History of the Northeast Harbor Fleet Joseph great 8-15-06 Research and reminiscence, dedicated to the memory of Francis C. Grant, M.D. and Elizabeth Madeira, HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET by Joseph L. Grant and their kind hearts, Copyright © 2006 by Joseph L. Grant. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America and Published by Sawyer Cove Press, HC 33, Box 218, Seal Cove, ME 04674 Seth Milliken, M.D., ISBN o-9777870-0-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2006921086 the Fleet's persistent benefactor Printing by Downeast Graphics, Ellsworth, Maine Design by Desktop Studio, Hanover, New Hampshire Front Cover: Original 1923 design of the masthead burgee of the Northeast Harbor Fleet O Acknowledgements Many kind people have contributed to this book, ei- ther knowingly or unknowingly. Personal conversations, tapes from tape recordings, letters and postcards have all helped me. Since about 1975 I have had it in mind to write this history, and after retiring from active medical practice have found time to do it. The present commodore, Harry E. Madeira, Jr., has seen a draft of the book and doesn't seem to object to it, but bears no responsibility for any errors of fact or fancy which it may contain. It was Mike Crofoot who stimulated me to begin. He contributed wonderful stories about Effie Fraley and Mr. Haskell, Reginald Robbins, Bill Black and Jimmy Ducey. I have paraphrased or quoted directly from type- written pages he gave me many years ago. He is really the vii Contents posthumous co-author of this book, and supplied most of Preamble I the humor interest. The pictures are almost all from Fleet Yearbooks. Most 1890-1913 9 were originally by Ballard or Guionneaud, two photogra- One-designs 16 phers who flourished in the 1930s to 1960s, but we have no The First August Cruise 23 way of telling from the yearbooks who took which picture. Formation of the Fleet 28 Later shots by Story Litchfield and Ed Elvidge are also Another New Class and a Chowder Race 32 from the Yearbooks, and the one of the two Internationals Main Street, Fleet Customs, the Eddison Era; meeting at a windward mark is by Elvidge. The Soling pic- ture is by Edwin Hills, and the picture of me on the back Halcyon Days 40 cover is by Peter Briggs. The picture of Phil Caughey was Thirty-squares and Bull's-eyes 57 taken by Sturgis Haskins, who graciously emailed it. The Coming of the Internationals 63 map of Mount Desert in the Preamble and on the back Bridge Years 71 cover is by Jane Crosen. The picture of the Brutal Beast World War II and a New Location 76 is from The History of the Eastern Yacht Club by Joseph E. Garland, Jr. Three postcards of Gilpatrick's Cove and the Post-war Years, Another New Class; Rock End Hotel are included. I want especially to thank Sailing Frenzy 83 Nancy Des Coteaux of Desktop Studio for making this Toward the Choice of Fiberglass Mercuries 96 book possible. She designed it, selected the type styles and MORC's, Solings, and J-24's 109 arranged its pages. Internationals á la Ducey, Wibby, and Rockefeller 124 "Il Duce" 132 -JLG Phil I38 Commodores, Consanguinity, and Committees 144 Lessons from the Past 158 Former Officers of the Fleet 167 viii ix Preamble Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston in the eighteen-eighties and -nineties all had some things in common. They were wealthy, crowded by the industrial revolution which had made them rich, and hot in the summer. Residential districts shared summer heat with the rest of the city, because back then they were in the city. It was natural for a populace descended from seafar- ing ancestors to seek relief at the seashore. The beaches of Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Long Island, Rhode Island and Massachusetts were accessible and soon stud- ded with resort villages. Our coasts of course already had a permanent population of shipowners, fishermen, whal- ers and seacoast farmers, as well as shipbuilders. Yachting was popular in Europe, especially in England, and our an- glophone forebears had a traditional naval and mercantile I O HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Preamble rivalry with England which had been transferred easily to SIBAR HARBOR Town Hall pleasure-craft racing, most notably in the America's Cup Childrencupine UMI DESERVE Marbor series. Yacht racing was a natural shore-resort pastime, ISLAND CM North and when the resorts spread along the coast of Maine, March yachting followed. Babble 124 Pretty The coast of Maine is all attractive. West of Portland Contant Old it is sandy and the beaches stretch smoothly for miles. Highes r.J Citile East of Cape Elizabeth the shore is rocky and broken up into large and small bays filled with islands. The western Island Moose Northeast Island Harbor TRASTERN,WAY coast has only one large hill, Mount Agamenticus, but the Southwest Harbur Dodge Pt Giltri, - 'Unite Combiny Islesfant eastern coast has two major elevated sections, the Cam- Mauses Goose Tremont Seawall, den Hills on the western shore of Penobscot Bay, and (Riber Haw 2019 1 Island Createry Trumpel Audier Barbor Island Benian Mark Mount Desert Island thirty miles east. The combination Wandell O Ship Island o Crown of granite-topped mountains (even if they are only high Fig. 1. Mount Desert Island and the Cranberry Islands. Southwest hills, really) and seashore in close propinquity is extremely Harbor, Somes Sound (the large indentation of the sea which divides charming. Both the Camden hills and the Bar Harbor area most of the island into eastern and western halves), Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor all face the waters used by the Northeast Harbor around Mount Desert have attracted visitors for centuries Fleet. Map by Jane Crosen. -long before the white man came, the native Americans came each year. The island of Mount Desert turned out of the hills to deserts. He apparently first saw them from to be the loveliest place in the world to go sailing in the far offshore, and from there the mainland can't be seen be- summer (Fig. 3, p. 8). cause it is below the horizon and the mountainous island Mount Desert Island nestles into Blue Hill Bay and does appear to be off by itself. That ocean approach, or a Frenchmans Bay and is separated from the mainland only closer coastal one, brought the early summer visitors. The by a 100-yard-wide strait, which drains nearly dry at low Eastern Steamship Company ran large steamboats, like the tide. It was named in the sixteenth century by explorer Belfast, from Boston to Rockland, and a local boat, such as Samuel de Champlain, who likened the bare-granite tops the J.T. Morse, from there to many points east, including 2 3 O HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Preamble the harbors on Mount Desert, in the late nineteenth and Desert. These are the same waters the Northeast Harbor early twentieth centuries. Summer people would make res- Fleet has dotted with sails on race days in the last eight ervations for the whole family on the Boston boat year after decades (Fig. 2). Back in his time, there was no bridge to year. They got to know the crew on the steamer, who kept the island, roads were poor and horses were slow, SO the up on developments on the Island and filled them with its boat, either the row-boat or preferably the sailboat, was latest gossip. The whole Maine coast was a maritime com- the natural way to get around at Mount Desert, as it was munity of which the Island was a not unimportant part. for the whole eastern Maine archipelago. From the top of Maine seamen were famous for their skill, and were chosen the mountain one can see not only the Cranberry Islands for racing crews for major yacht races, such as the Ameri- and their waters where the Fleet races, but also much of ca's Cup. Those from Mount Desert, such as the Stanleys, ar Bunkers and Whittemores, were hired to teach the fami- lies of the summer people to sail. Some became important 13 in Fleet history, as we shall see later. When the steamboat thinker 20 Neck 24 40 gave way to the railroad, automobile and airplane, the sum- 26 23 Philling Care mer visitor saved time but the trip lost a lot of atmosphere. A little of the trip's salty flavor remained in the ferry-ride from the railroad station at Lamoine (Mount Desert Ferry) across Frenchmans Bay to Bar Harbor in the years before the bridge connecting the island to the mainland was built. as In 1837, a naval captain stood on Brown's Mountain (now Norumbega) and is said to have counted "six hun- dred sail" in what is now called by some the Great Harbor of Mount Desert. He could see the Western Way into the Fig. 2. The Cranberry Islands and surrounding waters. Mount Desert Island embraces them. The shore of Manset is seen at the left. South- harbor, between Great Cranberry Island and the Manset west Harbor is just to the northwest. Somes Sound, Gilpatricks Cove, shore, and the Eastern Way, either between Great Cran- and Northeast Harbor lie to the north, and Seal Harbor to the north- east. Each is an indentation of Mount Desert Island. Red lines show berry and Suttons Island or between Suttons and Mount the racing courses of the early Fleet. (From the Fleet Racing Manual) 4 5 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Preamble Blue Hill and Jericho Bays, as far as Isle au Haut. What By and large, one must acquit oneself decently on the captain saw that day in 1837 was the then equivalent shore or one will not be invited to go sailing. One need of a traffic jam on an interstate highway. In those days, not be extra brilliant, since the owners of sailboats do like the water was the only highway. The so-called Friend- company and may need help to sail, but one does need ship sloop, a gaff-rigged (quadrilateral sail) clipper-bowed common sense. Well, you could reply, the children acted vessel about thirty feet long, was a popular craft used for up, so the family sent them out to get rid of them. Maybe, fishing as well as for carrying cargo and people. There were but probably not if they are racing. For a race you need also schooners, pinkies (they have a sort of stage at the people with common sense, some experience, and good stern), ketches, and yawls carrying local traffic. He may also manners on board your boat. You don't invite just anyone. have seen large schooners coming and going from Boston, There really is a group of doers and thinkers out there, at New York or Charleston, or even larger ships from Liver- least on race days. They are out to make the boat go as fast pool or Canton. as she will go through the water by adjusting her sails and The island attracted summer visitors soon after the rigging. They must wind-hunt: try to go where the wind is Civil War. Bar Harbor in the eighteen seventies built a best and where there is the most favorable slant to it. And, whole summer community that competed with Newport where there are tidal currents, they have to remember the for city people looking for relief from the heat of July and whole ocean is moving the boats over the bottom, but the August. Hotels and cottages were built quickly, and spilled buoys they are racing around are anchored, SO the ocean is over from Bar Harbor to Seal, Northeast, and Southwest moving past them. Each boat tries to pass the other boats Harbors. The city people may have had maritime ances- in her class, who are moving with the current, and to cross tors and been inclined to the water; they soon saw the the finish line, which isn't. There is a lot to think about in attraction of sailing and started acquiring their own boats. a sailing race, which may explain the appeal of the sport. People who have been fortunate enough to sail in summer Recently, satellite-related electronic devices have been in- off the south coast of Mount Desert have carried through troduced which give the boat's speed and direction over the winter the image of the ocean and the rounded granite the bottom, thereby solving some ancient vector problems hills in the secret places in their souls. Its beauty helps of wind and tide, but you still need to understand both them through the longest, coldest winters. the problems and the devices. 6 7 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET ONE 1890-1913 Fig. 3. The Fleet starting to gather before the start of an August I am a child of the twentieth century, born in 1921. As Cruise. The photo shows the so-called Great Harbor of Mount Desert with the bald hills of the island as a backdrop for the sailing. "The a boy I knew some of the people who were themselves loveliest place in the world to go sailing." children in the eighteen-eighties, before there was com- petitive sailing at Northeast. Samuel Eliot Morison said The Northeast Harbor Fleet has many power boats that in the eighteen-eighties two British warships, HMS and auxiliary cruising boats in addition to its racing one-de- Camperdown and HMS Victoria, collided in mid-ocean sign sloops. For decades, though, the interest in one-design somehow. Many sailors drowned. Brittania was supposed racing has been very strong. Many vacationing people are to rule the waves, and her navy wasn't supposed to make out there sailing on race days when they could be golfing, mistakes, so the American press was full of the story. playing tennis, or climbing the hills of Mount Desert (an Morison said that he and his friend Sam Vaughan, then activity pursued by thousands). Many powerboats are out small boys, whittled models of the ships so they could re- there with spectators. This has been going on for a hundred enact the tragedy in the waters of Gilpatricks cove, west of years, so it is worth the telling. This book will outline the Northeast Harbor. (This was apparently the beginning of history of competitive sailing at Northeast in the late nine- an interest in naval matters for the future historian, writer teenth, twentieth, and very early twenty-first centuries. on Columbus, and Harvard history professor who was 8 9 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET 1890 - 1913 made an Admiral in World War II so he could have access to data which would let him write the official naval his- tory of that war). Later he and Sam Vaughan were taught to sail and provided with 12-foot North Haven dinghies. They raced against each other and against Amy Thorpe of Greenings island. It is apt that we have knowledge of com- petition between children sailing in the eighteen nineties. Learning at an early age is very helpful, and lovers of the sport owe their youngsters a sailing education if the sport is to endure. The Fleet has striven to fulfill that obligation for a hundred years. Gilpatricks cove was the summer home of the Wil- liam West Frazier family from Philadelphia, who seem Fig. 4. An early postcard of the mouth of Gilpatricks Cove, looking west. The Frazier house was behind the viewer, and Gilpatricks Ledge to have organized the first grown-up competitive sailing and its beacon around to his left. Two Friendship sloops are seen, and at Northeast in the eighteen-nineties. Their large dark- two men are on the end of the Rock End float at the far right. green cottage "The Barnacles" had a mansard roof and stood on the point east of the cove overlooking Gilpat- Island. You could not be east of that line before the start- ricks Ledge. The Fraziers acquired two sister-ship 21-foot ing gun was fired, or you would have to recross the line and sloops, the Nordica and the Gaviota, the latter sailed by start again. Various government marks in the Eastern and Alfred Stengel. Francis Peabody, whose cottage was on Western Ways were the agreed-upon marks of the course. the East side of Northeast Harbor, sailed a similar sloop, The finish was at the start, and there was a "jollification" the Opechee, Frank Damrosch of Seal Harbor sailed the at the Fraziers' afterward. Only a few races were sailed Polly, and Harold S. Colton sailed Spider. Races started each year. Notification of the races was by word of mouth. on a line between the spindle on the ledge and a dinghy Everyone knew each other. It was a horse-and-buggy anchored on a line between the spindle and the flagpole world; there wouldn't be an automobile on the island for which then stood on the southeast point of Greenings a decade. IO II HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET 1890 - 1913 These early boats were 21-foot gaff-rigged sloops, her competitors naturally get less enthusiastic about try- known as knockabouts. (If your boat wasn't for fishing or ing to beat her. Their only recourse is to build a new boat carrying cargo, perhaps it was for knocking about in). The within the class rules, and hope it will be faster, or ap- boats had spoon bows and were generally less than thirty ply a time allowance (based either on past performance or feet in waterline length. They were the family day-sailing on analysis of her dimensions). The first of these ways is boats for summer people, who were perfectly willing to expensive, and the second was commonly attempted but race in them. The 21-foot class grew: James Roosevelt had problematical, often seeming more an art than a science. Dabster, a Mr. Eton had Medea and Dr. Charles Frazier The sailors at Northeast tried both. The 25-footers came had Red Wing and Tabasco II all before 1899. In that year to be raced on time allowance. William S. Grant had B.B. Crowninshield design Pirate, Winds can be fluky, and boats who fall behind in a hoping to beat the others. She turned out to be the fastest race may see the leaders slowed by calms. They then do of the 21-footers. In addition to the 21-footers, the early all they can to avoid the calm spots even if it means sail- fleet acquired a larger class, the 25-footers. Sagamore, Lou- ing far and wide to reach the next mark. Playing the tide is C. Madeira, was actually 25 feet on the water (and 38 better than your opponents can also make a real differ- feet overall) but Chief, Dr. George G. Hayward, was only ence. These things can convince the owner of a slower 22 on the water, though 38 overall, as was Walton Green's boat, who occasionally wins in one of these ways, that his Setsu. Others in this larger class were Mariposa, Samu- boat isn't so bad and he should keep racing her. So the two el Eliot Morison; Satana, Robert W. Williams; Roxana, classes of boats, though not one- design, gradually grew at Mr. Harding; and Sagitta, Dr. Hayward. Boats had a lot Northeast between the start of competitive sailing in the of overhang and their length on deck was about IO feet eighteen-nineties and the year 1913, when the first one-de- longer than the waterline length by which they were clas- sign race was held. Growth was slow: one or two boats per sified. Neither class was one-design; the boats were not year. Newly built boats were usually faster. The classes had identical and their speed through the water was therefore development rules within which they had to be designed different one from another. Therein lay the inherent dif- and built. Pirate, for instance, designed by B.B. Crownin- ficulty with fair racing in them in the long run. If a boat is shield for William S. Grant, was legally within the 21-foot naturally faster than the competition and wins too often, class, but no longer really a knockabout; she was referred 12 13 O HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET 1890 - 1913 to as a raceabout, no fun to race against in a regular 2I- Harbor, some in Seal Harbor, a few in Northeast. They foot knockabout. She found a boat in the 25-foot class, were smaller and generally not as fast as the other knock- Chief, owned by George G. Hayward, that was just her abouts, but they had the major appeal of being all alike, or speed, and they enjoyed good competition for several sea- as identical as then building technique would allow. On sons. The number of boats in the fleet grew gradually to Labor Day of the year 1913 the Seal Harbor Yacht Club sixteen by the year 1913. There was at least some racing put on a race exclusively for these boats. It was the first every season. one-design race in the area, and therefore probably the For example, in 1910, there was a three-race series. most important race in Fleet history, although the Fleet Four races were actually sailed, but the race on August 26 as such was not even organized officially for another ten wasn't counted since, in a hard southwester, half the boats years. The winner was Charles Dennison Dickey, rac- sailed one way around the course and half the other. Races ing in Bird, He was seventeen years old, and represented were completed on August 29, August 3I, and September a new gèneration of racing enthusiasts who wanted the 2. In the 25-foot class the winner was Satana, followed by skill of the skipper and crew to be what counted in a Sagitta, Sagamore, Roxana, Pirate, (promoted one class) yacht race, not the difference in the inherent speed of and Mariposa. In the 21-footers it was Gaviota, followed the boats. by Polly and Nordica. The next year there were six races with a grand total of fifty-one entrants. There was growth, but it was slow. Elsewhere along the Atlantic coast the problem of achieving fair sailboat racing was being studied and solved. At Manchester, Massachusetts, a number of Man- chester Yacht Club members had Lawley Brothers build for them identical 17-foot knockabout sloops designed by Crowninshield. They were known in Massachusetts as the Manchester Seventeens. A few of these boats were acquired by Mount Desert families, some in Bar 14 15 TWO One-designs One-designs CLASS B Fig. 5. Manchester Seventeen-foot One-designs, designed by B.B. Crowninshield of Marblehead, and known in Northeast Harbor as B boats. In the fall of 1913, several Northeast Harbor sailors interested in one-design racing went to Manchester looking for Manchester Seventeens. The class had raced there successfully and a few boats were for sale second- hand, perfectly appropriate for the formation of a class at Northeast. Boats were acquired for Northeast Harbor, but only a few. Other Maine coast resorts-Dark Harbor, North Haven and Bucks Harbor-were also hoping to start one-design fleets, and they competed with North- east for the available boats. However, several Manchester Seventeens were added to the Northeast collection of knockabouts in the years 1914-1917. They were our pio- neer one-design class, and were known as B boats after their designer, B.B. Crowninshield. They were gaff-rigged sloops, seventeen and one-half feet on the waterline, 16 17 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET One-designs twenty-six overall. They raced at Northeast during the summers of 1914, 1915 and 1916, and demonstrated the simplicity and fairness of one-design racing to a com- munity whose attention was gradually being directed to the war in Europe, which was threatening to involve the U.S. The B boats were matched during those years by a slightly newer and very similar class of knockabout. See- CLASS ing the popularity of the Manchester Seventeens, Edwin Fig. 6. The Eastern Yacht Club 17 or A boat, designed by Edwin A. A Boardman of neighboring Marblehead had set out to Boardman to beat the B boat. Note the similarity in design and ap- pearance to the B. design a boat to beat them. The result was a 17-footer with more sail area, a cast-iron keel instead of a lead one, and slightly different lines, called the Eastern Yacht Club Sev- enteen because they raced from that club. They were 2 feet longer overall than the B boats, and carried 450 square feet of sail versus 310 square feet for the B's. Such was the rapid turnover of boats at Marblehead, the racing center of the North Shore of Massachusetts Bay, that six of them were available for purchase, and were bought to race at Northeast. Their new owners sailed them to Northeast from Marblehead, and called them A boats. They looked very much like B boats. The B boat skip- pers were very reluctant to admit that they were faster. For a few pre-war summers they raced at Northeast as one class with the B boats. Every B boat skipper want- ed to believe on any given race day that on that day he 18 19 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET One-designs or she would beat all the A boats. Good B boat sailors The increased number of boats was accompanied at first could beat less experienced A-boats, but as time by an increased number of sailors, and it was clear that went on the difference in speed became apparent. The A's they were going to need organization if the racing was were faster. to be successful. A race committee was formed for this, Given the natural liking for speed that seems to drive with various members in the years before 1923: George mankind, it isn't surprising that Northeast sailors ac- Davenport Hayward, Edward W. Madeira, Charles D. quired, by the early nineteen-twenties, twice as many A Dickey, Francis C. Grant. There was no formal Northeast boats as B's. (There is really no reason that racing should Harbor Fleet, but the racers needed a committee boat for be any better in faster boats, as long as boats in each class each race. Someone had to decide what courses were to be are