Used in a Brad Pitt film and abandoned, a classic sailboat is reborn
Sailboat that played central role in ‘Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ is saved from destruction and launched anew in Brooklin
Varua on her mooring. Photo courtesy of Brooklin Boat Yard.
May 26, 2026
By Steele Hays
Abandoned by its owner, a 37-foot sailboat featured in the award-winning 2008 film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” was headed for dismantling and destruction. But thanks to the intervention of a Blue Hill sailing enthusiast and restoration work by a local boatyard, Varua is once again afloat and drawing admiring looks from local sailors.
Varua under sail in Brooklin. Courtesy of Brooklin Boat Yard.
“It was a give-away, they were going to cut it up,” said Brooklin Boat Yard president Brian Larkin in an interview at the yard.
Larkin first heard about the boat in 2025 from a broker who was looking for someone willing to save the sloop. It was sitting in a boat yard in Chatham, Massachusetts, abandoned by its owner seven years earlier. It had become such an abandoned fixture there that the boatyard had built several buildings around the boat, meaning it could only be removed by being lifted over them by a crane.
Coincidentally, a few days after the broker’s call, one of the boat yard’s clients spoke to Larkin, saying he wished he could find a boat that was simpler and easier to sail single-handed than his current one. Larkin described Varua and, a few days later, the client and the yard’s chief designer Will Sturdy were driving to Massachusetts to take a look at the boat. The client, who has asked to remain anonymous, loved the boat and agreed to take ownership.
“It needed a little more work than we thought initially, but they all do,” Larkin said. “But it was just the perfect size for what he wanted.”
After sitting in the yard for seven years, Varua’s hull had dried out, opening gaps in the planking. The boatyard proposed routing the seams, filling the gaps with wooden strips and fiberglassing both the hull and the deck. Using fiberglass “makes all the purists cringe, but it’s a practical way to deal with the maintenance” and will make maintaining the boat much less labor intensive, he said.
“We’re not museum purists here,” Sturdy added. “It’s an awesome way to save a boat and keep it from the dumpster.”
The fiberglass work did not affect Varua’s teak brightwork, which has been restored and varnished “like a beautiful piece of antique furniture,” Larkin said.
The signatures of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchette have been left intact in Varua’s cabin. Photo by John Boit.
Asked what was most rewarding about the project, Larkin said it was “seeing the joy” in the owner when he had his first chance to sail the newly restored boat.
Varua was designed by a former Royal Canadian Navy officer, Jack Braidwood, and built in 1951 in Oakville, Ontario. Braidwood wrote a book about it, “Never Lose Steerage Way.” He chose the name Varua, the Tahitian word for “spirit” or “soul,” inspired by his travels in the South Pacific. A subsequent owner brought Varua to Maine. The boat eventually wound up in Massachusetts, before being saved by the new owner.
See Varua in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” in this video from Movieclips.
Varua appeared in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” when the characters played by the film’s stars, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchette, sailed it from New Orleans to the Florida Keys. During production, both actors signed their names in the sloop’s cabin – a memento that’s been left untouched in the restoration. In the film, the boat was called Button Up.
The film, a romantic fantasy, was based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald and tells the story of a man who ages backwards – born as an old man and growing younger over time. It received more Academy Award nominations than any other film in 2009, including for best picture, best actor, best director and best supporting actress. It missed winning in those top categories, but won for best makeup, best art direction and best visual effects.
