Yachting History

Yachting History

An Aussie in Paris…er, London

By Joe Cooper

An Aussie in Paris…er, London

Planes, trains, and pilot cutters Dateline: October 2023, The Royal Ocean Racing Club, London The pilot cutter in question, Jolie Brise, won the first Fastnet Race in 1925. Originally a French Pilot Boat out of Le Harve, in the 1920s, she was subsequently sold to the British yachtsman Bobby Somerset. The first edition of what became the Rolex Fastnet Race was at that time called, no kidding, The Ocean Race. At the post-race gathering of competitors in…

Yachting History

Club Classic Keelboats: From the NY 40 to the Ideal 18

By Tom Darling

Club Classic Keelboats: From the NY 40 to the Ideal 18

In the Gilded Age, gentlemen sailors looked to designers like Herreshoff, Crane and Burgess for their custom sailing yachts. As the 20th century unfolded, however, a new age design emerged, that of the semi-custom keelboat, purchased by like-minded sailors interested in competing in fleets as one-designs. We call it the “Club Classic Keelboat.” The idea of designing a boat to a single design or class was a 20th century phenomenon. When young Clinton Crane was commissioned in…

Yachting History

The Day We Lost the Cup

By Chris Szepessy

The Day We Lost the Cup

By Brian Stinson This September 26 marks the 40th anniversary of Newport losing the cup – the America’s Cup. I was born in Providence but raised in Newport, Rhode Island – the sailing capital of the world and beyond – and feel extremely privileged to have witnessed many incredible, outrageous, comical, over-the-top moments and spontaneous events.     The summer of 1983 was not my favorite, but events of that momentous day produced the most incredible spectacle…

Yachting History

A Busman’s Tour of this Summer’s Boating Museums

By Tom Darling

A Busman’s Tour of this Summer’s Boating Museums

By Tom Darling, Conversations with Classic Boats I have been accumulating my travel notes over the past six months of crisscrossing New England and present this Baedeker of my favorite nautical museum venues present and future. These collections are as classic as their contents. From the 2022 opening of The Sailing Museum in Newport, RI to the exciting prospect of a dramatic new home for the watercraft collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum, there has never been…

Yachting History

An Excerpt from 100 Years of Gold Stars

By Chris Szepessy

An Excerpt from 100 Years of Gold Stars

1922–1932: Star Racing Expands Around the World By Carol Newman Cronin Published by the International Star Class Yacht Racing Association, all rights reserved     The first decade of international Star Class competition saw exponential growth on almost every continent. In 1922, six boats sailed a championship out of Manhasset Bay in Western Long Island Sound; it was the first time that any sailors from the East and West Coasts and Great Lakes had all started together…

Yachting History

Indian Harbor Junior Yacht Club Celebrates Its Centennial in 2023

By Chris Szepessy

Indian Harbor Junior Yacht Club Celebrates Its Centennial in 2023

Not many clubs can boast of having supported junior sailing for 100 years. Indian Harbor Yacht Club in Greenwich, CT is proud to be among the few. Started in 1923, the Club’s junior sailing program has given thousands of children, those of members and non-members alike, an appreciation for the “sport of yachting.” To celebrate this momentous occasion, alumni of the junior sailing program and former instructors are invited to return to the Club on Saturday, June…

Yachting History

Fox and Kirby: Planing Pioneers 1920 to 2021

By Tom Darling

Fox and Kirby: Planing Pioneers 1920 to 2021

By Tom Darling, Conversations with Classic Boats This boating history is one of connecting the dots of boat design over almost a century, with names that are larger than life: Uffa Fox, Bruce Kirby, Dr. Stuart Walker. Their common heritage is small boat performance sailing. As a sailor in Long Island Sound who escaped the slow and steady Blue Jay and Lightning for the speed and trills of the Thistle and the Laser, I can identify. I…

Yachting History

Story Boats: The Tales They Tell

By Tom Darling

Story Boats: The Tales They Tell

Great boats make great stories. Iconic small boats and the stories that launched them – that is the subject of the new exhibit, Story Boats, at Mystic Seaport Museum (MSM) opening May 28 in the Collins Gallery at the Thompson Exhibition building on the Museum campus in Mystic, CT. Just a few of more than 400 small boats at Mystic Seaport Museum   Story Boats: The Tales They Tell is the brainchild of MSM’s Senior Director of…

Yachting History

Carleton Mitchell and the Chesapeake Bay Log Canoe

By Tom Darling

Carleton Mitchell and the Chesapeake Bay Log Canoe

By Tom Darling In the fall of 2020, we followed in the wake of an iconic yachtsman, photographer, raconteur, all-around waterman, and tropical sailing pioneer. That would be Carleton Mitchell, born in 1910, who filled the 20th century with the writing on sailing that defined the activity of “cruising.” “Mitch,” as his friends called him, was a modern day Odysseus; his quest was to show the West Indies, its water, its people, its boats, to a curious…

Community

From the Herreshoff Archives

By Chris Szepessy

From the Herreshoff Archives

  Editor’s note: Our friends at the Herreshoff Marine Museum & America’s Cup Hall of Fame in Bristol, Rhode Island are celebrating their Golden Jubilee year – the 50th anniversary of the museum’s founding, and WindCheck is honored to be the official Jubilee Media Partner. We’re changing course for this month’s Golden Jubilee feature with a look at a few of the museum’s countless archival images. Most of the photographs shown here appeared in The Chronicle, a paper newsletter…

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