identical. The definition of a perfect race, I suppose, sailed, record the results, call off the races on foggy days, is where all the boats finish at the same time. In sailboat and take responsibility for fleet actions. They also had to races, that is rare. As long as a boat doesn't cross the start- deal with yachts protesting each other for infringing the ing line before the starting gun, she can start at any time rules during races. However, the young sailors in the years thereafter, and she must finish within the time allotted by just after World War I ran things on an informal basis. the race committee, usually two or three hours. With, say, Although they had spinnakers, they didn't use them, and fifteen boats in eight races in a Series, it will be very rare the committee in 1919 put out an announcement that the for a dead heat between two boats in any race. Rare, maybe races were "for knockabouts of the 17- or 171/2-foot classes not unheard of. This will apply to A boats, B boats or any racing together with plain sails. No spinnakers allowed, other one-design class. You can have just as good a race in a and it is hoped that good sportsmanship will prevail over slightly slower class.) After the first six, another twenty-five any undue desire to win!" That meant A's and B's togeth- A's were brought from Marblehead. Twelve B's belonged to er, and was early in their collective experience (i.e., the B the fleet by the same year (1926). This total of forty-three boats still hoped they were as fast as the A's, and many knockabouts was an enormous increase over the eleven sailors didn't yet understand spinnakers). or so boats that had raced against each other before the The older generation of racers had now become the one-designs arrived on the scene. One-design racing had parents of the active participants, and it was natural for brought an impressive growth spurt for the Fleet. the young to ask them for help with the races. Their boats 20 2I HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET THREE were used as committee boats. Sagamore, retired from the 25-foot class, and Kwasind, W.S. Grant's trolley-car- shaped gasoline launch were among those who drew that duty, as did Kraken, Dr. E.M. Jefferys' gaff-rigged ketch. Young committee members met and conducted commit- The First August Cruise tee business at each others' cottages; there was no fleet headquarters. Typewritten documents began to appear listing the order of finish in races and the standings in the series. (It was always the August series then. July may have had some practice races but no formal series.) The daily mail was used to distribute the committee reports, as was the telephone, recently introduced, which had One of the most enthusiastic sailing families at Northeast a Northeast operator personally familiar with her cus- was the Gerrish Milliken family. They raced A-17, Kipper. tomers, their families, and their habits, which facilitated Mr. Milliken had a brother, Dr. Seth Milliken, who had communication. You could leave your message with her, a summer cottage at East Blue Hill and belonged to the if the party line was in use. "Number please." "Three-oh." yacht club there. When Seth asked Gerrish how sailing "Nobody's home. The Grants have gone on a picnic to the was coming along at Northeast, he said "Very well, except Cranberry Club in the Kwasind, and the maids are at the we have no separate class of boats for children." " Well, Rock End to go out with Captain Stanley." "This is Fred you should see our Brutal Beast class. These boats are Fraley. Please tell Chubby I can race with him and Marian small and just right for the youngsters." Whenever exact- tomorrow on the Moslem. I have to go up to Somesville." ly this conversation may have occurred, the result was a "OK""Good-bye""Good-bye" racing cruise by the knockabouts to the Kollegewidgwok Yacht Club of East Blue Hill in the year 1922, a season be- fore the actual formation of the Northeast Harbor Fleet. This cruise, like most of its successor August cruises, took three days. The boats raced from the start through the 22 23 0 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET The First August Cruise Western Way, across Bass Harbor Bar into Blue Hill Bay, and finished at Seal Cove, where they spent the night at a camp belonging to Louis Madeira and family. The crews on that first cruise were all male. The next day they raced to Morgan Bay and were given lunch at the Kollegewidg- wok Yacht Club by Dr. Milliken. There, an overland party of girls and women joined them, and Dr. Milliken went ahead with his plan to stage a demonstration of the sail- ing qualities of the Brutal Beast. These were catboats with what is called a gunter or leg-of-mutton rig, where the gaff is held by a single halyard directly against the mast, so that the sail is triangular instead of quadrilateral as in the usual gaff rig. The Beast was 12 feet long and 6 feet wide, with about 2 inches draft with the centerboard up, Fig. 7. Brutal Beast sailing at Marblehead. Note the tall leg-o-mutton and 2 feet with it down. She was tender (tipped easily). It rig which makes her tender (tips easily). This is the boat that never got chosen for Northeast Harbor racing, but was responsible for the happened that the wind was strong that day at Morgan first August Cruise. Picture from The Eastern Yacht Club by Joseph E. Bay. The demonstration boat was steered by Dr. Milliken's Garland, Jr. Permission from author. extremely capable daughter Alida. It is not recorded who was with her, but they tacked during a puff, the crew did Harbor itself. We got very good at threading her through not get across to the windward side fast enough, and, alas, the crowded anchorage, and were invited on board many the boat capsized. interesting cruising boats). Next day, the fleet raced back The sailors from Northeast drew their own conclu- to Northeast Harbor, having thoroughly enjoyed the sions about the Brutal Beast. (One family, the Francis excursion into Blue Hill Bay. The cruises thus begun Grants, did acquire one, called the Ripple. I can't remem- were popular for decades, enjoyed by all classes from the ber her ever capsizing. We children weren't supposed to O boats to the largest cruising auxiliaries. August Cruises sail her without an adult, at least not outside of Northeast went westward into Blue Hill Bay, to Burnt Coat Har- 24 25 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET The First August Cruise bor on Swans Island, or into Eggemoggin Reach toward Penobscot Bay. July Cruises were later popular and usu- ally went east to Frenchmans Bay, to Sorrento or Winter Harbor. One good feature of cruises to Frenchmans Bay is that one does not have to contend with the strong tide across the Bass Harbor Bar or in the Western Way. The boat chosen instead of Brutal Beasts for North- east Harbor children was designed by the most successful New England yacht designer, John Alden of Boston, and known as the O boat. Eighteen feet overall and fifteen on the water, she was touted as "specially suited for the condi- tions at Northeast Harbor" by "Rudder" magazine. Fifteen Fig. 8. The O-boat, selected as the first Fleet class for junior sailors. of these boats were built at the Camden-Anchor Rockland Machine Company in Camden. Seven of them raced in the raced faithfully for three years. They were faster than the first race of the season on July 17, 1923, fourteen competed O boats, but were never as popular, and stopped orga- during the season, and four went on the August Cruise. nized racing in 1927. The O boat owners had spirit, a spirit that was to keep A growing group of sailors well enough organized to small boats in the forefront of Fleet affairs and concerns. put on a successful racing cruise as well as a month-long Four other boats in another new class raced as Class series of afternoon races had to consider how to organize C. Like the O's, they were fifteen feet in waterline length, itself so it could continue its activities in an orderly and but leg-o-mutton rigged, with spinnakers with poles 9 I/2 democratic fashion as it grew. We don't know how many feet long. The outstanding boat in this class was Crane, conversations on this subject took place, but we do know sailed by Arthur P. Butler, Jr. and E. Farnham Butler, who that it took until the end of the season after the first cruise on the 1923 August Cruise beat all the A and B boats on before formal action was taken to form the Fleet (so it was the race from Seal Cove to Blue Hill. This was as much actually formed a week or two after the second August a tribute to the boys as to the boat. Three of these boats Cruise, at the end of the 1923 season). 26 27 Formation of the Fleet FOUR Corinthian at Marblehead, or the New York Yacht Club. Some cottage owners at Northeast belonged to some of these clubs. The sailing at Northeast was active and grow- ing in spite of the obvious absence of these yacht club Formation of the Fleet facilities, and the sailors wanted to keep it that way, keep the emphasis on sailing, and allow the community to take care of the social aspects of life. The name selected by the committee was "The Northeast Harbor Fleet". It made no pretense to having any facilities pertaining to a Yacht Club, but did imply an organization of sailors and it put the emphasis on the boats. If facilities were acquired by it When they contemplated the existing situation in in futüre, they could actually belong to a Fleet as easily as the summer of 1923, the small nucleus of sailors charging to a Yacht Club, but for now the name was more accurate themselves with bringing an already-existing entity into and less pretentious. more formal organization realized that the name they Another thing they were going to need for the new chose to call it would be quite important to the way peo- Fleet was an identifying flag, known as a burgee, for the ple thought about it and reacted to it. On Mount Desert members to fly from their mastheads. A small commit- Island there were already two yacht clubs, at Bar Harbor tee consisting of Edward W. ("Ted") Madeira, his sister and at Seal Harbor. In some ways it would have been Elizabeth ("Hibou"), Robert E.L. Johnson and George quite natural to call the new Northeast Harbor outfit the Davenport ("Davvy") Hayward drew a design on a piece Northeast Harbor Yacht Club. However, yacht clubs else- of white drawing paper. It was a triangle of red, with con- where were much more elaborate than the organization centric circles in the center filled in with blue, with the at Northeast looked as if it would ever be. They had large inside left white. A blue arrow through the very middle buildings with dining rooms, dance floors, large floats on pointed to Northeast, if the circles represented, as they the water and many moorings in a protected harbor-for were supposed to, a compass dial. They thought it would example, the Seawanakha at Oyster Bay, the Eastern and be easy to transfer their design to cloth, and SO it was. 28 29 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Formation of the Fleet Hayward on South Shore Road. The cottage no longer exists, but it stood on a lot just north of "Seaward", the former Percy Clark cottage. The sailors listened to the re- sults of the August series and August cruise contests, and then to a proposition for the formation of an organization to be known as the Northeast Harbor Fleet. The plan had been drawn up by Ted Madeira and Davvy Hayward, and it appears to have been presented to an enthusiastic audi- ence. The Fleet would have a constitution, by-laws, and duly elected officers. Dues would be $10. Those present voted"aye". to a motion to adopt it, and then elected Dav- THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET vy Hayward as the first Commodore, Ted Madeira, Vice 1923 Commodore, Lawrence W. Dickey, Secretary, and Gerrish Fig. 9. The original drawing of the Northeast Harbor Fleet masthead burgee. H. Milliken, Treasurer. Edmund S. Burke of Southwest Harbor, Charles D. Dickey, and Malcolm E. Peabody, with Originally they intended the central white circle to be the officers, were elected to the Executive Committee. The left open, but flag-makers advised against it and filled the meeting adjourned with a sense of having done something circle with cloth dyed white, which was probably wise. A that, perhaps, they should have done earlier. Sailing had burgee with a large hole in the center would have worn been moving ahead, the fleet had been growing, and at last itself out in the wind much more quickly. The burgee is they were taking steps that would keep it orderly. The new handsome and unique, and recognized along the New leaders would have to move quickly to keep ahead of the England shore. Your author has been hailed when cruis- crowd. ing in harbors west of Cape Cod: "Nice to have you down here" with the masthead burgee as his only identification. On August 31,1923, the Northeast Harbor sailors gath- ered at "The Alders", the cottage of Dr. George Griswold 30 31 Another New Class and a Chowder Race FIVE off for the summer and do the job. The first decade saw a series of students in the job. They seem to have gotten along well with the Flag Officers who were themselves in their twenties and thirties. A later name for the job was Another New Class more accurate: Executive Secretary. and a Chowder Race Classes A, B and C were well established, and still another class of boat, the Mount Desert Island or MDI class, was introduced in 1924, through the cooperation of the Seal Harbor Yacht Club, which had been incorporated the previous year. These were heavy Ralph Winslow- designed sloops with marconi rigs, open boats like the O The new officials of the Fleet were active even in the off-season. They met with the Commodore of the Tar- ratine Yacht Club of Dark Harbor, Maine, in New York that winter and arranged a series of races between the two clubs. They made plans to employ a Fleet Secretary to reg- ister the members and yachts, the results of the races, and to keep records of, and actually to conduct, Fleet business. Lawrence W. Dickey was the first to hold this position, for the summer of 1924. The Secretary is elected by the Flag Officers, and is paid from Fleet funds. His job is cru- cial to the success of the Fleet in any given year, since he actually manages its affairs for the Commodore. The sec- retaries have tended to be either young enough still to be undergraduate or graduate students at college, working in Fig. 10. MDIs sailing in the Western Way. They were stoutly built of summer at the Fleet, or teachers at schools who could get oak. A safe boat for juniors, not noted for speed. 32 33 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Another New Class and a Chowder Race boats (that is, neither had cabins) but with keels instead my back with TB but when fever runs out I should begin of centerboards, and were steered with a tiller as were all picking up." Three weeks later he was dead. Tuberculosis the knockabouts. They were sailed or towed over from was the scourge of healthy young men in those days, and Seal Harbor for each race, so their continued existence effective treatment wasn't discovered until streptomycin as a class at Northeast depended on a fair bit of enthusi- was introduced about 1948. Although rest was thought to asm from their skippers and crews. They were not noted be beneficial, it is uncertain whether Hayward's strenuous for their speed. Although the MDI's were longer on the summer had anything to do with his illness. His father water-line than the C and O boats, they were all started had had a practice of medicine on Beacon Street in Bos- at the same time in the later chowder races. Ten of these ton, and he probably got the best available treatment of boats competed in 1924. that day. The spurt in growth of the new Fleet was a credit to A grieving Fleet Executive Committee met and its Flag Officers. They had an active summer in 1924. Se- elected, by mail, Vice Commodore Madeira to succeed ries races were held on Tuesday and Friday. In August, the Hayward. For Vice Commodore they chose Frederic O. Commodore, Davenport Hayward, age thirty-five, sailed Spedden, an S boat sailor from Bar Harbor who was a in a series race on a Friday, and the next day went to Bar member of the Fleet and of the New York Yacht Club. Harbor for team races with the Bar Harbor Yacht Club. They also announced that there would be a race held each The August Cruise began on Monday and lasted through year in memory of George Davenport Hayward. It was to Wednesday, and then there was the Friday series race, SO be a "chowder race" for the whole fleet: the small classes he was racing for six out of those eight days. His health would start first, and then on a time allowance each larg- was fine as far as he knew, but that winter he got sick, and er class would start. (If the allowances were perfect and was found to have tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is an infec- each skipper and crew were equal in ability, theoretically tion, usually of the lungs, for which there was no cure in all the boats would finish together. They never do.) This 1925, except for rest and, it was thought, breathing out- race has been an annual event since it was first begun. door air. Hayward went to Saranac Lake, New York, to the The winner can call himself that year's Fleet champion. Trudeau Sanatarium. In a letter that March to C.P.B. Jef- It has been won by boats from almost all of the classes ferys, the new Secretary of the Fleet, he wrote: "Am flat on of boats the Fleet has had. The proper assignment of 34 35 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Another New Class and a Chowder Race starting times for the different classes has not been easy. 57 A 11 84 cky 50 50 79 36 Every class has thought itself held back too long, at one 8 64 sky 39 68 time or another. But there has been a healthy sharing of 37 wins among the classes over the years, with the winner 21 8 $0 H SUTTON usually a leader in whatever class he or she represents. 60 31 57 41 63 3 Hayward, who was a nimble and successful knockabout $57 o R 41 sailor as well as a charismatic leader, would no doubt be 51 51 33 60 55 27 SIT E very pleased at having his name remembered in this way. 52 rky 48 63 BELL'2 49 32 REF 34 Robert E.L. Johnson won the race in his B boat, Navajo, Sp, as 5A 48 C 47 E.SE% d6 the first two years running. 24 14 21 28 41 Bn 17 26 24 Ted Madeira was Commodore from 1925 until 1928. 31 54 27mg 21 The Fleet grew larger under him. On the August Cruise his D 34 M Spurling Pt 42 46 last year, 71 boats crossed the starting line and nearly 100 Collo anchored at Seal Cove. Those were the Roaring Twenties! Fig. 11. The Davenport Hayward Course is ACD twice or ADC twice depending on wind direction. The winner gets the cup (below), and One of the leading skippers in the A class in those can call him- or herself Fleet Champion for the year. days was Reginald Robbins, and we have an account of his style from Mike Crofoot, then a keen younger sailor, later just as keen a sailor but with shorter vacations because of his busy practice of pediatrics in Omaha. "Reggie raced in the sporting A class until he was well over seventy. He wore a blue serge Navy coat, a high starched collar, and a soft cotton hat with a green lining. He weighed perhaps IIO pounds soaking wet. Earlier in his life he had sailed the 84-foot Herreshoff schooner, Queen Mab, winning every single squadron run on the New York and Eastern Yacht Club cruises for two years running. Fig. 12. George Davenport Hayward Cup. 36 37 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Another New Class and a Chowder Race "Now skipper of Kinglet, A #31, he won the August then tacked and went reaching away to D. Mr. Robbins Series three times against such skippers as Charley Dick- protested on the grounds that the bishop was sailing away ey, Bishop Peabody, Bill Strawbridge, and the Butler boys from his proper course simply to force us about. The race It was my privilege to crew for Reggie for five summers. committee disqualified no one, but said that practice He got perfectly timed starts and was a great pointer, so would lead to disqualification if repeated." that he was virtually unbeatable in a heavy breeze. No de- Reggie Robbins was Mike's other sailing mentor (Bill tail that might help him win was missed. On heavy days Black was his first) and idol. In 1934 Mike was lucky he recruited a fourth man to help with the main sheet. enough to win the August Series in the A class Rice di- He used to off-load his boathook into the tender as being vision. Mike was a keen and persistent competitor and a unnecessary weight. He beached Kinglet every two weeks lifelong sailing enthusiast whose love of the Fleet shone (the legal limit) to clean her bottom and apply hot lead. through his whole life. He knew his racing rules perfectly and did not hesitate to apply them. This led to celebrated feuds with Malcolm Peabody, also a hell-for-leather skipper. The protests al- ways hung on the facts, and upon the facts they never could agree. 'Malcolm Peabody, said Reggie, is a perfect gentleman on shore.' One protest I remember found me and my brother Dave in our Hoyden, A #28, on starboard tack approaching Mark C near Cranberry Island but un- able to tack for D (the Manset Shore) because Reggie was out on our weather quarter and Bishop Peabody 4 lengths back of him. We overstood C enough to allow Mr. Rob- bins and the bishop room to go over on the port tack for D, then tacked. Instead of taking the opening which A #28 and A #31 left him, the bishop foamed right on past the mark on starboard until he had forced us both about, 38 39 O Main Street, Fleet Customs, the Eddison Era; Halcyon Days SIX Main Street, Fleet Customs, the Eddison Era; Halcyon Days As one approached the north end of Main Street in those days, the Ernest Ober electrical shop was on the left, then his grocery store, and then Wagner's livery, a stable for Fig. 13. Fleet Headquarters on the Main Street. Note the burgee flying the buckboards and the horses which pulled them over the from its flagpole. carriage roads through the recently-named Acadia Park (the earlier name was Lafayette). Sylvester B. Brown's hard- way people follow baseball. Executive and Race commit- ware, the post office, and L. Elrie Holmes' haberdashery tee meetings were held there, and the parties to a protest, were all north of the Sea Street corner. Across Main Street excused after giving testimony, could stroll nervously along stood the Pastime movie theater and Flye's restaurant, from the street waiting for the verdict, solacing themselves with which the smell of frying foods drifted temptingly. Down five-cent ice cream cones from Charlie Small's drugstore if the street, in the northern half of what is now the Pine Tree necessary, then returning to see what had happened to the Market, was an office where the Northeast Harbor Fleet protest. The Fleet Secretary and Assistant Treasurer sat at had its home. It was a great central location, in its way. The their desks at the Fleet Office and ran the operation very whole town could follow the results of the races, which successfully, facilitating the work of the volunteer Flag Of- were posted in the window and could be followed just the ficers and committee members. 40 4I HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Main Street, Fleet Customs, the Eddison Era; Halcyon Days W. Barton Eddison succeeded Ted Madeira as Com- mer than in winter. The Fleet needed an administrative modore at the end of the summer of 1927. An inventor genius who was also a sailor, and who would satisfy the from Ardsley-on-Hudson, New York, he was to prove needs of the membership; a person who had the summer a most important figure in Fleet history. His style of off from a full-time winter job, and could spend spare running things was a little unusual: during his Commo- time in winter on Fleet business, would be ideal. Eddison doreship there were no summer meetings of the executive was lucky to find a man who fit that description. Arnold committee, he simply canvassed the members separately W. Lunt appeared on the scene as a young man with a and announced decisions through the Fleet Secretary. No sailboat on which he offered to give sailing lessons in one seemed to object. The Committee had conventional Northeast Harbor the very last year of Johnson's tenure. winter meetings using Roberts Rules of Order. Eddison hired him as Fleet Secretary. Commodores Hayward and Madeira had arranged So began a ten-year relationship between the Fleet and for the Fleet Secretary to keep a log book with all relevant a gentleman who was a disciplinarian, administrator, dip- documents pasted into its pages. Robert E.L. Johnson lomat and a race manager par excellence. Eddison arranged and his brother Howard C. were young B boat aces from for the Fleet to use a new committee boat, the Sparrow, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, who held the job of Secre- tary consecutively from 1927-32. Howard was particularly good about keeping the log. He put into it clippings from the "Boston Evening Transcript" which published the results of Fleet races. He had an arrangement with that newspaper that paid him much more than his Fleet salary to supply the paper with these data, so the logs contain his handiwork in two forms. When he finished his educa- tion and went off to get a year-round job the Fleet had to find someone else to take the job of Secretary. In fact, the growth of the Fleet had made the work of the Secretary into a year-round job, but with much more to do in sum- Fig. 14. Sparrow, the committee boat for three decades. 