John Wayne's WILD GOOSE In the early 1960's John Wayne bought a 9,000-square-foot Newport Beach home with a dock... the perfect location for a 136-foot former U.S. Navy minesweeper. Wayne bought the boat from his friend, Seattle lumber tycoon Max Wyman, for $110,000. Former Wild Goose Captain, Bert Minshall says she was the perfect vessel for the 6'4" Duke: big, rugged, and manly. By today's standards, the Wild Goose was a rather utilitarian and prosaic vessel... wood-hulled, with a narrow military profile and a coat of Navy gray paint reflecting its wartime roots. Built in Seattle in 1942, she had been used by the Canadian Navy, then surplused and passed from one owner to the next. The upper deck consisted of the barebones wheelhouse with its stainless helm, basic engine controls on simple pedastals, an ancient depth sounder with one big rotating eye, a military radar, Loran C and a brass compass. There were brass speaking tubes linking the bridge to the engine room, but these were eventually replaced with an electronic intercom. Other than that, the wheelhouse and engine room remained pretty much the way they'd looked during the war. Shortly after John Wayne took possession, the refit began. A master stateroom, which wrapped around the ship's funnel, was added just aft of the wheelhouse; interior bulkheads were removed to give the yacht a more spacious feel, and overheads were raised to accommodate Duke's height. A wood-burning fireplace, poker table, and built-in wet bar were added to the saloon to make the boat a comfortable, family-friendly cruiser. But even so, Wayne was intent on maintaining the boat's naval heritage and left many of her original military elements intact, like the old-fashioned swivel wall fans, the bell, and the brass wheel in the wheelhouse, the rim of which the captain was forbidden from touching, as it smudged easily; instead, Minshall and Wild Goose's other captains were required to steer the vessel holding the wheel's inner spokes More than anything, John Wayne's son Ethan says, his father loved that boat. Just aft of the bridge was the chimney stack, which became young Ethan’s favorite climbing platform. Further aft was Wayne’s stateroom, with raised roof and a big oak desk. The main deck consisted of a crew dining room, the galley and the main salon decorated with 60's style wet bar and couches around a wood-burning fireplace. This opened to a big aft deck enclosed in sliding glass, which usually doubled as a dining room. That deck featured a large aquarium, which rarely held any fish because the contraption leaked every time the boat rocked and rolled. On the lower deck were four guest staterooms, downright spartan by most standards, but nobody seemed to complain. Forward of these was the engine room, with its twin GM diesels, the originals, and the same engines used in WWII submarines. At the bow were crew quarters. The boat generally had a crew of six or seven – skipper, two deckhands, cook and one or two stewards and an engineer named Arnie who was reputed to be fascinated with ancient alchemy. Wayne loved spending time in the wheelhouse, Minshall says. “But he really didn’t know how to run the boat, so he left that to us. But he liked to run the ski boat, which had a big 125-horse motor. He must’ve put a million miles on that boat, most of it at full throttle. But he generally had trouble bringing that boat alongside the Goose.” Underway, the Wild Goose was slow – 11 knots cruising speed – and uncomfortable. Her narrow beam and lack of stabilizers left her susceptible to crossing seas, so she rode “like a whale in its death throes,’ Minshall says.. She had been built hastily just after Pearl Harbor, probably using green wood, which left her prone to rot and warping. Her crew learned not to shift to reverse too quickly. Peter Hanke, Jr., who spent a year crewing on the boat, recalls their efforts to figure out why the engines were prone to overheating. “Turns out, the boat was so limber that she would twist and turn underway, and the shaft was binding.” The boat, of course, was a means to an end. Wayne loved it in part because of where it took him. After a bout with lung cancer in 1964, he spent as much time as possible aboard Wild Goose, cruising between Newport Beach, nearby Santa Catalina Island, and Mexico in the winter and Alaska and Vancouver in the summer. When he was filming, Wayne made arrangements to fly in to meet up with the yacht on weekends. He described this time as the happiest period of his life. Minshall says that onboard, Wayne was a refined man who sipped brandy (although tequila was his favorite drink, and he'd often polish off a bottle of it in a single day), played chess, and enjoyed curling up on the aft deck with a good book. Capt. Bert Minshall and crew member chop ice from an iceberg in Alaska for cocktails aboard Wild Goose John Wayne was also an avid fisherman who would "spend $3,000 in three weeks on fishing guides, fish all day long, fill his freezer up with fish, and then give it away to friends," according to Minshall. He played games and waterskied with his kids, and enjoyed meeting locals at Wild Goose's ports of call. In fact, he handed autographed cards with "good luck" written on them to the crowds of fans he encountered at each port. "It was just such a great, wholesome, family way to grow up," says Wayne's daughter,Marissa, conceding that it was also a time when the press would "leave us alone and let us enjoy that family time in peace."