Elizabeth E Meyer, was born in Baltimore in 1953.[1] She was instrumental in the restoration of the J Class Yachts beginning with Endeavour in the mid 1980s.[2] She is married to Michael McCaffrey.[1]
Her parents were medical doctors, a psychiatrist and an epidemiologist.[1] Her grandfather was Eugene Meyer, investment banker and first president of the World Bank.[1] He also owned The Washington Post publishing company. Her grandmother was Agnes Ernst Meyer, social activist and journalist. Elizabeth's aunt was Katharine Graham, owner of The Washington Post during Watergate.[1] Meyer attended a Quaker Friends Academy[1] and Bennington College in Vermont where she studied English. For a time she worked at sail making, also volunteering at a zoo and running a restaurant before starting a building restoration company in 1977.[2] She published Yaahting, a parody of the magazine Yachting. She also wrote for Nautical Quarterly.[1]
Meyer has been politically active, opposing the Vietnam War and being involved in local politics in Newport, Rhode Island.[1]
In 1984 she purchased the J class yacht Endeavour and began the restoration.[2] She was also instrumental in the restoration of Shamrock V another J, and more than 80 classic yachts.[2] She is president of J-Class Management.[2] She founded the International Yacht Restoration School in 1993 which has taught 400 students in yacht building and restoration.[3] For her efforts in building and yacht restoration she has received the president's award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.[2] In 2011 she received the Don Turner Award from the USS Constitution Museum[4] for her work in maritime preservation. From 1975 to 1993 she owned the Concordia yawl, Matinicus and has authored books on the Ray Hunt designed class.[3] She now sails Seminole, a 1916 Lawley-built 47 ft (14.3m) gaff yawl, bought in 1996 from California unseen for a dollar. She completed its restoration in 2005[3] and has sailed Seminole with her husband over 18,000 miles.