42 43 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Main Street, Fleet Customs, the Eddison Era; Halcyon Days Eastern Way. The line between the red and blue flags was To and from RED MARK MARK "C= used for races to Mark C at Spurlings point on Cranberry To and from Island, even though this meant the yellow flag was right in BLUE MARK MARK "8" and 'j" To and from the middle of that course. This arrangement prevailed for MARK "D3 "E" and at least thirty years. All Arnold (who represented the Race STARTING LINE € FINISHING LINE Committee and was hence all-powerful) had to do was N YELLOW MARK attach the Sparrow, a 25-foot Elco Cruiser, to the appropri- ate flag for the course he had selected and fire the gun at the proper time (or what he decided was the appropriate Yachts must keep clear of starting area until preparatory signal for their class. time; he hoisted a flag which was the actual legal signal ac- Fig. 15. Diagram of starting area off Bear island in the 'twenties and cording to the rules and, so as long as he got the flag and 'thirties. There were no portable marks. the gun together reasonably near the proper time, they WERE proper). There were no postponements. If there and Arnold Lunt was in charge of her during races. He wasn't much wind, there wasn't much wind. The fleet was wore formal yachting attire, a blue blazer with brass but- supposed to stay near the start and drift or ghost across tons and a starchy white cap with a shiny black visor. He the line as best they could. Both the starting and limiting and his assistants kept meticulous records of the race re- times were graven in stone, and two hours was the limit sults, operated the signal flags and start and finish guns, within which the first boat of a class had to finish for that and somehow kept themselves amused during the some- race to count in the series, except for races around Bak- times tedious waits for the races to finish. In those days, ers Island which were allowed "until sunset" in the racing the start of all races was at the then Mark A west of Bear instructions. There were five minutes between the starts island (Fig. 15). Three flags were anchored in a permanent of classes, except on the Cruise when there were ten. The position: a westerly blue one, a yellow one east-southeast large classes started first. The smaller classes usually had of that intended to provide a right angle to courses in to be sent off on the same course as the bigger boats and the Western Way between those two flags, and a red flag would have been obstacles for them to get by, if they had northerly of the yellow one providing a starting line to the started first. 44 45 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Main Street, Fleet Customs, the Eddison Era; Halcyon Days Southwest Harbor had many good sailors of whom 1924 and again in 1925 included a number of Racing Rules quite a number joined the Northeast Harbor Fleet. Mal- which were promulgated by the New York Yacht Club; colm Stanley was one whose influence prevailed in the they didn't include one about government marks. In the planning of the Southwest Harbor Regatta, a race which set of Instructions issued in 1931, on page five under the was started in Southwest to perpetuate the seagoing spirit words "Government Marks" it says "Rule XXVIII of the of old Southwest, its enterprise, patience, hardihood and N.A.Y.R.U. Rules (which provided that all government helpfulness in times of stress, the Village Improvement marks must be passed on the channel side unless they were Association offers a cup to be competed for by classes A used as marks of the course) shall be disregarded, except and B of the Northeast Harbor Fleet, racing in one class where specifically stated otherwise." On page ten, it lists boat for boat." The start and finish of this race were off the under Sailing Rules, Rule XXVII (sic) Government Marks west side of Greenings Island near Southwest. It was an which said they should all be observed! In the centerpiece all-day race, usually around Black Island or Duck Island in of the Instructions is a chart of the Cranberry Islands, either direction, and government marks could be ignored. showing all the Fleet racing waters and racing marks. In the A certain number of sailors agreed with Mac Stanley about Western Way, the then red and black spar buoys (later a government marks. He was a B boat expert from Concord, red nun and a green can) have a red arrow pointing to them Massachusetts, who one year won the race by going inside on the chart with the words "MUST PASS BETWEEN both Long Ledge and Flynns Ledge off Seawall, via chan- SPAR BUOYS" (Fig. 16 ). This presumably is what was nels not frequented by those who observe government referred to by the words "where specifically stated other- marks. The race was held annually under Southwest aus- wise" on page five. It would have been easier just to have pices, and was competed in by each new class added to the all government marks observed, but there were authorities Fleet. No B boats raced in it after 1939. This race lasted in the Fleet with opposing sentiments. John Tyssowski of until 1950, but at some point the provision concerning gov- Southwest was Rear Commodore of the Fleet and Chair- ernment marks, at least those in the Western Way, were man of the Race Committee and a friend of both Mac changed to a non-laissez-faire system. Stanley and of Barton Eddison. (They later both bought What was the Fleet going to do about government Thirty Square Meter boats). It appears Eddison saw the marks? Northeast Harbor Fleet Racing Instructions for Fleet, growing by the addition of many new sailors each 46 47 O HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Main Street, Fleet Customs, the Eddison Era; Halcyon Days " $4 24 30 21 on page six it says to disregard it on all courses except those 28 17 3) 27rky 24 around Bakers or out to the Long Ledge bell buoy, so-on 21 34 Spurling P 10 42 46 seventeen out of twenty courses-those who wished could 10 15 6 31 of flirt with danger. A skipper just had to keep in mind the 37 23 14 Probles 28 25 22 Love disadvantages of striking bottom and weigh them against 14 13.10 whatever advantage came from standing in close to shore, MUST PASS 14 23 9 60 such as favorable slants of wind or protection from a foul BET SeaWall 13 WEEN SPAR BUOYS 7 4 20 10 3 High Head current. If he did touch a rock he could at least hope to get 16 II 14 20 15 dis 16 15 23 9 off without much damage or loss of position. It did not 21 17 19 15 20 13 25 12 5 disqualify him from the race. Ledge 17 (2 SJ 23 8 N.R.T. 32 26 37 is John Tyssowski was Chairman of the Race Commit- a 4. 36 Enjoy 15 ranberry Ledge tee when two other annually-staged races were begun: the 41 42 23 10 16 16 Seamanship Race and, confusingly, the Seaman's Race. 44 26 hid 31 12 The Seamanship Race was intended to teach young sail- inker's Cave 40 55 48 30 4) 9 21 ors both piloting and seamanship and was run in A boats. 57 Fig. 16. Centerfold chart of the Western Way, from the Fleet Sailing The boats were lined up at anchor on the starting line with Instructions, 1931 sails furled and sail-covers fastened on, and their crews in the cabin. An instruction sheet was provided to each boat year, running the risk of getting into real trouble if it didn't as the first gun went off. It identified two marks, X and do everything possible to keep them off the rocks, so he Y, by compass bearings from geographical features on the provided the requirement to observe the Western Way shore; the marks had to be identified from the chart. They buoys. If the Southwest Harbor Village Improvement could be rounded in either clockwise or counterclockwise Association wanted to run their Regatta differently, they direction as the skipper saw fit. It left a lot to the judgment could certainly do so. And the spirit of Southwest pre- of young sailors. Ten minutes later the starting gun was vailed in Northeast over most of the racecourse. In the 1937 fired, the crews were allowed on deck to get up the an- edition of the Rules, Rule XXVIII is again published, but chor, take off the sail covers, hoist the sails and get racing. 48 49 O HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Main Street, Fleet Customs, the Eddison Era; Halcyon Days They could tell fairly quickly when they had made a mis- present generation in the Internationals, the spinnaker is take. Touching bottom did mean disqualification in this a must in this race. race. The race was held each year from 1927 to 1940. Sepa- John Alden of Boston designed fast schooners (at least rate prizes were given to male and female winners. Many two masts, the larger aft) to be raced to Bermuda or Hali- youngsters learned a lot of decision-making in a hurry. fax. Ted Madeira had one called Sagamore. There were The Seamans race, later known correctly as the Sin- several others like her, although not all the same length, gle-handed Race, was started in B boats in 1927. In the known as Malabar schooners. Ted seems to have wanted early years, skippers drew lots for boats and sailed alone an annual race for these schooners, and the record shows in whichever boat they drew. Courses were the same as the Fleet Notices for schooner races starting in 1928. The if a crew were on board. The winner of the first race was course for that year was not stated, and the race may well Mac Stanley. This race has been very popular. As new not have been run. The next year it was proposed to race classses were added to the Fleet, single-handed races have the cruising class on an overnight race around Matini- been sailed in them, but the practice of drawing lots for cus Rock, a distance approaching eighty miles. Again, no boats has gone by the wayside. Sailing this race requires winner is recorded. The same year, however, a Schooner agility as well as judgement. Setting the spinnaker by race was held in August. The course was to the Egg Rock one's self in an International One-design sloop is not easy. whistle buoy in Frenchmans Bay, thence around the Bak- One has to decide whether it is worth it. Setting it, jibing ers Island and Long Ledge buoys, starting at IO A.M. The it, taking it down, hoisting the jib, then re-hoisting the winner was Southern Cross, a yawl owned by Henry Raw- spinnaker on the last leeward leg of the race can be tax- le. In 1930 there were six finishers in one Schooner Race ing, and it may be better to let the other sailors try it. Of and five in the next. Aleda, a 40-foot Malabar, Walter H. course, if the competition tries it, the temptation to set Lippincott, won both races on corrected time. This was will become very strong. On the gaff-rigged knockabout the start of annual cruising-boat races which are still held of the old days, with the spinnaker pole much bigger and seventy years later, though the schooners are no longer longer than on marconi-rigged boats, the temptation to competitive. Fast cutters and sloops now dominate. The set the spinnaker when sailing single-handed would have cruising boats race in a series of their own and on the been much weaker, and I'm not sure if anyone did. In the August cruise. 50 51 O HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Main Street, Fleet Customs, the Eddison Era; Halcyon Days The Seal Harbor Yacht Club put on an all-day race no recorded name, but her owner was E.Q. Trowbridge. comparable to the Southwest Harbor regatta but with There was some resentment among the Friendship sail- courses directed to the East into Frenchmans Bay or to ors against the application of the time allowance, and later the Schoodic whistle buoy. The start and finish were off races were proposed to be boat-for boat between them, Seal Harbor, but many Northeast sailors participated and but somehow Friendship sloop races were never held the Fleet recorded the results in the Fleet yearbook. These again at Northeast, though a renascence of these boats in races were interesting in that they took us into waters we the last thirty years has seen many annual successful races otherwise seldom saw. The knockabout classes were well at Friendship, Maine, and elsewhere. represented. Everyone took a picnic lunch. This tradition In the twenties and thirties, the Fleet members faced lasted fifteen years. the problem of teaching their children to sail, just as the On August 28, 1925, a race was held for Friendship sailing classes did in later decades. The then solution was sloops. There were six entries. The wind was northerly to hire experts from the Cranberry Islands to give one-on- and brisk. The course was easterly out to Mark B near one teaching. The most famous and successful of these was East Bunker ledge and back to Mark D on the Manset "Captain" Bill Black, although there were "Captains" Stan- shore. That is a distance of 8 3/8 miles. It was probably ley, Whittemore, Bunker and others who taught both the a reach to B and another back to D, then a beat home to children and adults of many families. Bill Black grew up on the finish. The first boat to finish had an elapsed time of Little Cranberry Island and was a lobsterman most of his eighty-nine minutes and ten seconds. This gives an over- life, but what he liked most was to race sailboats. He was the bottom speed of 6.3 knots. This boat, the Lorine, Mrs. skipper of Kipper, A boat #17, owned by Gerrish Milliken. Loren Johnson, had a water-line length of 31 feet and a He won so often that the Fleet made a rule that no pro- theoretical hull speed of 6.4 knots. She must have sailed fessional could sail on a boat that had anyone over fifteen ten miles that day considering the need to beat against the aboard, and even then the professional could not take the wind back to the finish. It was a spectacular performance. tiller. Bill had the young Milliken boys, Gerrish Jr. or Roger, Yet she was not the winner on corrected time. A boat to steer the boat, but Bill got credit for their wins. In 1928 that finished four minutes later, with a waterline of 25 they finished first in six out of eight races in a class of thirty feet, saved her time and was the declared winner. She had boats, with such competitors as Farnham Butler, Malcolm 52 53 O HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Main Street, Fleet Customs, the Eddison Era; Halcyon Days Peabody, and Reginald Robbins, and came in second in the seventh race. Mr. Milliken did not allow Bill to compete in the eighth race; he didn't want the series to be won by a boat with a professional on it. Such were the scruples of the day about Corinthianism. The Millikens embraced heartily the idea that sailing should be an amateur sport. "In the 1928 Hayward Cup race I had the inestimable pleasure of sailing with Cap'n Black in Kipper," wrote Dr. Michael Crofoot of Omaha and Northeast Harbor. "The Milliken boys were grounded for some misdemeanor and their father asked me to substitute. Bill did everything with cat-like quickness. All I had to do was steer as he told me. We got off towards mark C from the middle of the Fig. 17. A boats and B boats trying to get around the East Bunkers line right on the gun. 'It is better to start where you can get ledge buoy in a calm. The two tall marconi sails to the right of the fleet your wind free and not be crowded by other boats.' said are thirty-square-meter boats. The year was 1929. Cap'n Bill. We got to mark C a close second in the A class and by the time we got to D for the last leg we were third "I don't remember having more fun in a race until in the whole fleet behind Malcolm Stanley's B boat, "Ven- the 1934 Seal Harbor Regatta. I was in A #28 (Hoyden) ture" and another B boat which we caught as Bill set the with a sixteen-year-old boy who had never sailed before, spinnaker smartly. We then took off after "Venture" which up against Bill Black in Hal Haskell's A boat, Halo. The had started two minutes ahead of us (the A's gave two course was from East Bunkers Ledge to the Schoodic minutes to the B's) and now led by less than IO lengths. Whistler buoy, back around the Bakers island whistle, Under Bill's guidance we played dog and rabbit with him, and back to Seal Harbor. I split tacks with Bill coming first sliding out to windward, then cutting the corner to back from Schoodic, picked up a fresh westerly and beat bear off. At the last moment Bill faked to windward, then him to the Bakers Island whistle by 400 yards, but he did we dove through his lee, but he beat us by 6 inches. better with his spinnaker, began the old hound and rabbit 54 55 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET SEVEN pursuit till he was within two boat lengths. Just as he had done in the 1928 Hayward Cup, he made a final fake to windward, then bore off sharply to avoid my wind shadow and we crossed the line with my mast 6 inches in front ac- cording to Arnold Lunt. No race ever meant more to me." Thirty-squares Mike Crofoot thought the world of Bill, and one can see from his story that Bill taught those in the boat with and Bull's-eyes him by instruction, and the rest of the fleet by example, Those he tutored, especially Hal Haskell, have loved sail- ing and practiced it all they could for the rest of their lives. The Crofoots, Millikens and Haskells have always been stalwart Fleet supporters. Barton Eddison was a man who put his money where his mouth was. Under his leadership the A class had flourished and grown to the point where, in 1930, there were twenty-five boats in the July Series and thirty in the August Series; too many, it was thought, to race as a single class using the Fleet facilities. The class was therefore di- vided into two divisions, drawn by lot. Later the division was according to who built the boat, since the original Lawley-built boats proved just a little faster than their Rice-built sisters, even though both builders followed the same Boardman plans. The class dominated the fleet and looked as though it would last for decades, as in fact it did. The B boats were also strong and had a dozen loyal own- ers (The B boats lasted until 1939, the A's until 1960). If the Fleet in the thirties was to keep up to date with the rest of 56 57 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Thirty-squares and Bulls-eyes the Atlantic Coast yachting centers, though, it would need at least one class of bigger marconi-rigged boats. There were, here and there, successful fleets of older gaff-rigged racing sailboats, but the newest and suppos- edly fastest fleets were marconi-rigged Long Island Sound One-Designs (as at Larchmont) or Thirty-square-meters, as at Marblehead. In 1929 Eddison was Commodore and John Tyssowski chaired the race committee. They circu- larized through the Fleet membership a questionnaire 30 SQUARE METER CLASS which began with the premise that neither the O or MDI Fig. 18. Design of the Thirty-square-meter boat, introduced by John classes were satisfactory for childrens' racing, and went Tyssowski in 1929; below, his Valee, #I in the class. on to recommend they be replaced by Herreshoff 12-foot Bulls-eye sloops; or, if the Fleet member was interested in a new class boat bigger than the A's and B's, the Com- mittee recommended either the 22-square-meter Swedish skerry cruiser, 21 feet on the water and 31 feet overall, or the larger 30-square-meter "approximately fifteen percent larger in every dimension." One result of this questionnaire as a practical mat- ter was that Commodore Eddison and John Tyssowski themselves bought Thirty-squares from Sweden that very August (Fig. 18). Tyssowski's was the Valee, painted the color of the blue part of the Swedish flag, while Eddison's Aquila was the color of the yellow part. Five more boats were added the next year, and the class lasted until World War II. Forty feet long and six feet wide, they had a high 58 59 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Thirty-squares and Bulls-eyes narrow mainsail with a curve in the mast meant to shape the sail like the wing of a seagull. They had roller reefing: the mainsail could be decreased in size, in a blow, by rolling it around the boom. They had double jibstays and carried balloon jibs for broad reaching and parachute spinnakers with a modern short pole. One could jibe the spinnaker without reversing the tack and clew as was necessary on the gaff-rigged boats: a great practical improvement. Un- der their decks were two berths and sitting headroom. They furnished something for the rest of the Fleet to gawk at and talk about, were great fun to sail (except in a chop when they pounded badly), and did in fact show the Fleet BULISFYE CLASS the way into the then modern world of racing classes. My Fig. 19. Herreshoff 12-foot so-called Bulls-eyes. The design, and the father bought #6 Tsana from William Strawbridge and class, under sail. renamed her Nancy after my sister. He could be in Maine only a short time each year, and selected me to represent him on board. At the age of fourteen, I became a titular competitor with Eddison and Tyssowski. Luckily, Dad found some volunteers with racing experience who took me under their wings, and we had some wonderful races for about three years. The arrival of the Thirty-square-meters in 1929 was only the start of the new classes to be introduced by Fleet Flag Officers. In 1930 Barton Eddison was responsible for the arrival of two Bulls-eyes (see Fig. 19), which were keel sloops 151/2 overall, 12 on the water, 6 feet wide and 60 61 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET EIGHT 21/2 feet in depth, with a marconi rig. They satisfied the Fleet authorities that they would be more seaworthy than the O boats and more comfortable, and also livelier to sail than the MDI's. Eddison owned one, Mrs. Francis Mc- Ilhenny the other. The lines of all Herreshoff-designed Coming craft are much admired, and the Bulls-eye is no excep- of the Internationals tion. This boat has outlived the O's and MDI's and was the training boat for a whole generation of young sailors, lasting into the sixties. Eddison picked a winner in the Bulls-eye. Soon there were eight Bulls-eyes, which, added to the already-existing list of eighty knockabouts, made a total fleet of competitive sailboats larger than in any other Through 1935, Commodore Eddison presided over a yachting center east of Marblehead. Eddison was Com- largely gaff-rigged, highly competitive racing fleet. He was modore and the owner of the committee boat, a fact he then succeeded as Commodore by Henry Rawle. Appar- did not publicize; he later gave her to the Fleet. He wasn't ently, despite the effect of the depression on the economy, finished shaping the Fleet, though; he went on doing that there was interest in enlarging the Fleet still further. John even after he stopped being Commodore. Tyssowski wanted to enlarge the 30-Square-Meter class, and it isn't clear why Eddison, the owner of Aquila, thir- ty-square #2, didn't also. Tyssowski wrote an article for "Yachting" magazine extolling the 30-Squares. But Eddi- son went looking for wider horizons. Cornelius Shields was a great sailor and the guru of Long Island Sound racing. He went to Bermuda in the early thirties for a 6-meter regatta and fell in love with Saga, a 6-meter boat that belonged to Eldon Trimingham of Bermuda. She had been built to the 6-meter rule, an 62 63 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Coming of the Internationals international development rule (where the competition spinnaker is modern, though not the reaching spinnaker begins on the drawing board, just as in the America's Cup, of the most recent decade, but the jibe is simple and the or in Northeast before one-design racing), was 40 feet chute is set forward of the jibstay. long, had a high marconi rig, a divided cockpit to keep Such was the influence of Shields that owners of the crew separated from the helmsman, and very beautiful twenty-five Long Island Sound Interclubs sold their boats lines. He conferred with her builder, Bjarne Àas of Fred- and bought the new sloops, which were known as Bjarne erickstad, Norway about building a class of boats based Àas One-designs. The boats on Long Island Sound were on those lines for Long Island Sound. He evidently had much admired, and Marblehead wanted a class, as did in mind the possibility that owners of Long Island Sound Cowes, England. A class was already begun in Bermuda, Interclub sloops might like a change. There were many and in Norway, so the name was changed to the Inter- differences between a 6-meter and a Long Island Sound national Class sloop, or the International One-design (so Interclub. The latter was shorter, with a large mainsail and some refer