest from shore, amidst all the shiny white fiberglass. Manitou is easy to find. Look up and search for the wooden masts.

If you have a spare $1.3 million, she is yours.

Then you would have to finish the work, which includes rigging electronics and some wood finishing.

Mr. Hartge predicted, "at a good yard at about $80 an hour, oh, another $150,000 should do it."