[alloyed2sea]

Thatz right - invasion yacht, "Granma" , si?
Well, that what the history books (channel) sayz.
60 or 65 feet in length, I'll leave it to the yachtsperts to identify the maker.
My guess would be Huckins - Fairform Flyer, no?
Well, here's the photo, some of the history and a couple relevant links:

"A leisure yacht named Granma was secured for the trip to Cuba. Although seaworthy, the ship was not in the best shape. Badly worn gears prevented the ship from achieving significant speed, and the radio could only receive, making it impossible to communicate with allies in Cuba. The craft was overcrowded with weapons, ammunition, and 82 soldiers. To make matters worse, the ship's tanks held 1,200 gallons of fuel, not nearly enough to reach Cuba, so an additional 2,000 gallons, in cans, were stored on deck."The departure was hasty," writes Matthews in The Cuban Story, "for the Mexican authorities were after him. There was little food; the boat--which could comfortably accommodate no more than a dozen men-was dreadfully overcrowded; the Granma's engines were bad. Everything seemed to go wrong. It had been arranged that his 26th of July followers in Santiago de Cuba would rise on November 30, the day Fidel and his band were supposed to land. There was a brave, but of course, futile uprising on November 30, with Fidel far out to sea."

On the last day of the journey, ex-navy lieutenant Roque fell overboard. "The Granma's search lights were turned on for the first time," recalls Faustino Pérez in Diary of the Cuban Revolution, "when it was more dangerous than ever. Nothing helped. Our comrade was being swallowed by the deep. Never willing to give up, Fidel ordered one more search. We heard the cry "Here!" again, weaker but inexplicably closer now. Pichirilo Mejías, our brave, efficient Dominican helmsman, saw him first and miraculously rescued him. His strength, his ability, his level headedness, as well as Fidel's faith and the efforts of his comrades had saved his life."

The landing of the Granma, in December 1956, was planned to re-enact the route that José Martí had followed to begin Cuba's War of Independence in 1895. The target landing spot was a town called Niguero, in Oriente province. Still waiting for them on December 2 was Celia Sánches, one of the founders of the July-26-Movement, with an assortment of trucks, jeeps, food, weapons and about 50 men.

Leaking and running days behind schedule, the Granma was spotted by a helicopter, and the rebels were forced to beach the ship at a spot called Playa de los Colorados, near the village of "Las Coloradas," about fifteen miles south of the designated spot. The new landing area was more of a swamp than a beach, and the rebels were unable to unload most of their weapons due to the muddy waters, the thick undergrowth plant life and small crabs.

"Just consider where the landing took place," says Celia Sánchez in The Twelve, a book by Carlos Franqui about the early days of the struggle against Batista. "If they had debarked right on the beach instead of at the swamp, they would have found trucks, jeeps, gasoline. It would have been a walkaway."

http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/granma.htm
http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/ratb/cuba/cuba_rev.htm
http://home.earthlink.net/~servando/cm0104.htm
Cheers!
Happy Nude Rear.
Yikes!!
Eric
PS - Batista did try hard to sink it:
http://espanol.geocities.com/aviacuba/Mil2-3-e.html
PSS- Now a museum piece:
http://muller.lbl.gov/cuba/Cuba-Pages/Image167.html
http://www.tiogaadventures.com/L23-Granmere.jpg