to them as "I.C.'s", others as "I.O.D's"-you can a small jib, set on a wire stay that met the mast about two- take your pick). The excitement the class created got the thirds of its height. Her main boom extended aft of her attention of Barton Eddison and he went to Larchmont counter, like that of a gaff-rigged knockabout. There were for a sail in one. He was convinced it was the right boat twenty-five of these boats racing apparently quite happily for Northeast. He had been authorized by the new Com- out of Larchmont. The boat that Àas and Shields came up modore, Henry Rawle, as a sort of committee of one, to with is 33 feet long, has a high rig like the 6-meter but with find the right boat for Northeast's need for a strong sloop a simple undivided cockpit. The jibstay meets the mast larger than the A's and B's. about three-quarters of its height, and the main boom, Mr. Rawle had actually appointed a committee consist- 16 feet long, ends well short of the counter. Her lines are ing of Eliot Wadsworth, Frederic Spedden, and Eddison, exquisite. There is a cabin with portholes and sitting head- to look for a new class. That committee appointed Ed- room. Compared to a Thirty-square-meter she is much dison as a committee of one to arrange the introduction less extreme: wider for her length, not such a tall rig and of the Internationals. Eddison in turn went to the firm of without a curve in her mast. Her lines are sweeter and she Sparkman and Stephens in New York to negotiate with an does not pound so much in a choppy sea. Her parachute insurance company in Norway, Det Norske Veritas, to be 64 65 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Coming of the Internationals sure the boats would be built properly. Drake Sparkman was at first reluctant to accept the assignment, but when he saw the names of the prospective owners, he changed his mind. The boats were built in the winter of 1938. The builder, Bjarne Àas, proposed shipping them to Oslo from Frederickstad where they were built, thence to New York, and thence to Northeast Harbor. This did not sit well 03233011 with Eddison. He found a Norwegian ship, the Toronto, whose owners were willing to bring the boats from Fred- DHO OF BOOM 16" erickstad directly to Northeast. That was accomplished in May 1938. INTERNATIONAL ONE DESIGN CLASS Eddison was in Northeast to greet the Toronto. He got Fig. 20. Design of the Bjarne Àas or International One-Design Class, a customs officer from Bar Harbor to join him and Drake and the early Class in Northeast Harbor. Sparkman and they went out on the Sparrow. It was ear- ly in the morning. They went out the Eastern Way. "The Toronto was a speck on the horizon when we first sighted her, but she got larger and turned into a large freighter. (She was the biggest vessel to come in to the Great Har- bor of Mount Desert for many years. The local schools were let out so the children could witness the event.) Soon I could see a yellow dot on her midships deck, the same color as my 30-square-meter boat. I knew it was my new International." He had ordered Auriga, like his Thirty- Square Aquila, to be painted the color of the yellow part of the Swedish flag. Half the boats were towed from the Toronto, when she anchored, to Henry Hinckley's boat- 66 67 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Coming of the Internationals yard at Manset, the rest were towed in their cradles to tions, the grandchildren of the original buyers, to a degree Farnham Butler's yard at Somesville. Eddison looked with unequalled by any other class in Fleet history. To sail one satisfaction on what he had accomplished, particularly on of these boats is to sit comfortably in a deep cockpit with the direct delivery of the boats to their destination. "I have one's feet well underneath one's knees and one's back sup- never seen boats in such good condition after such a long ported by the cockpit coaming. The main boom is high trip," wrote Drake Sparkman. One worry for Eddison was enough SO the chance jibe is not a menace. Once the main how to number the boats. He decided to number them in is up, all sheets and halliards are led into easy reach. The the order of receipt of payment (each boat cost $3,750, of tiller is short enough not to be in the way of the crew, which $786.85 was customs duty) by the owners, but was which can number from three to five people in a race. The concerned that the thirteenth owner to pay might object hull has a long lead keel faired into the rudder SO one never to the number thirteen. Then he went to a wedding also picks up lobster trap lines, and wineglass sections which attended by O'Donnell Iselin of New York, a prospective make the boat track accurately through the water. Her po- owner, who told him he wanted number thirteen "or the sition deep down in the water and heavy lead keel keep deal was off!" That was a relief. "Your committee begs to her going through the choppiest seas in comfort. Her sail be discharged, not because he is tired of working, but be- area is large enough to make her fast in a light air, but as cause unnecessarily paternalistic treatment might weaken the wind rises her sails can be flattened and she heels far the moral fibre of our class. He hopes to meet the entire over, spilling air off the top of her main but maintaining class shortly as we all direct our course to Maine to recover top speed and increasing her ability to point to windward. our physical strength and mental balance," wrote Eddison These attributes have appealed to at least three genera- after the boats had arrived. tions of sailors and kept competition keen and the class The new boats started right in racing, with twelve in active for sixty-five years, as this is written. the July and fourteen in the August Series. Eight went on The new Internationals came to a Fleet with its Head- the August Cruise. They earned great loyalty from their quarters still on Main Street, its racing boats still mostly owners. The original owners parted with them reluctant- gaff-rigged, its starting line at Bear Island, without a sail- ly, and so did subsequent owners. We shall see in a later ing school, and which never raced in Somes Sound. The chapter how they have appealed to subsequent genera- Fleet officers were not complacent, though. They wanted 68 69 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET NINE improvement whenever possible. The year before the new boats came, Henry Rawle was Commodore, Vance Mc- Cormick Vice Commodore, and Harry G. Haskell, Rear Commodore, and the Fleet was offered a piece of shore property at the mouth of the Sound, the former Eastern Bridge Years Steamship wharf and adjacent land, south of the pres- ent swimming club, to be used as a base and a clubhouse. "The Fleet officers gave every consideration to Mr. Roland Taylor's kind proposal. A survey showed that upkeep of the piles and timbers would be high in years to come, as would the cost of changing the building to make it suit- able for a clubhouse. This opportunity is taken to thank The summer of 1941 was the last year of the Northeast Mr. Taylor for his very kind and generous offer, which Harbor of long summer seasons, abundant domestic help the Fleet does not feel it is in a position to accept." wrote in the summer cottages, full hotels, and pre-war prices. Commodore Rawle in his annual report. Had the Fleet The hotels were the Asticou Inn, Harborside Inn, Clif- accepted the offer, its headquarters' outlook would have ton House, Kimball House, and Rock End Hotel. Each of been to the west toward Norwood Cove and Southwest these had an adjacent float, and cottagers who lived near Harbor rather than south to Greenings Island as it is at them arranged to use these floats to get to their boats. present. The site is further from the race-course, but does This arrangement had prevailed for decades and had in have deep water judging by the fact the steamships came fact permitted the existence of the Fleet, which had no and went at all tides. In view of the Fleet's then urgent other access to the water, though it had discussed repeat- need for shorefront, it is remarkable that it turned down edly its desire for one. Harborside had a float, between this opportunity. Change was coming, though, and the Asticou and Sea Street, and it had more water at low tide Fleet would have another, better chance. than did the town float at the foot of Sea Street, which lay on the mud at low tide. The cove at Sea Street indented the harbor much more than it does now, but the whole 70 71 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Bridge Years harbor was shallower and less crowded at its north end. to each race in the years before it acquired its Gilpatricks There were no buildings along the shore near the town Cove Headquarters. float except for the brick sewage pump-house and a new Fifty-two yachts were in the July Series in 1939, six building that Farnham Butler had built to service cruis- more than the year before. Fifty-eight were in the August ing yachts. A large mud flat separated the shore and the Series, five fewer than in 1938. In the Lawley division of water at low tide. Few yachts used Sea Street float; most the A class, the winner in 1938 was E. Farnham Butler in that were moored in the inner harbor used Harborside, #15 Whistler, while the Rice division was won by Regi- Asticou or Clifton floats. nald Robbins in #31 Kinglet. Neither of these gentlemen The situation at Clifton Dock was different, since the entered the 1939 August Series, but on their past perfor- water there is deep right up to the rocks. The Fleet had mance, both would have been favored in the betting. The an arrangement with the owners of that dock to main- actual winners were Daffydill A #1, sailed by Endicott Pea- tain an extra float, so that visiting cruisers would have body II, also a consistent winner, and in the Rice division access to the shore. This was the project of Vance Mc- #32 Don Q sailed by David Clark, one of the Fleet's most Cormick, Vice Commodore of the Fleet in 1936 and 1937, avid yachtsmen. Two B boats, Kit Kat, Dr. William Earl who wanted Northeast to reciprocate for the kindness Clark, and Vega, Henry T. Reath, finished one and two in shown by other yacht clubs to which our members sailed. the Davvy Hayward race, which had fifty entries. In the Yachts whose owners lived near Clifton could use it and Internationals, Auriga #2 won both August Series, skip- have moorings near it, or use moorings rented by the pered in 1938 by Jack Eddison and the next year by Sammy Fleet. At Rock End in Gilpatricks Cove, the Rock End Morris. Firefly, #1, finished second both years. Number Dock serviced the Hotel and the cove sheltered a fleet of Three Santee was fourth both years. Number Five Queen Friendship sloops as well as the boats of adjacent cottag- Mary, Nelson A. Rockefeller, was fifth in 1938 and third ers (Figs. 21, 22, p. 81). Another way to have access to the in 1939. And #4 Silver Spray, Hal Haskell, finished third sea was of course, if you lived on the shore, to maintain a in 1938. The only place in the first five places in either year private dock and float of your own, and many Fleet mem- that was not taken by a boat with a number under five bers did this, just as they do today, sharing with their was third place in 1939, taken by #8 Vanessa, Lucretia G. neighbors as appropriate. In these ways the Fleet got out Brooks. What was it about those low-numbered boats? 72 73 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Bridge Years Actually, as we will see, they were starting a tradition of The prospect of war was not the only impending their own. change in the situation of the Fleet. Henry Rawle wrote Twenty-four cruising boats and nine Bar Harbor S- in his Commodore's report in 1938 that the Northeast boats (another Herreshoff creation) went on the 1938 Harbor dredging project had been approved by the Army August Cruise, making a total of sixty-three boats; one- Corps of Engineers, the Secretary of War, and the Rivers designs numbered thirty-nine. A famous racer Actaea, and Harbors Committee of the House of Representatives Henry Sears, won the big-boat division. Vayu, anoth- in Washington. Northeast Harbor would be dredged and er beautiful Massachusetts yacht, participated in the deepened and the mud deposited behind a breakwater to Cruise both years. If the owner of a competitive yawl be built across the cove at Sea Street, to make the land or cutter from New York or Boston had any Northeast where the tennis courts, roadways, condominium and Harbor connection, he brought his boat on the cruise or motel now stand. It would make the harbor roomier, at- went in the Ocean race. The winner of the 1938 Ocean tract marine activity, and eliminate the low-tide mud flats Race was Baruna, a big yawl built for Henry C. Taylor which separated the harbor from the town. It appeared to win the Bermuda Race. These were acme years for to offer the possibility that the Fleet could find access to Northeast sailing. the water right there in the harbor. The Fleet wanted to At the end of August 1939, war broke out in Europe. get into teaching sailing. Indeed, it already had, at the Sea Hitler made a non-aggression pact with Stalin, then at- Street building made available by Farnham Butler. "The tacked Poland, which had mutual-defense treaties with employment of a sailing instructor has been helpful to the Britain and France; a state of war then existed between youngsters who have taken advantage of the service, and is Germany and the other three countries. America was generally beneficial to the Fleet. Henry Reath performed neutral in theory but well remembered World War I. The the duties to the satisfaction of the officers, besides assist- Fleet's young sailors, at various points in their education, ing generally and effectively in administration matters." wondered how long it would be before they would be wrote Rawle about the season of 1939. Henry was nine- called up for military service. Sailing competitively began teen. The sailing school would grow fast when the Fleet to seem to some less important. To others it may well have got shoreline property, and that year it looked as though it seemed more important. would be in the harbor. 74 75 World War II and a New Location TEN still perfecting. But it was still only a plan, a committee report. The report called for the construction of three center- board sloops to be paid for by subscription funds, sailing World War II lessons each week-day morning from 8:30 until 12:30, and and a New Location afternoons devoted to taking parents or friends sailing, or private lessons with the instructor. It was approved by the Executive Committee and by the membership. Vice Commodore Haskell, serving as Commodore in the ab- sence of William J. Strawbridge, who had been called onto the Navy, wrote that "the chance to learn boat handling, The summer of 1941 saw the menace of war grow, al- seamanship, and elementary racing tactics should interest though the U.S. was still theoretically neutral. The young people in the sport." Tuition was to be ten dollars number of boats in the series races fell ten percent. The for the season. most important actual change that year was that the Fleet Although the Fleet had a plan, the war intervened. Af- headquarters moved out of its Main Street location to ter Dec. 7, 1941, building boats for teaching recreational Farnham Butler's new building at the foot of Sea Street, sailing was no part of the war effort. However, Barton Ed- in those days the only private building on the shore of dison and Mrs. Henry Parkman lent their Bulls-eyes to the cove. No dredging or landfill had occurred, and the the Fleet for the summer of 1942, and Harvey Kelley ran water was very shallow or non-existent at low tide. Yet a class of sixteen children for thirty-nine teaching days. In in that summer, with war getting closer and closer, a addition to sailing basics, there was informal racing with committee (Farnham Butler, Arnold Lunt, and Ted Ma- the rest of the Bulls-eyes. It was a promising development deira), drew up a plan to use the Fleet's new nearness to of what Commodore Rawle and Henry Reath had begun the water to best advantage by starting a sailing school in 1939. for junior sailors. It was the start of something big, a ma- The war drew the Commodore and then Secretary jor Fleet function that it has continued ever since and is Lunt into service. Vice Commodore Haskell became de 76 77 0 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET World War II and a New Location facto Commodore in 1941, and de jure Commodore from manage a crew, and use his wits to race a boat with great 1943 until 1945. He faced a manpower problem as one success. By 1941, while an undergraduate (he coxed the Fleet staff man or Flag Officer after the other had to leave Harvard crew), he finished second in the International for military duty. Then he had a break when his Rear July series of eleven boats. He was elected Rear Commo- Commodore, James G. Ducey, said he was willing to be dore in 1943. He knew everyone in the Fleet and was very Fleet Secretary. popular. He insisted on only one proviso: that he be al- Jimmy Ducey was the most important Fleet member lowed to race. In fact, he threw himself into his Fleet job who became a staff employee. He was actually a young with the same can-do spirit that his friends were using in Rear Commodore in 1943 when Phil Caughey left for their military assignments. In 1943 Ducey made all sailors the service, leaving the position of Executive Secretary who showed up at Northeast feel that it was unpatriotic open. When Phil left, Jimmy volunteered to take on the NOT to race. There were seven July Series, ten August Secretary's job and this must have seemed to the other Series races and an overnight August Cruise to Seal Cove. Flag Officers like a godsend. Jimmy could not be drafted, The next year, with the war still raging, there was a com- nobody knew how long the war would last, and the man- parably active sailing program and the Sailing Class began power problem seemed beautifully solved, even though with a rush on the first of July and lasted all season. Har- Jimmy weighed less than a hundred pounds. vey Kelley, in addition to teaching the Sailing Classes, ran Ducey was a unique individual. He had had poliomy- the Committee boat and the races. The Sparrow was out elitis at age seven, and had become a hunch-backed dwarf, of commission for the duration, but Vance McCormick, too weak to haul on the sheets of a sailboat of any size, but Rear Commodore and a great yachting enthusiast, had nevertheless deeply interested in sailing and anything else Captain Oscar Wedge use his launch as committee boat to do with the water. He acquired a 14-foot Swampscott for the four years 1942-1945. Dory which he kept at the Harborside float in the thir- The war-time Fleet had a very lucky break on the ties, and would consult Mike Crofoot about her rigging night of March 4, 1942, although of course at the time and upkeep, although I never actually saw him go sailing it was not seen as such. That night, the Rock End Hotel in her. But he was extremely bright, keen to excel at what- burned down. The Rock End Dock, without the hotel ever he could do, with great wit and spirit. He could steer, and with the war-time decrease in patrons, was left at 78 79 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET World War II and a New Location loose ends, and its owners offered it to lease it to the DOCK INN. NORTH EAST HARBOR, MAINE Fleet for the summer of 1943. Thus began the associa- tion of the Fleet and Gilpatricks Cove which has been enduring. The first summer was successful, and there was more to come. "An opportunity to acquire perma- nent ownership of the dock property arose through an offer of sale by Messrs. E. Farnham Butler and Charles Savage The Fleet not having money to finance it, the Executive Committee succeeded in inducing a number of our members to subscribe a sum sufficient to buy the dock and its approaches, and for necessary repairs Donations to the fund came from members keenly in- terested in the Fleet and its relation to life in Northeast Fig. 21. Postcards of the Rock End Hotel (above). Harbor. No formal appeal was necessary. Contributions Fig. 22. The view from the hotel to the pier (below) with Greenings varied in size according to ability, and their number was Island beyond. A Friendship sloop is at the float in the lower picture. an expression of the true interest of our members and their confidence in our future." Thus, dryly and modestly, Harry Haskell wrote in his Commodore's report in the 43 yearbook, on one of the biggest events in Fleet histo- ry. He did not mention the fact that the Fleet had had a chance to move to the Steamship dock in Somes Sound in 1938, although he must have felt quite complacent about the comparison in sites; Gilpatricks was certainly far and away a better location. The starting line for the races was still at Bear Island, and Gilpatricks was nearer. The cove had better shelter than the Sound. There wasn't 80 81 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET ELEVEN much room in the Rock End buildings for an office, but in 1944 the Village Improvement Society donated an ad- ditional building which they brought down from the top of Browns Mountain (now Norumbega) where it had been used for airplane spotting. (During WW II, no Post-war Years, plane flew without ground surveillance from every com- munity.) It became the "Captains' Shack." The Fleet used Another New Class; it with gratitude and went about its business of running Sailing Frenzy races and teaching sailing. Nineteen forty-five was the last war-time summer, but the war in Europe had ended that spring and Japan sur- rendered September 2. Northeast was crowded, and racing Harry Haskell was given an opportunity to perfect boats were at a premium as soldiers and sailors on leave the accomplishments of his term as Commodore in late or terminal leave returned to do some yacht racing. It was 1945, when Jarvis Cromwell, who had succeeded him as clear the Fleet had survived the war with flying colors. In Commodore at the end of that season, paid him a visit, fact, the Fleet was a quite different entity, no longer land- along with P. Blair Lee, the Fleet Treasurer. The upshot locked, and with an active and popular sailing school. of that visit was that they came away with carte blanche to have a headquarters building built on the land donated by Haskell and the twenty or SO Fleet members who had contributed to the Rock End fund. Their choice for an architect was Roger Griswold of Boston and Seal Cove, known for attractive shingled camps with large barn doors. The builder was Horace W. Bucklin of Northeast Harbor. Mr. Haskell and his son, Harry G. Haskell, Jr., underwrote the entire cost. Beatrix Jones Farrand (niece of the novelist Edith Wharton) was volunteer landscaper 82 83 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Post-war Years, Another New Class; Sailing Frenzy of the grounds. The building (Fig. 23), dedicated late in Manchester, Massachusetts, and Seal Cove, which reflects August 1946, houses offices, a small conference room for the growing role of the Fleet as a school. Race Committee meetings, and a large attractive lounge The grounds which Beatrix Farrand designed in with a stone fireplace, double galleries, and sliding French 1945 had grown up to alders by the 1970s, and in 1992 doors that open onto the terrace and lawn overlooking the Aña Thompson drew up a new plan which has endured shore and pier. There is also a small kitchen. The building to the present. Christopher Hutchins of Bangor gave has served well for sixty years without modification other the handsome pink granite curbing and stonework near than the insertion of better foundations to prevent frost the flagpole. heave. Recently, classrooms for the sailing school have At the same time Haskell was acquiring the Rock End been added through the generosity of George Putnam of as Fleet Headquarters, the Rear Commodore, Vance C. McCormick of Harrisburg, was forming a corporation, largely of Fleet members, to acquire and rebuild the Clif- ton Dock. The Clifton House had been unable to thrive during the war years and was taken down. The Fleet members who could not keep their boats at Gilpatricks Cove and had no floats of their own (including former users of the Harborside Dock, which had been sold to Paul Miller as his private float) needed an outlet to the water, and many cruising boats in Northeast Harbor itself needed a place to go ashore other than Sea Street, even though the new postwar marina that was built there after the harbor was dredged was a vast improvement over what Fig. 23. The Fleet Headquarters building at Gilpatricks Cove, built it replaced. The new Clifton Dock was made an "official in 1946 with funds provided by Harry G. Haskell, by that time the ex-Commodore. The picture was taken from the bridge to the pier. station" of the Cruising Club of America and a fueling re- The Vance McCormick memorial flagpole, which is to the left of the source for boats of all kinds, and has had a marine supply Fleet House, is not seen in the picture. store which made it invaluable to yachts. Its corporation 84 85 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Post-war Years, Another New Class; Sailing Frenzy operated a mooring service which has served the Harbor and Gilpatricks Cove as well, leasing those in the Cove to the Fleet for use by its members. Vance McCormick saw 11/10 the need for it, gave generously to it, gathered funds for it, and saw the start of work on it, but died suddenly in the spring of 1946 and did not see the Dock brought to completion. His friends put up the flagpole next to the Fleet Headquarters at Rock End in his memory, and his daughters, Mrs. Spencer Nauman and Mrs. Hugh Mc- Millan, gave the land for the parking lot across the street. These important new changes were by no means the only ones for the fleet in 1946. At the end of the 1945 LUDER CLASS season, although there were fifteen Internationals, two Fig. 24. Plan of the Luders 16, and the new hulls in their building at Thirty-squares, thirty-one A boats, two B boats and nine Stamford, Connecticut. Bulls-eyes, Commodore Haskell appointed a Commit- tee, of which James G. Ducey was chairman, to look for a new class of boats for the Fleet. The committee was to seek a boat which resembled the A's and B's, but was neither. The Fleet could have theoretically added to the existing classes but, practically, a class of new boats had more appeal in a brand-new post-war world. The com- mittee found in Stamford, Connecticut, a keel sloop 16 feet on the waterline and 26 feet overall, built of marine plywood and designed by Art Luders (Fig. 24). No less than twenty-three of these were acquired by Fleet mem- bers. Nineteen raced in July 1946, and twenty-one in 86 87 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Post-war Years, Another New Class; Sailing Frenzy August. They carried overlapping Genoa jibs, and were shorter and much lighter than the Internationals, but at a distance their sail-plan and hull form was close enough to the I.C.'s to make it hard to tell the difference. There were forty-nine entries in the Davvy Hayward race that year. Hal Haskell won in I.C. #4, but Ducey, the Luders pro- tagonist, was second in Mrs. Dixon Stroud's Luders #6, and Bill Strawbridge was third in Luders #10. Fourteen Luders went on the August cruise. The new class added to the number of racing boats in both the July and August series; that is, the number of Internationals and A boats in each was the same as before the war, so it could not be said the Luders replaced them or drew crews from them. Fig. 25. Luders-16 sloops racing at Northeast. They look like smaller The B class had vanished from the race-course, but that Internationals. had happened before the war, and there was no sign of a renaissance for them. In 1947 and 1948 there were twen- Ducey had arranged for team races in Internationals ty-three Luders on the August cruise, a really impressive to be held at Northeast that year. Marblehead and Long turnout and a tribute to a generation willing to cruise in Island Sound sent teams, and Long Island showed its ex- boats without heads or galleys. The names of some of the perience in team racing by winning; but Northeast was Young Turks who sailed in the August Cruise in 1947 second, and the next year Blue Hill sent a team to race in form a roster of those who have since been important in Luders with Northeast, and Northeast sent a team to Bar Fleet history: Henry T. Reath (class A), Harry R. Ma- Harbor to race against Chicago, Detroit, Long Island and deira (class A), Alan McIlhenny, Minot K. Milliken, and Bar Harbor. Northeast beat Blue Hill, and came in second Polly Thompson (all Luders). The Luders' popularity was in Bar Harbor. The Luders class had begun an existence impressive, and ignored the fact that they were actually which seemed to have brought a whirlwind of sailing ac- slower than the A boats. tivity. The August Series in 1946 and again in 1947 were at 88 89 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Post-war Years, Another New Class; Sailing Frenzy a ten-year high, with seventy-three boats, twenty-four of which were Luders. Credit for this was reflected generally on Ducey, but there was a problem. When Arnold Lunt came back from the war he was IND immediately given back his job, as the law required. Ducey had kept the Fleet going during the war and been associ- ated with the immediate post-war sailing boom, but could not be kept on at his Fleet job. He was given the title of Fleet Captain in 1946, and Sailing Instructor as well, but DIHENSIONS apparently did not get along with Arnold Lunt, and Com- L.O.A 23'- modore Jarvis Cromwell began to hear stories about his BEAM DRAFT dealings with Fleet members which it is hard to confirm MERMAID CLASS or deny. Did he carry on a stock-brokerage in the Fleet Fig. 26. Plan of Mermaid hull and rig (above). The Mermaid class Captains' Shack? How much if any did he collect on each racing in Somes Sound (below). sale of a Luders? Cromwell knew that the Fleet seemed to owe its success in good measure to Ducey, and he tried to resist the idea that Jimmy had his dark side. Letters from Arnold Lunt to Commodore Cromwell mention the stock-broking, and the commissions on Luders sales seem not unlikely. The fact that the Fleet sponsored the Luders but not other new boats displeased the builders of those boats. The best sailor in the A class before the war was E. Farnham Butler, a young summer visitor who had bought Bill Black's boatyard and moved permanently to Sound, Maine, near Somesville, and had gone into boat building, yacht storage and service. He was an enthusias- 90 9I HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Post-war Years, Another New Class; Sailing Frenzy tic Fleet member and had co-operated with trying to get busy with a whole new line of modernized cruising boats, access to the water for the Fleet, first at Sea Street and known as the Controversy class, with reverse sheer and then at Rock End; in fact, he had been a key figure in both lots of room below, and had a whole new life largely apart the pre-war and wartime Fleets, and could have expected from the Fleet. to enjoy the fruits of his position with mutual advantage The personalities of the principals in any institution for both himself and his Fleet. He had two boats ready naturally make its history, and the wartime and immedi- for consideration by the Fleet, the Mermaid and the Hus- ate postwar Fleet was influenced above all by the generosity tler. Five Fleet members acquired Mermaids, which were and resources of Harry G. Haskell, its Commodore. His lovely marconi-rigged sloops 17 feet long on the waterline, interest in yachting was not confined to competitive sailing. carvel-built in the classic wooden-boat style like the In- He owned a 197-foot steam yacht, Placida, which ternationals, but open boats without cabins (Fig. 26). The could take him anywhere. It was always anchored near Luders had cabins, the August Cruise was popular, and the entrance to Northeast Harbor. However, he crewed from the Luders' performance record one has to agree they for Effie Disston (Mrs. C. Bradford) Fraley in her O boat were a better choice than the Mermaids, even though the #5, Go-Get-Em. In the 1927 August Series they did so well Mermaids were better built. But the choice of the Luders that all they had to do to win was to finish the last race, cannot have pleased Farnham. no matter where they came in. The wind that day was Five other Fleet members acquired Hustlers, an 18-foot very light, though, and there was a strong ebb tide. When catboat (only one sail, the mainsail, no jib), very popular the starting gun was fired, the whole O boat class, except in Massachusetts. One hundred seventy-one of them for one boat, had been carried across the line by the tide were built, fourteen at Farnham's yard, the Mount Desert and was trying to get back. The one boat still on the right Yacht Yard. The five Hustlers were listed in Fleet year- side of the line was Bimbo, #11, skippered by Tom Clark books from 1945 until 1950. It is safe to say that Farnham with Mike Crofoot as crew. Bimbo crossed the line, picked would have liked more sales of them to Fleet members. up a zephyr, and sailed around the course, finishing be- Mermaid races were held by the Fleet, but Hustler races fore the rest of the class could start. Since Bimbo had lain were not. Farnham remained a loyal Fleet member but second in the series at the start of the race, she now ap- was no longer an insider in Fleet affairs. In fact, he was peared to be the winner of the series. All the other boats 92 93 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Post-war Years, Another New Class; Sailing Frenzy now abandoned the race, except Effie Fraley in Go-Get- Em. We don't know what she said to Mr. Haskell or he to her, but they hung on. "We watched from shore with anxious binoculars", said Mike Crofoot, "to see whether they would finish within the time limit." Effie, infinitely charming and infinitely competitive, did finish the race and win the series. When Harry Haskell gave the Fleet Headquarters building nineteen years later, Mrs. Fraley became Chair of the House Committee. Personal con- nections form institutions. Fig. 27. The 197-foot steam yacht Placida, Harry Haskell, above; an O boat like the one he crewed in 1927, below. / 94 95 O TWELVE Toward the Choice of Fiberglass Mercuries bution may have been a natural follow-through to the war effort in which everyone expected to do a little more than his or her part. It could not be expected to last forever, nor Toward the Choice could the boats. In any one of the early years, however, the problems of organization and handling the ever-in- of Fiberglass Mercuries creasing numbers of children were more apparent to the Fleet officers than finding boats and instructors. Philip Cole reported that in 1950, his second year as paid Sailing Instructor, by the end of the first week the number of stu- dents had doubled compared to the year before. He began In the years just after the war the new sailing classes flour- classes at 9:00 A.M. and ended them at 11:30 "in order to give the instructors time to regain some measure of com- ished. The first instructors were juniors in Fleet families, posure and have a short organizational meeting" to plan Harry Platt in 1946 (under the direction of Fleet Captain for the next day. His report expressed his gratitude to the James G. Ducey) and Paul Thompson in 1947. They were Bullseye owners and pointed out that Sailing Class needed years with record-breaking numbers of boats in the Series an emergency or "crash" boat of its own for safety reasons, races and the Cruises, so their success could be seen as as well as one paid instructor for every fifteen members of part of a larger trend. Two other important things helped the Sailing Class. The next year his brother, Taylor Cole them: they used Bulls-eyes lent gratis by Fleet members, took on the job. The class grew larger, and Taylor had a and the instructors were housed by their own families. paid assistant, but would have been swamped without the The classes were held in the morning, so the owners of the help of three volunteers from Fleet families (Fig. 28). borrowed boats could go sailing in the afternoon, it's true, The sailing class was still a relatively new thing for the but it amounted to a subsidy of the rest of the Fleet by Fleet and its Executive Committee to plan for, and they the Bulls-eye owners, who underwrote the annual costs had other things to contemplate. Edmund L. Coombs suc- of upkeep and storage of the boats and only got part-time ceeded Arnold Lunt as Executive Secretary when Arnold use of them. In the brand new post-war world, this contri- resigned at the end of 1948. Coombs worked at Bowdoin 96 97 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Toward the Choice of Fiberglass Mercuries this time in Korea. Just as Harry Haskell, Vice Commo- dore when Bill Strawbridge went in service in 1941, took over as Commodore before being elected, so Stuart S. Jan- ney, Neilson's Vice Commodore, became Commodore in 1952 after having functioned as Commodore for the year when he was Vice Commodore. It all went smoothly; the nitty-gritty matters of day-to-day Fleet operation were left for Coombs or Ducey, and, increasingly, to the Assistant Treasurer, Phil Caughey, to contend with. One decision they made which required the Flag Officers' approval and which was a big advance was to race up Somes Sound Fig. 28. Getting ready for sailing class in the early Fifties. There on foggy days. In 1952 they anchored three racing marks, appear to be four students in each Bulls-eye one about a mile and another about three miles up, both near the east side of the Sound, and the third for a new starting line off the mouth of Gilpatricks cove. It saved College in Brunswick, Maine in the winter, and did an ex- many races the very first year, and has been practiced ever cellent job at the Fleet for two years, but the College went since. (Windward-leeward races are in vogue at present. on a year-round basis, and Coombs no longer had the In 2003, the International Worlds Championship sailors time for a summer job. The Committee had little trouble raved about their race course which used the northern half persuading Jimmy Ducey, who had been working at the of the Sound repetitively, i.e., three times up and down the Bar Harbor Yacht Club the previous summer, to accept same water). his old war-time job as Executive Secretary at Northeast, The Fleet maintained its level of activity at a plateau and agreed he would be allowed to race. It was the start for about twelve years. The special regattas, cruises, and of what was to be an eight-year stint. In another staffing races were held in addition to the July and August Series twist, Commodore Harry R. Neilson was himself called races. It became clear, though, that the pre-war pattern of into active duty in the Navy in 1951. We were again at war, life in summertime Northeast Harbor had changed. Few- 98 99 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Toward the Choice of Fiberglass Mercuries er people came for the whole summer season. The Fleet better, or the friendships that grow up amongst members recognized this. The traditional scoring system for series of a racing crew and between competing skippers and races made no provision for the fact that a skipper could crews; these things can't be measured but may well be not be in town long enough to compete in all the races of what bring people back for more racing. Sailboat racing even one Series. Yachts earned points which accrued as is really quality time, and that quality will be reflected in they finished each Series race. If a yacht didn't finish a race growth in numbers at the start of races if, over the long because she didn't enter, she got zero points. To correct run, the Fleet can provide the kind of racing experience this, the Fleet adopted a new scoring system which award- racers want more of. They vote with their feet, and the ed each yacht her Percentage of Perfection. This was the number of starters does become a valid measurement of percentage of points she did win of the points she would success over the years. What the Fleet can do is provide have won if she had won all the races she entered. There the starting line, the course, and the finish. At doing this was a minimum number of races she had to enter (usually it had excelled for three decades already, by the fifties. four) and, if she entered all the races in a Series, she could There were sixty-odd actively-raced one-design sailboats throw out the worst one. The idea was to give credit for and, especially in August, racing was intense. The Interna- their best sailing to those who couldn't be in the whole Se- tionals, A boats Luders, Mermaids and Bulls-eyes were ries, but at the same time to encourage those who could to flourishing, and seemed to provide the greatest good for stay in there and compete. The new system was accepted the greatest number. It was another halcyon time, com- by the Fleet membership and was used for two decades. It parable to the Eddison years before the war, but there gave a break to the people with two-week vacations. were built-in weaknesses in the Fleet structure, and not The annual success of the Fleet has been measured just the growing pains the sailing class was having or quantitatively as the grand total number of boats at the the shortness of summer vacations. The whole fleet was start of all the races in a season, which at first might seem wooden-no a bad thing if boats are kept up properly, somewhat of a bean-counting approach, but it is the only but the A class was forty years old and not all the boats one available. It does not measure the intensity of feeling were-considered sound. Three. or four times in the sum- that goes with a closely-contested race, the satisfaction of mer there were races around Bakers Island, but because winning or the chagrin of being beaten, the resolve to do of the Race Committee's apprehensions, the A's began to 100 IOI HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Toward the Choice of Fiberglass Mercuries be given inside courses instead. In the rest of the yachting modore in 1942, so even though the Secretary is elected world, fiberglass was replacing wood as the best material by the Executive Committee of which he was a member, to use to build a boat. Indestructible, easier to maintain, he had status a priori which seems to have been honored) no dry rot, holds paint better and holds its shape better. was the central figure in the Fleet and used his imagina- The Northeast Harbor Fleet hung onto its wonderful tion to make sailing as challenging and attractive as he wooden fleet of racing boats, but was quite conscious of could. One of his methods was to lead the I.C. class in just what was happening in other yachting centers, where new about all the races, both Series and special, establishing fleets of fiberglass one-designs were springing up. The the first real winning streak in that class. In 1953 he won Fleet, too, was about to have to do more than just pro- the Mallory Cup Semi-finals and represented Maine and vide racing courses and the Committee boat. It wouldn't Massachusetts in the finals at Larchmont on Long Island be right away, though. Sound. Another method he had tried to use the previous Stuart Janney was succeeded as Commodore by Hank year to stimulate sailing was to organize an interclub series Neilson when he returned from the service, and he by of Bulls-eye races, but it was aborted by bad weather and Bill Strawbridge, the same man who had served an abort- not repeated. During his tenure, a series of races for junior ed term in 1942 and a very prominent and well-known sailors was started for which Mr. and Mrs. Moorehead C. yachtsman who belonged to America's Cup syndicates. All Kennedy presented a cup in memory of their daughter, the three Commodores varied the Cruises and special races Peggy Kennedy Cup, for the Fleet Junior Championship. in an effort to sustain the members' interest and partici- In these ways the Fleet fought to sustain sailing activity pation from year to year. They varied the cost of racing, and its status quo. During the Fifties, sailing activity slowly trying flat fees for the season or for each Series, and in declined, but Fleet membership increased. From dues and other years charging by the race entered. They started a initiation fees, and from instruction fees, the Fleet broke 4th of July Series, split off from the regular July Series, even. Commodore Bill Strawbridge handed the reins to and this change has endured. Slowly, though, the total Bill Lippincott at the end of 1957, reporting a successful number of entries diminished. Ducey, who was both the season except for a steep decline in racing in the A class. Fleet Executive Secretary and a member of the Executive Not enough A boats qualified that year in either the July Committee (he had sat on that committee as Rear Com- or August Series to allow the awarding of Series trophies. IO2 103 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Toward the Choice of Fiberglass Mercuries Bill Strawbridge remained on the Executive Commit- Commodore, passed unreported in his Commodore's tee during Bill Lippincott's tenure as Commodore, and Report, but is confirmed in the List of Yachts in each sub- Stuart Janney, another ex-Commodore, Ned Madeira sequent year until 1964. The budget for each intervening (Ted's son and Rear Commodore), Hank Neilson (also year appears to show that the Fleet maintained the Sizzle ex-Commodore) and Jimmy Ducey, among others, also (and later, briefly, the Woozle, Bulls-eye #1) from its own sat on the Committee. Their problems, as always, were funds. The subsidy of the sailing class by private Bulls-eye how to keep up the Fleet activity, and how to cope with owners was thereby slightly decreased. It was not a last- the inexorable effects of age on the wooden boats. The ing solution to the problem of providing boats for junior records show an interesting item. Starting back in 1953, sailing, but it did establish a precedent for future action to Bullseye #6, the Sizzle, is listed as belonging to the North- that end. east Harbor Fleet. Before then her owner was E. Farnham hat-action occurred in 1958, the first year as Commo- Butler, and before 1950 she is listed as belonging to Mrs. dore of Bill Lippincott, whose Executive Committee, as John Van Pelt, a long-time Fleet member whose children we have seen, included Strawbridge, Janney, Neilson and were also active in Fleet affairs as sailing instructors and Ducey. They voted to acquire for the Fleet, according to by 1950 were graduates from the Bulls-eyes. (John, the Lippincott's Commodore's report, "a number (it was six) younger son, won the August Series in the Bullseye Class of Mercury Class sloops. This is an able, lively, thorough- in 1948 when there were ten competitors). Ownership ly tested fiberglas (sic) boat (15' LOA, 13'10" LWL) which passed from Van Pelt to Butler (who also owned Bullseye will supplement, but not replace, the Bulls-eye. There # 15 as well as two Mermaids). Why did the Fleet buy her is need for more boats for the ever-increasing number from Farnham in 1953? One presumes because they want- of young in our Junior program. It is felt that the Bulls- ed to be sure of having her available to the sailing classes. eye and the Mercuries will both benefit from the other. It was a pioneer transaction. Twelve years earlier, be- We believe that these new boats will add greatly to the fore the war, plans for sailing class provided for raising vitality of this program, and will provide excellent train- money by subscription to acquire three sloops, but the ing for the handling of larger boats later. Furthermore war aborted that plan. The purchase of the Sizzle, a wood- they will provide the opportunity for short-term charter, en boat, with Fleet funds in 1953, when Stuart Janney was a welcome service Purchase of these boats was made 104 105 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Toward the Choice of Fiberglass Mercuries I Fig. 29. The start of a practice race in Mercuries with an adult and a child in each boat. possible by a most heartening generosity on the part of several members who responded immediately to our ap- peal for funds. (So the general funds of the Fleet were not used for the purchase, but they were used for upkeep.) A second purpose for seeking those funds was to create a capital reserve to be used, as the Executive Committee deems appropriate, for purchase of boats of our one-de- sign classes which appear on the market for sale out of the Fleet, thereby weakening our sailing program and jeop- Fig. 30. The Mercury, the long-term (50-year) Northeast Harbor Fleet junior teaching and racing sailboat. The picture above shows ardizing the Fleet's future." This was a bold and definitive two people, a child and an adult, sailing their boat close-hauled on the step (it cost about $15,000) by a group of men who had all starboard tack. We can't see whose hand is on the tiller. The boat has a keel, is stable and will hold three or four small people, but children contemplated the Fleet's problems for several years, knew learn best when one-on-one with the teacher. 106 107 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET THIRTEEN the possibilities that were available, and voted to embrace the permanent upkeep problems of a class of fiberglass boat (thought to be minimal) as an institution, in order to run a decent and self-supporting sailing school. Their decision had beneficial short-term and long-term effects. MORC's, The new boats were used right away the next year (twelve Solings, and J-24's participated in the August Series, six of which had been bought privately by Fleet members) and the Fleet later ac- quired two more boats for sailing class use. The precedent had been set. The Fleet could buy and sell boats on its own account, if it thought that was the way to grow. It put the Fleet in the yacht brokerage business, if only in a lim- Activity in the Mercury Class started in 1958, and was ited way, and it handed over to the Fleet the responsibility intense in the early years after it was started, as it had been for choosing what boats were going to be raced, which was in the Luders when they were introduced. In addition to a step beyond what Eddison had done in 1938 when he the six Fleet-owned Mercuries, there were eight privately- found fourteen private owners for the Internationals. The owned Mercuries, and by 1965 the Fleet had acquired two Fleet was to use that power to deal not only with the Mer- more. It was the start of the fiberglass age at Northeast, cury class but with Solings and 420's in later decades. It all and in fact all subsequently-introduced classes have been began with the Sizzle, a beautiful little black Bulls-eye. built of fiberglass. The winds of change blew for the older wooden classes. No B boats or Thirty-squares had raced since the war. The A's, which had numbered nearly fifty in their prime, were still much admired for their classic beauty, but their total number was only twelve by 1962, and in their last years too few of them raced in series for their class winners to be given trophies. The rule was that three boats had to compete in at least four races in a series 108 109 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET MORC's, Solings, and J-24's for the winner to rate a trophy. Only in special regattas off the wind) to another buoy or racing mark which is like those over the Fourth of July or Labor Day would the rounded with a jibe, a broad reach on the other tack back A's come out and race; but then another thing happened to the starting mark, another beat to the windward mark, which for them was probably the coup de grâce. and a run dead before the wind back to the start, followed "Next summer will see a major change in the races if necessary (to make the race long enough) by another at Northeast Harbor," wrote Edward McC. Blair in his beat to windward, finishing at the windward mark. What Commodore's report in 1964. "After much thought the could be fairer? It tests the ability of the skipper and Fleet officers and members of the Race Committee have crew on every point of sailing and on how they change decided to change the starting line in the interest of im- the boat's direction from one leg of the race to the next. proving the racing. We plan to abandon the triangular Yes, and the better they can set, jibe, and take down the line and move to the middle of the bay towards the West- spinnaker, the better they are apt to finish. The set comes ern Way, where we can lay out courses so that each will at the windward mark, the jibe at the second mark, and have a windward start, and every start and finish will be the take-down at the leeward. With the modern mar- at a line perpendicular to the course." This was done, with coni-rigged racing sloop, the spinnaker has the shape of the creation of Mark A, a flag anchored southwest of the an isosceles triangle, cut full SO it will balloon out in the western point of Suttons Island, to be the start (and usu- wind. It takes little time to jibe the sail across the boat. ally the finish) of the races. It was a change that has lasted The spinnaker pole, one end of which is attached to the four decades. The Committee boat can be anchored accu- windward corner or tack of the sail, and the other to the rately for each start and finish so that neither end of the mast, is detached from the tack and from its attachment line is favored. It made the racing fairer, yes, but there was to the mast, and passed across the boat and attached to more. The experts of the day embraced the so-called Gold the clew, with the end that was attached to the sail now Cup Course as the ideal test of racing skill. This calls for attached to the mast. It is a simple thing, once learned. a windward start (the closer to directly against the wind It allows jibing at will, both at marks and when a wind the better, so that neither end of the starting line is closer change makes it necessary. In fact, on a straight down- to the windward mark), and a beat to windward for the wind course, the prevailing school of thought holds that a first leg of the race, then a spinnaker reach (obliquely boat goes faster if it is sailed to the right or left of directly IIO III HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET MORC's, Solings, and J-24's toward the down-wind mark, since they think a broad The Gold Cup course idea cannot have been popular reach is so much faster than a straight run that it is better with Class A. to jibe back and forth, even though the distance traveled "The new starting line was the major innovation and is of course longer. This is the practice, for instance, in apparently was a major improvement over the old one. It America's cup races. Boats will be jibed several times in permits invariably a windward start and several interest- the course of a down-wind leg in a Gold Cup Course. ing new courses where the old patterns did not necessarily (With each take-down there is the risk of dropping the work and ingenuity and innovation often paid off." wrote bottom part of the spinnaker overboard, and of having Blair in his report on the summer of 1965. Only four it act as a sea anchor which will effectively slow forward A's competed that year in their last August series; none motion of the boat. One must not let that happen, and qualified. Five raced in the Labor Day series, won by Dr. must get the jib hauled up and trimmed in smartly at the Edward Babcock in Farnham Butler's old boat, Whistler, turn upwind from the leeward mark.) #15. A class boats were listed in the back of the annual Jibing the spinnaker on an A boat was much more yearbooks for a few more years, but not in the races. It difficult. The sail was cut with a short leading edge (the may not have been the Gold Cup courses that knocked luff) and a much longer after edge (the leech) and to jibe out the class, but the timing is suspicious. the sail you had to change the leech of the sail from one Another fleet tradition eliminated by the adoption of side of the boat to the other. The pole was much longer triangular courses was around-Bakers-Island courses. To a and heavier than in the newer boats and to jibe you took member of a generation trained to get out where the open it off the mast and laid it on deck, reversed the spinnaker horizon is the Gulf of Maine and to dream of what might sheet and guy ropes from one side to the other (there was lie below that horizon, that seems a loss. The leg of the usually a swivel where the halliard attached to the head course between the Long Ledge bell buoy and the Bakers of the sail so the sail didn't get twisted), and then re-at- Island Whistle Buoy combined, for the imaginative sailor, tached the pole to the sail and the mast. It was a big and the thrill of the boat-race with thoughts, looking out to complicated job and, when racing, not a simple matter sea, of a cruise over to Cape Sable (though probably not in to get it done faster than the competition, even after you a knockabour one-design!). When you look north toward learned it. Jibing down-wind was not lightly undertaken. land from out there, the view of Mount Desert Island be- 112 113 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET MORC's, Solings, and J-24's tween Great Cranberry and Bakers is dazzlingly beautiful the Atlantic to prove their sea-worthiness and help justify and makes it more than worth the trip. the class name. In California, fiberglass boats were built Other opportunities to get out of the Western and to be included in the class and were known as Cal 25's, or Eastern Way were also abandoned. The Fleet no longer if slightly larger, Cal 28's. Five Cal 25S and one Cal 28 ap- participated in either the Southwest Harbor or Seal Har- peared in the Fourth of July Regatta in 1968. The winner bor Regattas after 1962. Neither Black Island near Gotts was John W. Butler, son of Farnham and Gladys, who was Island nor the Schoodic Whistler were again to see the running the Butler boatyard at Sea Street in Northeast. sails of the Fleet, unless one or another of the Cruises He also won the August Series that year, winning every brought them there. (Black Island did remain as a feature one of the six races there were, with a percentage of per- of August Cruises on the way back from Blue Hill Bay). fection of 1.000. Unfortunately there was only one other The Long Ledge Bell Buoy itself, old Mark F, was forgot- boat in the class of six that came out in all the races; two ten as a mark for series races. Perhaps it will be revived if others'appeared in four races but are listed as DNQ (did the current (third millennium) vogue for windward-lee- not qualify) in the records so, in spite of John's amazing ward courses persists. A windward leg all the way to Long performance, it is not clear that he was given a trophy. The Ledge offers many chances to break free from the leading MORC class appealed to people who live year-round at boat's cover, and one can play both the wind and current or near Mount Desert, but they couldn't race on Tuesday both coming and going. unless they happened to be on vacation. It also appealed These changes, the new starting line, triangular courses to those who liked to cruise, and five Cal boats went on all in the bay, and the fiberglass Mercuries were all intro- the August Cruise in 1968 in Cruising Division B. (There duced in an effort to keep as many people as possible out were thirty-six entries in the Cruising Class on that cruise, there racing. The next new thing was the Midget Ocean and sixteen in the one-design classes.) Racing Class, the so-called MORC's. In England, small Another fiberglass addition to the Fleet was a class cruiser-racer boats, under 30 feet overall, were designed of 420 dinghies. Three of these raced in the August Se- by Laurent Giles and sailed by Patrick Ellam. Maid of ries in 1968. In a blow, these boats are a whole order of Malham, Myth of Malham and Sopranino were three of magnitude faster than the rest of the Fleet because they his first; the last-named was a 26-footer which crossed can plane, that is, pass lightly over the surface of the water 114 115 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET MORC's, Solings, and J-24's instead of sitting down in it and forcing it aside as they pass. What an appeal to youngsters! Dr. Kaighn Smith, Rear Commodore of the Fleet in 1968, agile and young at heart, won all three races that were held for the class in August that year, then passed the tiller to Kaighn Jr., who won both races in the Labor Day Regatta. Charles Ill, Jr., whose father later headed the Cruising Club of America, and J.A. Harris V, whose father was out there trying to beat John Butler in the Cal 25's, also competed. The din- ghies are fifteen feet long and very low to the water, with a mast twenty feet tall and enough sail area to make them US 241 fly, but they are tender and in strong winds require a tra- J peze in which the crew rides suspended from the mast, his weight out over the water to windward, to prevent them from capsizing. Black rubber wet suits are needed because Maine water is cold, and there is always the risk of capsize. The class did not catch on in the nineteen-sixties, despite the demonstration of their sportiness, but their time was to come later. Fiberglass racing sailboats were being designed and built in many places in the world in the nineteen-sixties. The Fleet was conscious of the passing of the wooden A boats, and expected the Internationals, too, to phase out in Fig. 31. The Soling, 1972-1982. A beautiful boat. favor of a new class. There were fewer I.C.'s on the line each year, although they managed to qualify every year in every replace them was the Soling, a rugged and handsome 28- Series and regatta. The new class that was introduced to foot boat which could be raced with a crew of three. Using 116 II7 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET MORC's, Solings, and J-24's its prerogative, the Fleet spent its own funds to acquire she and Polly McIlhenny towed them up there and John three of these boats, intending to have them sold to its Butler taught Keith Walls and Chris Zamore, sailing in- members who, appreciating their speed and beauty and structors, how to file down the rudder shafts. It worked, realizing that Fleet sponsorship was important in estab- the Adams Cup ladies sailed the regatta without a hitch in lishing any new class of boat, would readily buy them from the brand new boats, and the Fleet looked good, but only the Fleet. The plan worked, but not as quickly as hoped. because its Executive Secretary was able to coordinate the The Fleet bore the cost of storage and upkeep of some of activities of Fleet employees, volunteers and professionals the boats for awhile, but they were all sold to members in to meet an emergency. four years. The Fleet used part of its Boat fund to buy the three The year the Solings were acquired (1972) happened Solings that helped get the new class started, and nine to be one when Northeast Harbor was selected by the na- other boats were bought by Fleet members. They quali- tional yacht racing authority (then North American Yacht fied in every Regatta and series their first year (1972), an Racing Union, now US Sailing) to be the site of Adams auspicious start. The Soling was fast, well rigged, and up- Cup races, the women's New England championship to-date. Her only problem is a tendency to splash water competition, and it was decided to sail them in Solings. on her crew, which made the Ill family christen their Sol- The new boats were stored at Bass Harbor Boat, wrapped ing #557 Assawash, a name which Assistant Treasurer Phil in black plastic covers. The covers were removed, masts Caughey never could get himself to say out loud. For him, installed, and boats launched and rigged just before the her name was Abem! He edited and published the Fleet regatta, but it was found they couldn't be steered. The rud- yearbooks. The Solings were listed only by number in the ders were immovable. The ladies were coming next day! A List of Yachts for the years 72 and' and who knows why long-distance call to the Canadian builders resulted in the unless Phil didn't want to record #557's name. Finally in advice to have the rudders removed, and their rudder- 74 he printed it with all the other names that were given shafts ground down where they fitted in their gudgeons. to Solings. (For some reason only about half of them were The Executive Secretary, Constance Bradley Madeira, got named, the rest are listed by their numbers) There was John Butler to agree to haul out the boats on the ways at spirited competition in the class, with young skippers, his yard at Somesville (there were no Travel-lifts then), so both summer people and Northeast Harbor local stars. 118 119 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET MORC's, Solings, and J-24's In 1980 the August Series was won by Thomas T. Brown In 1979, reported Commodore Redmond S. Finney of Northeast in #557, and the Davenport Hayward race by in the 1980 Yearbook, "The MORC class has experienced Lewis Moore in Souling. (Brown has since been a Paralym- a most significant rebirth with the keen interest which pic medal-winner in the single-handed 2.4 Meter class, has developed in the J-24. It is quite probable that the and is still competing, hoping for a gold medal. His sail- J-24 class will have official and regular Fleet status by this ing career started when he raced in the Mercury class with coming summer." In fact, the records show that the new Polly McIlhenny. Moore later went on to the J-24 class, boats were classified as MORC's the next summer, and which he dominated.) Abbott Reeve, a young Harvard that they completely dominated that class. The only quali- Sailing Team member, won the Soling August Series in fiers in the class were all J-24's. What is a J-24? A very 1976 and 1977, and tied for first place with Brown in 1978. fast, light, fiberglass sloop designed, built and sold by the n'79, Brown beat Moore and Reeve in a series in which Johnstone brothers of Newport, Rhode Island, the out- seven boats qualified, and there were five more boats which standing Eastern yacht producers in the U.S over the past didn't enter enough races to qualify. In 1980, six Solings thirty years. Twenty-four feet over all in length, not much entered the Single-handed Race. The winner was Tom less on the waterline, they sit on the water like a duck, and Brown, and he finished third the next year, remarkable slide over it like a racing shell when under way. The deck is achievements for a Paralympian. The class qualified in the flat, with a negligible cockpit, so that crew members have August Series in 1982 with seven boats (and another three to squat or sit on their heels during the race; but the boat which didn't qualify) and seemed very strong. However, in is modern, well rigged, and fun for an enthusiastic young 1983 only two boats qualified for the July Series and none crew to sail. The August Series in 1980 attracted six of did for the August Series. In 1984, five boats came out for the new boats (none owned by the fleet!) and five sailed at least one race in the August series, but the class did not enough races to qualify. The winner was Alan McIlhenny, qualify, and their official competition in the Fleet was over. Jr., in Owaissa. The Fleet had gone to a low-point scoring A shame. The boats were still as good as ever, but their system which gives points according to the order of finish, young skippers were growing up and taking on new re- except for the winner who gets 3/4 of a point. Owaissa sponsibilities in life, so they didn't have the time to give to sailed in eight races and won the series with seven points. racing. They had had a decade of excellent competition. She won four races (three points), came in second twice 120 I2I HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET MORC's, Solings, and J-24's yet to Owaissa it was nothing new. The year before she had won the eight-race series with 5 3/4 points! So it is record- ed. There were only two other qualifying boats that year, so her accomplishment in 1980 seems more of an achieve- ment, as well as more understandable mathematically. In 1981 she got 8 1/4 points in seven races. The next year, 1982, the class was suddenly much more active, and nine boats 822 qualified in the August Series, with four more competing in up to four races. Owaissa finished fourth. She had at- tracted strong competition. Esprit de Lune finished third, sailed by Lewis E. Moore, who had transferred from the Soling class. Moore won the Davvy Hayward cup in Esprit de Lune. E.L. Barclay in Surfer won the August Series in the J's in 1982. He and Lewis Moore won the Davvy Hay- ward Cup in 1981 in Surfer. There were seventeen J-24's listed in the List of Yachts in 1982. They were more active than the Solings, and they were ideal small cruising boats. Nine of them competed on the 1982 August Cruise. The class made a great contribution to the Fleet. They won the Fig. 32. A J -24: a light, modern "Mini-Ocean Racing Cruiser" shaped Davvy Hayward Race in '84, 85 and '89. Into the nineties like a sailing dinghy, designed to ride over the waves, and very fast. Class rules require carrying an outboard motor at all times. they sailed; in the August Series of 1995 there were seven J-24's. William Welles won in Lazy Lightning. It was their last year. In 1996 there were sixteen J's on the Fleet roster, (four points) and who knows how she finished the eighth but none qualified, nor have they since. race; with eight races she had one throw-away which counted for zero. This would be noteworthy in itself, and 122 123 FOURTEEN Internationals á la Ducey, Wibby, and Rockefeller war years, but nine boats qualified in 44 and eleven did in 45; in the 45 series he won every race! He didn't compete in 46 because he was working in Bar Harbor, but in 47 he came in second, in 48 and 49 he won, in 50 he was sec- Internationals á la Ducey, ond, and he won each year from's 5I to 54. In'55 he won the Wibby, and Rockefeller July Series but did not enter the August Series for reasons that aren't recorded. He won again in 56 and must have seemed invincible, as he had won the Series nine times in eleven tries and had come in second in the other two. In 1957, though, Neddy Madeira beat him by .47 percentage All of perfection points. In 1958 Ducey won the August Series International One-design sailors are philosophers. for the last time. His record therefore was that in thirteen They can take so much pleasure just being out sailing their attempts he had won the Series ten times and come in boats that winning can seem irrelevant, but if they do win, second the other three. I have left out the many times he of course the pleasure is enormous. Competition is close, won the July Series, and the July and August Cruises, to and it is the nature of one-design sailing in any class that make comparison with other records easier. Ducey kept the competition can be as close between boats next to each the class going by winning. Ten boats qualified in his last other in the race as it is between the winner and the boat Series. Ten years later the class qualified only four boats, coming in second. This may be what keeps people coming and it appeared the handwriting was on the wall for the out to race even when they seldom win. Three skippers in class, which after all had lasted thirty years. The class just the history of the Northeast Harbor Fleet have won so wasn't the same without Jimmy, who died the winter after often they deserve special mention. his last victorious August. James G. Ducey, a young Rear Commodore when the Ducey won in a boat he called the Santee, International war started in 1941, was willing to be Fleet Executive Sec- #3, but there is reason to believe her original number may retary as long as he was allowed to race, as we have seen. have been #10. Be that as it may, the boat was inherited He won the August Series in 1944 and 1945, admittedly by Ducey's brother John, who sold her in 1971 to Wayne 124 125 O HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Internationals á la Ducey, Wibby, and Rockefeller W. Wibby. In 1973 Wibby won the August Series in her. Madeira brothers in Auriga #2 grew intense. Wibby Seven boats qualified. In 74 and 75 Wibby was second changed his boat's name three times, from Santee to Sjoskal and in '76 was fourth. In the years 77 to '81 he won each to The Sting to Seabawk, but it caused him no bad luck. year, and the competition got tougher each year, so that by At an annual Fleet meeting, where prizes are awarded, 1981 there were thirteen boats that raced seven races in the I stepped up to give him a prize in addition to the large Series. In '82 Wibby tied for first with the Madeira's All- silver cup, the Taormina Cup, which goes to the August riga, and in the years '83-85 he won outright. In '86 he was Series winner. I gave him a CARE package containing ear- fourth. So in fourteen attempts between 1973 and 1986 he plugs for his crew, to protect their ears from damage from won outright nine times, tied for first once, and got two so many winning guns; a pack of cards to keep them from second-place Series finishes and two fourths. In '86 nine- getting bored by winning so much; and a pot of paint to teen boats qualified for the Series. Wibby had kept the paint on whatever name he was going to call his boat the class growing by winning. It should be added that neither next year. After that, her name remained the Seabawk and Ducey nor Wibby won because the boat was faster. Other she kept on winning, and the class kept on growing. One skippers have raced her without the same results. thing other than the boat which Wibby shared with Du- The slump in numbers of Internationals in the years cey was a member of his crew, George Frazier Peckham, between Ducey and Wibby coincided with reduced num- Jr., of Northeast Harbor, who sailed as a boy with Ducey bers of A boats and Luders, and a general decline in interest and must have learned everything Jimmy had to teach him. in the Fleet. Wibby's advent coincided with the introduc- One presumes Wibby recruited him with knowledge afore- tion of the Solings. In 1980, when he was enjoying his thought, hoping he had remembered what he had learned hottest streak, the J-24's arrived. Nothing seemed to make twenty years before. Wibby, judging by his record, learned a difference in the linear growth the I.C. class enjoyed on when to accept Peckham's counsel. Racing tactics are an the water. For them, the handwriting seemed to disappear art as much as a science, especially on the Fleet racecourse. from the wall in 1975 when five boats qualified, Garry Ma- It is rare for someone to enjoy the experience of belonging deira beat Wayne in August, and eight boats competed to a winning crew over a decade of winning. For it to hap- in the Labor Day Series, won by David Rockefeller, Jr., pen to someone twice in a lifetime, as it did to Peckham, is in #14 Sitar. Competition between Wibby in #3 and the extraordinary indeed and bespeaks rare talent. 126 127 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Internationals á la Ducey, Wibby, and Rockefeller vived it when he went to Scotland in 1978 and sent home accounts of his adventures; this brought Northeast Har- bor back onto the list of Fleets participating in the Worlds and seems to have enhanced the thrill of owning an Inter- national. We can't say that it was cause and effect, but it is a fact that 1982, the first year the Worlds were actually held at Northeast, saw a fifty percent increase in the num- ber of Internationals on the list of yachts owned by Fleet members: from twelve to eighteen. There is much more to the Worlds than several very-well-run boat-races. (The races are now fleet races, not team or match races). The visiting competitors have to be housed and entertained, Fig. 33. Internationals racing at Northeast in the early Nineties. Four- their standings in the series corrected for throw-outs and teen are shown at a start. Remarkable for a class that was supposed to die in the seventies. recorded meticulously so they can plan their racing strate- gies, since they race twice a day for three or four days and Racing classes are organized at a national or interna- rotate boats, never racing the same boat twice and, .in the tional level as well as locally. The International Class has case of home fleet sailors, never sailing their own boats. fleets on Long Island, at Marblehead, and San Francisco, Much planning is required, the whole community gets and in Bermuda, the Clyde River in Scotland, Norway, into the effort, and the excitement is intense. A Northeast Sweden, and now at Fishers Island and Nantucket. Crews sailor has never won the Worlds championship, either at compete locally each year for the privilege of competing in home or away, but we have slowly improved over the last what is called the Worlds Championship. Northeast Har- twenty-odd years, in three of which (1982, 1988, and 2003) bor was host to a similar event in 1946, when team races the Worlds have been held at Northeast. The present list were held with Long Island and Marblehead (Long Island of Internationals at Northeast numbers twenty-eight won, Northeast was second). At Northeast, interest in the boats, two less than the peak of thirty which was reached Worlds languished for thirty years, but Wayne Wibby re- in 1990, but the largest in the world nonetheless. Recent 128 129 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Internationals á la Ducey, Wibby, and Rockefeller August Series winning skippers include Jock Carruthers (1988-89, 1990-92) and David Rockefeller, Jr. (1993, 1995- 2004). Rockefeller, Commodore for two of the years he was series winner, seems invincible and is building a re- cord with #5 Tundra which is surpassing both Ducey and Wibby. He faces more boats than Ducey did, and probably fiercer competition than Wibby. It is likely that techniques and skills improve collectively with experience, SO that this generation is probably sailing faster than ever even though they are in the same boats as their predecessors. Older boats are holding up well, and the newer fiberglass hulls have not SO far demonstrated any convincing superiority Fig. 34. Seabawk, a white I.C. #3 with Wayne Wibby at the tiller in over them. Apparently it is the skill of the skippers and a singlehanded race in the Eighties. She is on the port tack and has crews which still determines the order of finish. At North- arrived at the windward mark, which she must leave to port. Firefly, a boat on starboard tack is approaching the mark also, and it looks in east Harbor the practice of rotating boats between crews the picture as if the boats will collide. You can see the hat on the man has not yet been adopted. In contrast, Nantucket has a at the tiller of the starboard tack boat, which wouldn't be visible if the picture had been taken one second later. Your author is the man new fleet of ten brand-new Internationals which skippers in the hat. The telephoto lens makes the boats look much closer than own in common, rotating boats among them from race to they actually were. Wayne was able to tack without fouling Firefly; he race to ensure fairness. made the job easier for himself by easing his jib before putting down his helm. A great action shot by Ed Elvidge. 130 I3I FIFTEEN "Il Duce" Commodore (elected at age twenty-two, the youngest Flag Officer ever) to Fleet Secretary. He kept them up until age thirty-eight, and died the next year of heart failure sec- ondary to the distortion of his thorax by polio. Northeast "Il Duce" Harbor may not have known it, but his doctor was Paul Dudley White of Boston, who also helped with the care of Dwight D. Eisenhower's heart attack when he was presi- dent, and wrote the first great book on heart disease. We have also seen how Ducey served twelve years as Fleet Secretary, during the tenure of five Commodores. To get three or four people in an International one-design Acute anterior poliomyelitis, or "polio," attacks and sloop to do what they should do during a race so they win kills the centers in the human spinal cord which operate the race may have been just the training he needed to get the major muscles in the trunk and extremities. With the the whole Fleet membership to do right and to flourish. widespread distribution of effective vaccines (Sabin and Maybe he was a naturally successful leader. In any case, he Salk), the disease disappeared from the western world earned himself the nick-name "Il Duce" after Benito Mus- about 1960. Earlier, it was a scourge of summers, infecting solini of Italy. It was mostly an affectionate moniker, not children especially in cities. James G. Ducey was stricken a pejorative one. Everyone recognized his enormous en- at an early age and ended up as a shrunken, twisted person thusiasm for sailing, and his competitors in the I.C. class with pipestem arms and legs but with absolutely no dam- went out there to try to beat him if they could, but also age to his great brain. The result was a small man with a to provide him with the competition they subconsciously big smile and a super-sharp wit. He also had a wonderful knew he needed. education (St. Georges and Harvard) and a great spirit of How Ducey got his first crews together to race an I.C. competitiveness. is not-recorded. He had to have people who knew the ropes. We have seen how he started his winning ways on the A lovely story is told by Mike Crofoot about a race in I.C.'s race-course in 1944 when he had changed from being Rear around Bakers Island. He, Mike, was lucky enough to lead 132 133 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET "Il Duce" Ducey at the end of the beat out the Western Way in a light reported, "Jimmy is setting his spinnaker!" "Okay, let's get southerly wind. They rounded the Long Ledge Bell and ours up!" A man went forward on Crofoot's boat and his had a starboard tack reach to the Bakers Island Whistle, crew hoisted their spinnaker, but couldn't get it to fill, and with the wind just about on the beam (coming at ninety as they struggled with it they saw that Jimmy had indeed degrees from the right). The question was whether to set hauled up his spinnaker, but had never nodded to his crew the spinnaker, a sail designed for running before the wind to break it out; instead he had it taken down again and aced but which might make a positive difference on this leg of past them as their spinnaker slowed them down. Mike told the race. Crofoot wasn't sure what to do. He told his crew the story on himself with chagrin, but with admiration for to watch Ducey and that they would do whatever Jimmy Jimmy's imagination in dreaming up what amounted to a did. Putting up a spinnaker requires sending a man forward feint to pass his opponent. A man without muscles of his to attach the boom to the sail, the halliard, sheet and guy own must learn how to get his competitors to err. ropes to their appropriate corners of the sail, and to pull the Thinking up a stunt like the one Mike Crofoot de- sail up the mast so it will break out and fill with wind. The scribes may win one race, but to win series of races year weight of the man forward slows the boat, and if anything after year the way Jimmy did took skill, perseverance and goes wrong with the operation, or if the wind really isn't far stamina, and a rare charm to win in such a way as not to enough aft to make the sail fill, then the sail will luff (fill in turn off the people he beat. Twelve boats raced in the 1947 the wrong direction) and act like a wind brake instead of a August Series, and thirteen raced in his last year, 1958. In motor. Today, the sail is packed into an on-deck bag called addition to his busy racing schedule, Jimmy ran the Fleet a turtle, and, when it is hoisted, flies full from the grasp of each year as Executive Secretary, serving under five Com- the turtle's rubber throat. In Ducey's day, the sail was rolled modores. He knew how to delegate duties to the rest of up on itself and tied with "rotten cotton" stops. After be- the Fleet staff, which included the able Assistant Trea- ing hoisted, it hung straight and lifeless until it was broken surer, Phil Caughey, well experienced in Fleet matters and out from the stops by the spinnaker man at a nod from the learning every year. skipper. After Crofoot rounded the Long Ledge Bell, he Jimmy loved the August Cruise, and people in the In- told his crew to get mentally ready to set but not to act until ternational Class loved to race against him on the Cruise. they saw what was happening on Santee. Pretty soon they Burnt Coat Harbor on the outer coast of Swans Island I34 135 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET "Il Duce" was a popular destination, but the approach to it could be a trying experience on a fluky afternoon with many calm spots and strong head currents. "Don't give up-re- member, the westerly will fill in" was Jimmy's advice, and it seemed that he was always the one in the right place to pick it up first when it did. On Jimmy's last cruise there was a gale of wind in Blue Hill Bay and Santee was dis- masted. She missed the last August Series race but won the series anyway with a percentage of perfection of .967. Ducey died the next April at the age of thirty-nine. The whole Fleet mourned. "The Executive Committee records with deep sorrow the death of James G. Ducey, devoted, imaginative and tireless Secretary of the Fleet from 1943 to 1945 and from 1950 to 1959; Corinthian all his life, teacher and inspiration to the young." This resolu- tion was spread on the minutes of the spring meeting of the Committee. In September they established the James G. Ducey Memorial Fund, "the annual income from which will be used for a purpose determined by the Executive Committee in consultation with the Ducey family, keep- ing in mind the primary needs of the Fleet and the past interests of James G. Ducey," wrote Bill Lippincott in his Fig. 35. From a photo of Jimmy, the artist Dwight Shepler painted a portrait of Jimmy in the cockpit of Santee, which hangs to the right of Commodore's Report for 1959. Jimmy's great interest was the fireplace at Fleet headquarters. He looks jaunty but small, which is taken to be sailing education, and money has been taken exactly true to life. His was a very large spirit in a very small package. from the Ducey Fund in support of Sailing Class from time to time, but the Fund has been well conserved. It amounted to $40,000 in 2002. 136 I37 SIXTEEN Phil while Arnold Lunt was on the Sparrow, the Committee delegated that job to him; Phil was his assistant. Because Jimmy Ducey, the Executive Secretary when Arnold was Phil in the military, raced Santee, the Committee had the sailing instructors run the Committee Boat, with Phil assisting. This put a man on the Committee boat who had more experience than the ones in charge of him. You can be sure Phil did everything he could to keep them out of trouble. He was a natural mentor. He worked with successive Sail- ing Instructors year after year, providing the continuity A gentleman born in 1902 was brought into contact and experience which made their job easier. Phil was a graduate of Bowdoin College in 1923, and with the Fleet in 1932 by Arnold Lunt. They both taught had a wide vocabulary which he used but sparingly. We at the same school in Bedford, Massachusetts. Philip have seen his reluctance to mention the name of the Ills' Caughey was self-effacing but observant, and above all a Soling, the Assawash: he preferred to call her the Abem. diplomat. He got the job of keeping the Fleet's books and the title of Assistant Treasurer. (The Treasurer was a Flag On one occasion he watched the great ketch Ticonderoga Officer and therefore a volunteer. Phil got a salary.) When hit a ledge in the Western Way and pile right up on it. Arnold went into Service in 1942, Phil was Fleet Secre- His response was, "Oh, my!" Another time my wife fell on a rock on her buttocks and had a painful bruise. In- tary for a year until he himself got drafted, but when he came back it was again as Assistant Treasurer. His duties quiring how she was doing, Phil asked her, "How's your Um-umh?" extended far beyond book-keeping. At the start of each He told a story on himself and Arnold which illus- race he had to list the boats in each class and, at the fin- trates their ability to improvise. On a windy day the paper ish, the order of finish and their elapsed times. The Race records of a race blew overboard on the way home after Committee was theoretically responsible for selecting the the finish. Imagine their consternation. They were left courses to be sailed by each class. My impression was that, with only their memories of how the boats in each class 138 139 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Phil had finished. They wrote these down quickly; the first, second and last finishers were fairly easy, but they couldn't remember the whole Fleet. Arnold wouldn't admit to the accident. He and Phil accosted the various skippers and crews as they saw them after the race, asking "How was your race today?" When there was a pause, if the person hadn't already mentioned how he or she came in, Arnold or Phil would say "Let's see, you came just before so-and- so, didn't you?" They pieced together the results of these conversations to form what became the official Fleet Re- Fig. 36. Phil Caughey at Fleet headquarters. sults. According to Phil, they got away with it. No one was the wiser. so he really had a continuous Fleet experience longer and Phil spent most of his career in the Fleet office keeping more intense than anyone else in Fleet history. The Fleet the figures and records straight. He developed an elaborate flourished from decade to decade, at least partly because system of file cards and could answer any question about he did his job so well. Since Phil really liked his people, he finances, Fleet membership, or exactly how anyone in the flourished with the Fleet and contentedly watched it grow. Fleet or community was related to anyone else. Since his He amassed enormous amounts of data on the financ- period of service extended from the early thirties to 1988, es, boats, personnel and history of the Fleet for purposes he was dealing with the grandchildren of his early custom- of the Annual Reports, Executive Committee meetings, ers by the time he was finished, so he already knew their Race Committee meetings or just for interested parties. If genetics as he got to know them personally. He served un- you wanted to know something Fleet-related, you asked der twelve Fleet Treasurers and eighteen Commodores. In Phil. Every Commodore, in annual reports from the fifties the forties, the Fleet yearbooks were published by the Sec- onward, expressed his gratitude to Phil for his organiz- retary from information supplied and organized by Phil, ing ability. He kept to his file-card system, which began to but from the fifties on, he published them each year until amuse Treasurers who were becoming computer-literate. 1987. That meant he was working for the Fleet year-round, They thought him archaic. However, about six years after 140 141 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Phil his retirement, the Commodore reported that financial record-keeping had been poor since Phil had retired, and the Fleet revenues suffered as a result. A special commit- tee had to be appointed to set things in order. Family connections among Northeast summer people can be complicated and even byzantine, because of mul- tiple marriages and divorces. Phil could explain them to new Fleet staff each year. Every couple of years, the key position of Fleet Executive Secretary would be filled by someone new, and Phil was able to give the background for any transactions that might arise. The Assistant Trea- surer was a constant in Fleet affairs for half a century, the benign eminence grise of the Fleet for three generations. After he retired from the Fleet in 1988, he took up track. That's right, running on the track, his new hobby. He had Fig. 37+ The PhilipMarkham Caughey doing her job of transporting a good time doing it and competed successfully in his age the sailing class. group (octogenarians) for quite a few years before his death on December 20, 1999. The Fleet acquired a large and efficient launch used every day to take people from the Fleet float to their moored yachts. She is the Philip Markham Caughey. Phil would be proud of her. 142 143 O SEVENTEEN Commodores, Committees, and Consanguinity Ted Madeira (1925-1927) married a young war widow and, even though he was successful as a Commodore, she wouldn't let him continue longer than three years. Hayward, Commodores, Consanguinity, Eddison, Rawle, Strawbridge and Cromwell had no other Commodores in their families as far as I know, so we can and Committees surmise they were chosen on their merits. The same can be said of Lippincott, Blair, Smith, Finney and Wibby; also of Gray, Chace and Lash. So thirteen of twenty-eight Commo- dores weren't related to each other or to other flag officers, leaving a narrow majority of Commodores who were. The Take a summer resort whose popularity brings the same genealogical charts explain most of the connections and, in addition, the Commodores with connections not explained families back decade after decade. Add a sport, like sailing, which families participate in together. There is going to be socializing between the families, and any biologist will tell Notes about some interlocking Genealogies (Figs. 32-35): you there will be intermarriage between the families. It's Flag Officers are shown in red; names appearing in a fact of life. more than one chart are blue. Looking over the lists of Commodores and other E.W. Clark, Lewis Neilson, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., flag officers of the Fleet (pages 167-175), we see Madei- and Francis McIlhenny were each ancestors of more ras, Neilsens, McIllhennys and Rockefellers. It is easy to than one Fleet Flag Officer. see how the Commodores with the same names are prob- There were many siblings in these families who liked ably from the same families. (They are.) Less apparent is to sail but never became Flag officers and hence are the fact that the families are connected to each other by not listed. intermarriage. These connections are described in the ge- Marian Van Pelt is listed because she was Chair of nealogical charts on pages 146-149. People whose names the Race Committee in 1943 and wrote the report appear in blue on those charts are relatives of more than of Fleet activities for the Vice Commodore. one family of Commodores. 144 145 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Commodores, Committees, and Consanguinity INTERLOCKING INTERLOCKING FLEET GENEALOGY CHART #I FLEET GENEALOGY CHART #2 FIG. 37 FIG. 38 Edward W. Clark (see Genealogy #4) Isaac Roberts John D. Rockefeller Jr. Percy Clark Marion Clark Lewis Neilson m Bessie Roberts m Louis Madeira m Clara Rosengarten (see Genealogy #2) Bessie Bayard David Rockefeller (see Genealogy #1) Mary Todhunter Clark m Nelson Rockefeller Bayard Jr. m Louise Mcllhenny Ted (see Genealogy #3) Crawford m Sarah Madeira Harry Neilson Madeira Neilson m Alberta Reath Ned Madeira Harry Hank (Ted Jr.) Benjie Sydney m David Rockefeller Jr. Harry Jr. Callie (Garry) m Henry Brauer KEY: KEY: Red - Flag Officers Red - Flag Officers Blue - In more than one Blue - In more than one genealogy chart genealogy chart 146 147 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Commodores, Committees, and Consanguinity INTERLOCKING INTERLOCKING FLEET GENEALOGY CHART #3 FLEET GENEALOGY CHART #4 FIG. 39 FIG. 40 Francis Mcllhenny Enoch W. Clark m Marie Louise Hoopes (later Mrs. Edgar Alan Poe) Edward W. Clark Hinckley Clark (See Genealogy #1) Louise Mclilhenny Alan Mcllhenny Sr. (see Genealogy #2) m Maria (Polly) Thompson Jane Burnham Clark m William S. Grant Alan Mcllhenny Jr. Francis Clark Grant Marian m John Van Pelt Joseph L. Grant KEY: KEY: Red - Flag Officers Red - Flag Officers Blue - In more than one Blue - In more than one genealogy chart genealogy chart 148 149 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Commodores, Committees, and Consanguinity on the charts are: Harry Haskell's son Hal was Rear Com- cians, physicians, inventors and bankers, largely successful modore, Herman Hessenbruch's sons-in-law were Vice in their fields. Commodore and Treasurer, John Ducey's brother Jimmy In an orderly Fleet, the Nominating Committee would was Rear Commodore before he was Executive Secretary, ask the incumbent Vice Commodore to stand for Com- and John Roberts' uncle was John Tyssowski, Rear Com- modore whenever the incumbent Commodore signaled modore in 1928-29 and Vice Commodore in 1930. that he wished to retire. The Rear Commodore would So we have a Commodoreship that in eighty years has become Vice Commodore, and somebody new would be been occupied by relatives. How are they selected? In my tapped for Rear Commodore. Their terms of office would time (1975-1990), and presumably in the years before, a be determined by the number of years the new Commo- Nominating Committee was appointed by the Commo- dore was willing to serve. In practice, that has usually been dore, and its chairman theoretically sought agreement from three years. During that time the new Rear Commodore his fellow committee members on their choice of nominees served his first term on the Executive Commitee, and the for Commodore, Vice Commodore, Rear Commodore and Vice Commodore served his second three-year term before Treasurer. In practice, the chairman had the responsibility taking over as Commodore. The Commodore functions as of finding someone willing to serve in each of these slots. Chairman of the Executive Committee. He became a de facto committee of one, unless he could For one reason or another, this orderly progression has delegate the chore to another committee member. often been impossible to achieve. The list of Vice Commo- Now remember, all these people are supposed to be on dores shows seventeen names of those who never became vacation. Furthermore, at Mount Desert, there are lots of Commodore, and the list of Rear Commodores another things to do besides sailing and worrying about the Fleet. fifteen who never became Vice Commodore. Hardly sur- You can play tennis or golf, swim at the pool (the ocean prising, considering all the other demands on their vacation is kind of cold), climb the mountains on Acadia National time. There is a tendency to think that successful competi- Park trails (thousands do), or relax and read. The Com- tors in the Fleet will make good Commodores. Why not? modores needed relief from their jobs, one might think, They must like sailing or they. wouldn't be out there, and and not to to be asked to work when they were away from they must be well organized or they wouldn't win. How- them. They were academics, corporation executives, politi- ever, even so, they may not make good Commodores, and 150 151 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Commodores, Committees, and Consanguinity there may be others who will despite not having a winning the current Commodore, two more by the Chair of the record as skippers on the race-course. Eddison and Haskell Committee itself (the most immediate past Commodore come immediately to mind as examples of the latter group. willing to serve). A very fair set-up, and such a committee The Nominating Committee has no accurate way of tell- should produce efficient Executive Committees. ing how good a performance their candidate will put on six For years, it was said that no woman would ever be- years after he starts as Rear Commodore. come Commodore, nor would anyone who lived outside For years, the Nominating Committee itself for years Northeast, but both these barriers have been overcome was picked by the incumbent Commodore from among and the Nominating Committee now has more latitude; those he thought were like-minded or who were long- it can point to precedents when trying to recruit. The first standing Fleet members willing to serve. Your author lady Flag Officer was Mary Todhunter Clark Rockefeller, had the experience of serving on it after 1975. There were Rear Commodore in 1942. Forty-seven years later Syd- two women who I thought would make great Flag Of- ney Roberts Rockefeller was elected Vice Commodore, ficers-Polly McIlhenny and Connie Madeira-but each and she became Commodore when Burton Gray, elected steadfastly refused. Minot Milliken was a natural choice, Commodore who served for a year, died of a sudden heart but was unwilling, possibly because he lived near Bar Har- attack. She would have succeeded to the position natu- bor. Harry R. Madeira, who served willingly as Rear and rally if Burton had survived. She showed that gender is then Vice Commodore for eight years, stubbornly refused irrelevant to excellence as Commodore. Enthusiasm and to be Commodore and then finally agreed and served five ability are what count. David Rockefeller, Jr., of Seal Har- years on the job. His excellence as Commodore was a de- bor, was the first Commodore from outside Northeast light to the Nominating committee, who enjoyed nearly itself; he and John T. Roberts of Southwest have each in a sinecure for his whole term. The by-laws of the Fleet succession shown that a good leader can live miles from were then changed so as to standardize the make-up of Gilpatricks Cove. Rockefeller's father was Treasurer, Vice the Nominating Committee, which is now chaired by the and Rear Commodore before him, another example of most immediate past Commodore willing to serve, with family tradition. (Mary Todhunter Rockefeller was then the next most immediate past Commodore as a member in the family, and may have inspired her brother-in-law to (if he or she is willing). Another member is appointed by want to serve.) 152 153 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Commodores, Committees, and Consanguinity The genealogical charts (Figs. 37-40) show how a fam- party after the annual Davenport Hayward race, as well as ily resort has found Fleet leadership from some of its food and drink provided regularly at the clubhouse after sailing families, a perfectly natural process. The Execu- series races. tive Committee has another important member, the Fleet The Race Committee is charged with running the Treasurer. He keeps the Fleet solvent (usually by suggest- races; that is, having their Committee boat at the starting ing periodic increases in Fleet dues), goes over accounts line at the scheduled time (which they have announced with the Assistant Treasurer (who actually spends the beforehand to the membership), choosing the course to money) and arranges for annual audits by certified pub- be sailed, displaying the proper signals to indicate the lic accountants. In the eighty years of Fleet history, there marks of the course, and hauling up appropriate flags have been twenty-eight Commodores and only fourteen at precisely the right Preparatory and Starting times for Treasurers. We can apparently conclude either that Trea- each class. (Lately, this has been simplified by reducing surers love their work twice as much as Commodores, or the interval to five minutes, but it still must be abso- that the job is only half as hard. At any rate they have been lutely accurate.) However, the Race Committee consists willing to serve an average term twice as long as Com- of the best sailors in the Fleet who are out there racing modores. This, plus the long service of Phil Caughey as against each other and can't be on the Committee boat. Assistant Treasurer, has given stability and respectability They therefore delegate the job of running the races to to Fleet finances. the Executive Secretary or the Sailing Instructors, mem- The Executive Committee sits at the top of the hier- bers of the paid Fleet staff who have been trained in the archy and makes policy, but there are three other working meticulous methods needed to run a race properly and committees: the Race Committee, the House Commit- make an accurate record of it suitable for publishing. The tee and the Nominating Committee. We have seen how Race Committee must also hear protests, that is, com- the Nominating Committee is now constituted. Its re- plaints sailors make against each other when they think sponsibility is to bring a slate of nominees to the Annual they have been wronged because a competitor has broken Meeting of the Fleet at the end of the season SO officers one of the Racing Rules. The Committee members then can be duly elected by the membership. The House Com- sit as a court on Saturday mornings. This has become mittee is in charge of the Fleet Headquarters and of a tea their chief duty, although they are also theoretically still 154 155 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Commodores, Committees, and Consanguinity in charge of running the races and, if the Committee boat errs, they are responsible. These committees are needed to carry out much of HARBOR the work of the Fleet. One individual, Constance Brad- ley Madeira, has for years has made herself a one-person committee in charge of Fleet trophies, of which there are many. At the Annual Meeting the Commodore reads out a list of the winners of the July and August Series, the Fourth of July and Labor Day Regattas, and all the special NORTHEAST HARBOR SEAL HARBOR to races which may have been held that year. Silver trophies SOUTHWEST HARBOR are forthcoming for each winner, usually a small cup to take home, while the name of the winner is engraved on the larger cup "awarded" for that year. The larger cups have become so valuable, as antique silver, that they are kept in a safe and brought out only at the Annual Meeting. Con- nie Madeira, now an octogenarian, has been dealing with Fleet Medal the trophies for years, seeing to it that there are enough Designed by Roger Griswold to hand out and that the right names are engraved on the right cups. The Executive Committee will need to antici- pate a change in this system whenever Connie decides not to do it. 156 157 0 EIGHTEEN Lessons from the Past Desert waters for two days. Boats can participate for all or part of the week. This has worked well. It brings cruis- ing boats to us from the west. There is good competition between closely-matched' "cruising" boats designed to race Lessons each other. I notice that for the "cruising races" they have from the Past many people on board, so many that some require power craft alongside at night to provide the extra crew with a place to sleep. It takes the weight of many heavy crew- members on the windward rail to hold the new "cruisers" upright so they will sail their fastest. I worry that we are back to the situation where we were with the 21-footers in The August Cruise as it had been known for sixty years 1910; i.e., a development class where competition starts on faded away and died about 1990. Fleet members seemed the drawing board. Handicapping rules for cruising-rac- to lose their willingness to go on a racing cruise. The In- ing boats have changed the shapes of the boats in a variety ternationals had participated enthusiastically along with of different ways in the last hundred years. Right now they Cruising Classes A and B in the seventies and were the resemble oversized sailing dinghies. They have extremely last one-design class to participate. By 1990, even the light hulls and skeg keels with lead bulbs. The rudder is cruising boats were reluctant to participate. The Fleet, way aft to keep the boat from broaching from the pull of in the persons of Commodore Minturn V. Chace and her spinnaker on the top of her mast on a broad reach. his friend Patrick Wilmerding, came up with a solution. Swing-keels and shifting ballast are on the horizon. I have They embraced the idea of having the Fleet participate in to say, though, these newer boats really move through a Down-East Race Week. The Fleet joined with the Kol- the water, at least until they get caught by a lobster-trap legewidgwok Yacht Club and the Deer Isle Yacht Club to warp. sponsor the Down-East Race Week. A racing cruise now The so-called "Performance Handicapping Rating starts in Penobscot Bay, races there and in Blue Hill Bay Formula" (PHRF) which is now used bases handicaps on for two or three days, and ends the week racing in Mount demonstrated performance in races, and it succeeds well 158 159 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Lessons from the Past enough to have been used for decades. However, any such Right now, the I.C. fleet is our "only show in town," but rule represents a challenge to a designer to come up with another lesson from history is that change will come, and rule-beaters, which is inevitably expensive if owners yield we have to adapt to it. It might even be that the grow- to the temptation of out-spending each other. A ray of ing world-wide popularity of catamarans and trimarans light in this picture is provided by the many boats of all will extend to Mount Desert, although the cultural con- sizes now made of fiberglass and turned out from identical servatism of Maine and its longstanding dependence on molds. Cruising boats so made ought to be as identical as locally-proved boats makes this doubtful. Multi-hulls are one-designs, and probably many are. Good racing should an order of magnitude faster than mono-hulls, though, be easy to achieve with them in the same way it was in and we have seen how popular speed has been throughout the J-24 class in the seventies. The Johnstone brothers of Fleet history. Newport have led the way in this sphere, and Hinckley Fleet Sailing Classes have been a fixture of our op- of Southwest Harbor has lately introduced a "40-foot eration since 1939. The Mercury has been the backbone knockabout" which has enough accommodation below to of teaching programs since 1958, and we have seen their make alongshore cruising fun. The Fleet needs a class of popularity wax and wane both in the adult Fleet and boats which can be raced around the buoys twice a week among the Sailing Class instructors. At present, the Opti- and also be taken on Race Week or the August Cruise. It mist Dinghy is the training boat for single sailors, and the should be fast. We have learned from the story of the A Mercury fleet is there for two or three children, or a child and B boat knockabouts that even a minimal speed dif- and an adult. The 420 sailing dinghy has returned in an ference makes a lot of difference in popularity. Class rules important way to the sailing instruction program. Several should be strict, so that handicaps are identical and you of these boats have been acquired for use by the Fleet dur- have, in fact a one-design racing cruiser. Equipment for ing the summer and by the Mount Desert High School cruising should be specified and required to be on board. sailing teams in the spring and fall. This is extremely im- It wouldn't hurt if such a class at Northeast were open to portant since, if high school students are trained in 420s, having identical boats from elsewhere race on our course, they will go on to race them in college wherever possible, either with an standing invitation good at any time, or at and the sailing instructors recruited by the Fleet in future special regattas such as we now hold for the I.C. Worlds. will think of them as the natural boats to teach racing in. 160 161 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Lessons from the Past This may be an overstatement, but it takes into account and sails, sails and hull, and hull and water will remain as the infatuation with speed that is as natural to adults as to they have been. It is also certain that the hulls and sails of young sailors. Adults, however, may prefer the Mercury if the future will be different from today's. Change is com- they don't care about speed and do want comfort. A lesson ing, in the boats and the people who sail them, even if the from the past that may apply here is that the comfortable, wind and water are the same. classic International has outlasted the faster, possibly less comfortable Solings and J-24's. Adults who live on Mount Desert and don't belong to the Fleet can enter the new Northeast Harbor Sailing School recently formed to take over the vitally important sailing education program of the Northeast Harbor Fleet. Fleet members can enter themselves or their children in Rowing Class as they have for years, but now they are stu- dents in the Sailing School. They have to pass their rowing tests and show that they can swim before they graduate into sailing class. They then will be introduced to the Op- timist Dinghy and taught to sail by themselves, the best way to learn-and made even better if coaching is provid- ed by a teacher close by in a maneuverable dinghy with an outboard motor. The Optimist is just like a Brutal Beast was seventy years ago, except that it is slightly smaller and much safer. Students are taught the basic knots they will need to tie up their boats and, after they master the Opti- mist, they advance to the Mercury and eventually the 420 dinghy if they have the skill and desire. It is certain that the basic facts of the sport, the interactions between wind 162 163 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Lessons from the Past 420's Optimist Dinghies Solings MORC / J-24's Mercuries Mermaids Luders International One-designs Bull's-eye Herreshoff 12 1/2 30 Square Meters MDI's 0 Boats C's A Boats Racing Classes B Boats 26-footers at Northeast Harbor 21-footers in the Twentieth Century 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 Fig. 41. Racing Classes at Northeast Harbor in the Twentieth Century. 164 165 ( HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET NINETEEN Former Officers of the Fleet COMMODORE GEORGE DAVENPORT HAYWARD 1923-1925 EDWARD W MADEIRA 1925-1927 W. BARTON EDDISON 1928-1935 HENRY RAWLE 1936-1939 WILLIAM J. STRAWBRIDGE 1940-1942, 1957, 1960-1961 HARRY G. HASKELL 1943-1945 JARVIS CROMWELL 1946-1947 HERMAN A Hessenbruch 1948-1950 HARRY R. NEILSON, JR 1951, 1955-1956,1 1976 STUART S. JANNEY, JR 1952-1954 WILLIAM D'O LIPPINCOTT 1958-1959 BENJAMIN R. NEILSON 1962 EDWARD McC BLAIR 1963-1965 JOHN F. DUCEY, JR 1966-1968 166 167 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Former Officers of the Fleet DR. KAIGHN SMITH 1969-1971 VANCE C. McCorMACK 1936-1937 ALAN MCILHENNY, SR 1972 HARRY G. HASKELL 1938-1942 DR. JOSEPH L. GRANT 1973-1975 W. RODMAN FAY 1943 REDMOND C.S. FINNEY 1977-1980 W. BARTON EDDISON 1946 DR. WAYNE W. WIBBY 1981-1983 WILLIAM D'O LIPPINCOTT 1946-1948 HARRY R. MADEIRA 1984-1988 P. BLAIR LEE 1948-1950 BURTON C. GRAY 1989 STUART S. JANNEY, JR 1951 SYDNEY ROBERTS ROCKEFELLER 1990-1992 WILLIAM J. STRAWBRIDGE 1952 ALAN MCILHENNY, JR 1993-1994 ROBERT E. L. JOHNSON 1954 MINTURN V. CHACE 1995-1996 DAVID ROCKEFELLER, SR. 1955-1959 JAMES A. LASH 1997-1998 EDWARD W. MADEIRA, JR 1960-1962 DAVID ROCKEFELLER, JR. 1999-2000 BENJAMIN R. NEILSON 1963-1964 JOHN T. ROBERTS 2001-2002 JOHN F. DUCEY, JR 1965 HENRY G. BRAUER 2003-2004 JOHN B. REECE 1966-1970 HARRY R. MADEIRA 1971-1975, 1981-1983 REDMOND C.S. FINNEY 1976 VICE COMMODORE DR. WAYNE W WIBBY 1977-1980 MINTURN V. CHACE , 1993-1994 EDWARD W. MADEIRA 1923-1925 CHARLES D. DICKEY, JR. 1985-1987 FEDERICK O. SPEDDEN 1925-1926, 1931 BURTON C. GRAY 1988 EDMUND S. BURKE, JR 1927 SYDNEY ROBERTS ROCKEFELLER 1989 CHARLES D. DICKEY 1928, 1944 STEPHEN B. HOMER 1990 RT. Rev. MALCOLM E. PEABODY 1929 ALAN MCLLHENNY, JR 1992 JOHN TYSSOWSKI 1930 THOMAS R. ELKINS 1995 ERNEST B. DANE, JR 1932 JAMES A. LASH 1996-1997 DR. WILLIAM EARL CLARK 1933-1935, 1945 DAVID ROCKEFELLER, JR. 1997-1998 168 169 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Former Officers of the Fleet JOHN T. ROBERTS 1999-2000 EDWARD W. MADEIRA, JR. 1955-1959 HENRY G. BRAUER 2001-2002 HENRY B. Cox, JR. 1960-1961 HARRY R. MADEIRA, JR 2003-2004 DAVID ROCKEFELLER, SR. 1961-1963 JOHN F. DUCEY, JR 1964 REAR COMMODORE JOHN B. REECE 1965 CHARLES L. III, JR 1966-1967 DR. KAIGHN SMITH 1968 CHARLES D. DICKEY 1927 HARRY R. MADEIRA 1969-1970 JOHN TYSSOWSKI 1928-1929 ALAN MCILHENNY SR 1971 REGINALD C. ROBBINS 1930 ARTHUR P. BUTLER DR. JOSEPH L. GRANT 1972 1931 S. WHITNEY DICKEY 1973-1974 DR. WILLIAM EARL CLARK 1932, 1936 REDMOND C.S. FINNEY 1975 W. RODMAN FAY 1933 DR. WAYNE W. WIBBY 1976 ALEXANDER TORRANCE 1934 RUFUS McQ G. WILLIAMS 1977-1980 HENRY RAWLE 1935 MINTURN V. CHACE 1981-1983,1992 HARRY G. HASKELL 1937 CHARLES D. DICKEY, JR. 1984 WHARTON SINKLER 1938, 1946-1947 BURTON C. GRAY 1985-1987 HUGH H. MATHESON 1939 SYDNEY ROBERTS ROCKEFELLER 1988 ERNEST KANSLER 1940-1941 STEPHEN B. HOMER 1989 MRS. MARY C. ROCKEFELLER 1942 ALAN MCILHENNY, JR 1991 JAMES G. DUCEY 1943,1951 THOMAS R. ELKINS 1993-1994 VANCE C. McCORMACK 1944-1945 DAVID ROCKEFELLER, JR. 1995-1996 STUART S. JANEY, JR 1948-1950 HARRY G. HASKELL, JR. JOHN T. ROBERTS 1997-1998 1952 HENRY G. BRAUER 1999-2000 ROBERT E. L. JOHNSON 1953 HARRY R. MADEIRA, JR 2001-2002 HENRY T. REATH 1954 SCHOFIELD ANDREWS, III 2003-2004 170 171 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Former Officers of the Fleet TREASURER JAMES G. DUCEY 1943-1945, 1951-1959 EDMUND L. COOMBS 1949-1950 GERRISH H. MILLIKEN MELVILLE T. HODDER 1959-1962 1923-1940 HENRY RAWLE JOHN N. KELLY 1962-1964 1941 P. BLAIR LEE ALESSANDRO VITELLI 1965 1942-1947 D. LUKE HOPKINS 1948-1950 JOHN H. WALLS 1966-1968 DAVID ROCKEFELLER, SR. WILLIAM C. MELCHER, III 1968 1951-1954 BAYARD H. ROBERTS MICHAEL C. MADEIRA 1969 1955-1958 HARRY R. NEILSON, JR MRS. CONSTANCE C. MADEIRA 1970-1973 1959-1967 S. WHITNEY DICKEY CHARLES L. III, III 1974-1976 1968-1972 EDWARD H. MADARA, JR. ALAN MCILHENNY, JR 1977-1978 1973-1980 READE D. NIMICK CHRISTOPHER H. ZAMORE 1979-1980,1983 1981-1987 CHARLES D. DICKEY, JR. ELLIOTT W. WISLAR 1981-1982 1988-1991 CHRISTOPHER HUTCHINS HENRY S. Fox 1984-1985 1992-1996 HARRY R. MADEIRA, JR OLIVER H.P. PEPPER, III 1986-1987 1997-1999 DUANE ISELIN MORGAN BROWN 1988-1989 2000-2004 ANDREW W. STEPHENSON 1990-1992 JOHN W. TORGERSON 1993 EXECUTIVE SECRETARY / FLEET MANAGER WILLIAM J. HOOPER 1994 PATRICIA ROBERTS 1995-1996 LAWRENCE W. DICKEY 1923-1924 MATHEW R. EVANS 1997 CHARLES P.B. JEFFRIES 1925-1926 VAL PERKINS 1998 ROBERT E.L. JOHNSON 1927-1928 MICHAEL S. HORN 1999 HOWARD COOPER JOHNSON, JR. 1929-1932 GREGORY C. WILKINSON 2000- ARNOLD W. LUNT 1933-1941, 1946-1948 PHILIP M. CAUGHEY 1942 172 173 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Former Officers of the Fleet THE CHARLES D. DICKEY Past Winners MEMORIAL AWARD Include the Following Fleet Members: This award is named for Charles Dennison Dickey, one PHILIP M. CAUGHEY 1977 of the founding members of the Northeast Harbor Fleet. CONSTANCE B. MADEIRA 1978 Charles Dickey was elected to serve on the Fleet's first HARRY R. MADEIRA 1980 Executive Committee in 1923, as the Rear Commodore, HARRY R. NEILSON, JR 1981 and in later years served in a number of other capacities JARVIS CROMWELL 1983 including Vice Commodore (on two separate occasions: WILLIAM J. STRAWBRIDGE 1984 1928 and 1944). He was also one of the earliest one-design DR. JOSEPH L. GRANT 1985 racers in the region. HARRY G. HASKELL, JR. 1986 The award is given from time to time by the Execu- ALAN MCILHENNY, SR 1989 tive Committee of the Northeast Harbor Fleet to a Fleet POLLY MCILHENNY 1992 member who has made significant contributions to the Or- DR. WAYNE W. WIBBY 1995 ganization over a period of years, through excellence in the DAVID ROCKEFELLER, JR. 2002 sport of sailing and/or dedication and service to the Club. HARRY R. MADEIRA 2004 174 175 THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Index A C A boats 18, 19, 20, 21, 26, 33, 54, C boats 26, 33, 34 55, 58, 86, 88, 101, 103, 109, Cal 25's 116 112, 113, 116, 126, 160 Carruthers, Jock 130 Àas, Bjarne 64, 66, 67 Caughey, Philip 78, 99, 119, 135, Alden, John 26,51 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 154 Chace, Minturn V. 158 Clark, David 73 B Clark, Dr. William Earl 73 B boats 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 26, Clark, E.W. 145 33, 46, 50, 54, 57, 58, 86, 88, Clark, Tom 93 109, 160 Cole, Philip 97 Babcock, Dr. Edward 113 Cole, Taylor 97 Barclay, E.L. 123 Colton, Harold S. 10 Bjarne Àas One-designs 65 Coombs, Edmund L. 97,98, 99 Black, Bill 39, 53, 54, 55, 90 Crofoot, David 38 Blair, Edward McC. 110, 113 Crofoot, Dr. Michael 36, 39, 54, 56, Boardman, Edwin 18, 19, 57 78, 93, 95, 133, 134, 135 Brooks, Lucretia G. 73 Cromwell, Jarvis 83,90 Brown, Sylvester B. 40 Crowninshield, B.B. 12, 13, 14, Brown, Thomas T. 120 16, 17 Brutal Beasts 23, 24, 26, 162 Bucklin, Horace W. 83 D Bulls-eyes 60, 61, 62, 77, 86, 96, 98, 101, 103, 104, 105 Damrosch, Frank 10 Burke, Edmund S. 31 Dickey, Charles Dennison 15,21, Butler, Arthur P., Jr. 26, 38 31,38 Butler, E. Farnham 26, 53, 68, 72, Dickey, Lawrence W. 31, 32 73, 75, 76, 80, 90, 92, 104, 113, Ducey, James G. 78, 86, 88, 89, 90, 115 96, 98, 99, 102, 104, 105, 124, Butler, John W. 115, 118 125, 126, 127, 130, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139 Ducey, John 125 176 177 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Index E Hayward, Dr. George Griswold 12, Lippincott, Bill 103, 104, 105, 136 Milliken, Gerrish, Jr. 53 Eddison, Jack 73 14,30 Lippincott, Walter H. 51 Milliken, Gerrish H. 23, 31, 53, 54 Eddison, W. Barton 42, 43, 47, 57, Hayward, George Davenport 21, Luders, Art 86 Milliken, Minor K. 88 29, 31, 34, 35, 42 Luders class 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 101, Milliken, Roger 53 58, 60, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68, 77, Herreshoff 61, 62, 74 109,126 Moore, Lewis E. 120, 123 101, 108 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 133 Hinckley, Henry 67 Lunt, Arnold W. 43, 44, 56, 76, 77, MORC class 114, 115, 121 Ellam, Patrick 114 Holmes, L. Elrie 40 90, 97, 138, 139, 140 Morison, Samuel Eliot 9, 12 Eton, Mr. 12 Hustlers 92 Morris, Sammy 73 Hutchins, Christopher 85 Mussolini, Benito 133 M F Madeira, Elizabeth ("Hibou") 29 I N Farrand, Beatrix Jones 83, 85 Madeira, Constance Bradley 118, Finney, Redmond S. 121 I.C. Worlds 160 152, 156, 157 Nauman, Mrs. Spencer 86 420 dinghies 108, 115, 161, 162 III, Charles, Jr. 116 Madeira, Edward W. ("Ted") 21, 29, Neilson, Harry R. 98, 102, 104, 105 Fraley, Effie Disston (Mrs. C. Brad- International Class 65, 86, 88, 89, 31, 35, 36, 42, 51, 76, 126 Neilson, Lewis 145 ford) 93, 95 101, 103, 108, 116, 124, 126, Madeira, Garry 126 Frazier, Dr. Charles 12 128, 130, 133, 135, 161 Madeira, Harry R. 88, 152 O Frazier, William West 10, 11 Madeira, Louis C. 12, 24 J Madeira, Ned 104, 125 Ober, Ernest 40 Friendship sloops 6, 72 Madeira brothers 126 Optimist Dinghy 162 J-24 class 121, 122, 123, 126, 160, McCormick, Vance C. 70, 72, 79, O boats 26, 27, 34, 62, 94 G 162 85, 86 Garland, Joseph, E., Jr. 25 Janney, Stuart S. 99, 102, 104, 105 McIlhenny, Alan 88 P Giles, Laurent 114 Jefferys, Dr. E.M. 22 McIlhenny, Alan, Jr. 121 Johnson, Howard C. 42, 43 Parkman, Mrs. Henry 77 Grant, Francis C. 21, 24 Mellhenny, Francis 145 Grant, William S. 12, 13, 22 Johnson, Mrs. Loren 52 Peabody, Endicott II 73 McIlhenny, Mrs. Francis 62 Gray, Burton 153 Johnson, Robert E.L. 29, 36, 42 Peabody, Francis 10 McIlhenny, Polly 119, 120, 152 Peabody, Malcolm E. 31, 38, 53 Green, Walton 12 McMillan, Mrs. Hugh 86 Peckham, George Frazier, Jr., 127 Griswold, Roger 83, 156 K MDI (Mount Desert Island) class Platt, Harry 96 33, 34, 62 Kelley, Harvey 77,79 Putnam, George 84 H Mercury Class sloops 105, 108, 109, Kennedy, Mr. and Mrs. Moorehead 120, 161, 162 Harris, J.A. V 116 C. 103 Mermaids 92, 101 R Haskell, Harry G. 70, 77, 80, 83, Midget.Ocean Racing Class 114 Rawle, Henry 51, 63, 65, 70, 75, 77 84, 85, 86, 93, 94, 95, 99 L Miller, Paul 85 Reath, Henry T. 73, 75, 77, 88 Haskell, Harry G., Jr. 55, 56, 73, Lawley Brothers 14, 57, 73 Milliken, Alida 24 Reeve, Abbott 120 83, 88 Lee, P. Blair 83 Milliken, Dr. 24 178 179 HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST HARBOR FLEET Rice 57,73 T Robbins, Reginald 36, 38, 39, 54, 73 Taylor, Henry C. 74 Roberts, John T. 153 Taylor, Roland 70 Rockefeller, David 126 Thirty-square-meter boats 58,59, Rockefeller, David, Jr. 130, 153 64, 86, 109 Rockefeller, John D., Jr. 145 Thompson, Aña 85 Rockefeller, Mary Todhunter Clark Thompson, Paul 96 153 Thompson, Polly 88 Rockefeller, Nelson A. 73 Thorpe, Amy 10 Rockefeller, Sydney Roberts 153 Trimingham, Eldon 63 Roosevelt, James 12 Trowbridge, E.Q. 53 Tyssowski, John 47, 49, 58, 59, 60, S 63 S boat 35 Savage, Charles 80 V Seal Harbor Regatta 55, 114 Van Pelt, John, Jr. 104 Sears, Henry 74 Van Pelt, Mrs. John 104, 145 Shields, Cornelius 63, 64, 65 Single-handed Race 50 Small, Charlie 41 W Smith, Dr. Kaighn 116 Wadsworth, Eliot 65 Smith, Kaighn, Jr: 116 Walls, Keith 119 Soling class 108, 117, 118, 119, 120, Wedge, Oscar 79 123, 126, 162 Welles, William 123 Southwest Harbor Regatta 46,114 Wharton, Edith 83 Sparkman, Drake 67, 68 White, Paul Dudley 133 Spedden, Frederic O. 35, 65 Wibby, Wayne W. 125, 126, 127, Stanley, Malcolm 46, 47, 50, 54 128, 130, 131 Stengel, Alfred 10 Williams, Robert W. 12 Strawbridge, William J. 38, 60, 77, Wilmerding, Patrick 158 88, 102, 103, 104, 105 Winslow, Ralph 33 Stroud, Mrs. Dixon 88 Z Zamore, Chris 119 180