1937 World Championship – Western Long Island Sound

1937 World Championship – Western Long Island Sound

The following results are from George Elder's book "Forty Years Among The Stars". In common with the early Logs it is interesting to note that in his results Elder does not give the yacht numbers of the boats which participated in the World's, but only just their names. It was not until the 1950 Log that yacht numbers were included in the results. From 1950 through 1976 both yacht numbers and names were given, but starting with 1977 frequently only yacht numbers were given. The last time both yacht numbers and yacht names were given was 1989.

In later years sometimes fleet designations were omitted. In these cases some of the more obvious fleet designations were supplied. Also from time to time only last names were supplied. First names, where known, were added.

Abbreviations etc: Dsa - Disabled. Dsq - Disqualified. Dns - Did Not Start.
Wdr - Withdrew. Ch - Chairman. B - Builder. * - Defending Fleet. 0 - No points, reason not given.

1937 - ON WESTERN LONG ISLAND SOUND

Winning yacht No. 1414. B - Kettenberg, Santa Barbara California.
Ch. I.R.C. and Meeting - G. W. Elder.

Regatta Report from the 1938 Log

LECKY WINS WORLD TITLE FOR CALIFORNIA
by CHAS. E. LUCKE, JR.

Stars have won major championships many times in the past without winning a single race, as did Lecky in the Fifteenth Annual World Championship held on Long Island Sound. But never before has an entry won four out of five races and failed to annex the Gold Star, as was Pimm's experience. Two reasons apply equally to the foregoing:

Pimm placed twenty-second in the first race because of trouble with her rigging; and Lecky, the new World Champion from San Diego, California, was always very close to the top although she never won a race, but never finished worse than sixth.

A new high was set with thirty-six entries, one more than at Rochester the year before. Another new high was set in the calibre of sportsmanship shown as there was not a single instance of a protest involving a violation of the sailing rules of right of way and in fact the only two protests of the entire series were against the International Race Committee, one of which was sustained and the other disallowed.

There were no chartered boats among the competing fleet. The I.R.C. which carried the heavy responsibility for running the record fleet with such a minimum of trouble included President George W. Elder as Chairman; Treasurer, Timothy D. Parkman, William C. Atwater, Jr. of Great South Bay, Paul H. Smart of the Central Long Island Sound Fleet, and Charles E. Lucke, Jr. from Barnegat Bay. Commodore George A. Corry was a member although not participating in most of the details, having charge of handling of physical arrangements ashore and afloat for the contestants. Claude Launay of the Flotte de Paris was an alternate and with Tom Parkman and Ed. Levanion acted as Course Official and special patrol. Mark Officials included Rufus G. Smith, John H. White, John R. Robinson, Stan Ogilvy and Mason Shehan.

Too much admiration cannot be bestowed on the officers and members of the Manhasset Bay Yacht Club and the members of the Western Long Island Sound Fleet for the overwhelming generosity and thoughtfulness which they displayed. Towing out thirty-six entries each day and bringing them all home was a tremendous job, but it was well handled. The entertainment program was always interesting, and the prizes were of an unusually high order. Certainly, the thanks of the Association are due the Manhasset, Knickerbocker, Port Washington, New Rochelle, and American yacht clubs for their part in the entertainments and trophies. Last but by no means least must go our appreciation to the Coast Guard without whose assistance it is necessary to state that a series of this magnitude could not be held.

Without taking any credit from Milton Wegeforth and Ernest Phillips for the way they sailed Lecky to the World Championship, for the records speak volumes as to their consistency, the real highlight of the series was the showing of Walter von Hutschler and Joachim Weise in Pimm. How much of Pimm's four straight wins is due to the boat and how much to the sailing of it, who can say. But the margin of minutes of each of her victories brought the contestants to examine her minutely, for to American eyes she is most unusual. Her hull presents to the eye little extraordinary but her extremely flexible mast and boom together with her flat sail, which has a large amount of roach on both hoist and foot, are given credit for much of her success.

Pimm never got caught with the wrong sail, or so it seemed. If the breeze lightened or freshened her crew simply so flexed or unflexed her spars as to add or subtract draft. But do not get the idea that Pimm won only because she had the most modern rig in the series. She was always superbly sailed. We are told that von Hutschler for at least a decade has been one of the three leading skippers of Germany and his crew was the jib sheet hand for Dr. Bischoff when he won the Olympic Champion ship last year. But those four straight wins in a field of thirty-six boats gives everybody something to shoot at.

The opening race was in a twenty-mile southwest breeze, a real surprise to quite a few light air boats but only the beginning of the blowiest World Championship ever held on Long Island Sound. In the sloppy sea and heavy going the fleet rode down on the line early and in a mix-up which occurred alongside the committee boat, the 120-foot Coast Guard tug Manhattan, three boats, O Sole Mio from Italy, Jack Rabbit from Peconic and Hope from Narragansett became involved. The Italian craft sailed by Mario Perretti withdrew after an attempted but unsuccessful port tack start, leaving the others to race. While all this was going on Harold Halstead got Chuckle Ill going on the two-and-a-half-mile thrash to weather.

At the first mark of the windward and leeward course, sailed twice around, Chuckle led Lecky by about a minute. Close behind were the dusty weather Havemeyers, father and son from Great South Bay, and Barney Lehman with Pasha from Newport Harbor, with the rest of the fleet some distance back and very close together. In gybing after rounding the mark Pasha wrapped her sail and in gybing again to clear it the mast went overboard, putting a real contender and a fine sailor out of the run ning. The order of the three leaders was unchanged at the leeward mark but several craft dropped out due to rigging trouble. Others had difficulties in the heavy chop but managed to keep going somehow and one of these was Pimm, which sailed most of the race with a twisting buckling mast. In the rest of the opener, positions changed little at the top, Ace, Jack Rabbit and Kurush from Cuba gaining. Gull dropped one place while Hope sailed by the Colwell brothers from Narragansett Bay and Zoa by Macrate from Long Beach pulled up to seventh and eighth from astern. The order at the finish was Chuckle III, Lecky, Ace, Gull, Kurush and Jack Rabbit.

Three boats had a tough break in that their tows didn't cast them off in time and then far to leeward so they got late starts. These were Sampson Smith in Pioneer and Ed Doyle in Turtle Star from Rochester and Barbara Lucke from Barnegat with Eel. The first two later protested the committee for not allowing a postponement but the I.R.C. ruled they had been accounted for and could have but did not ask for a postponement. Pioneer after a very late start passed plenty of boats.

For the second race there was a complete absence of wind for nearly three hours of postponements and the l.R.C. went all over the Sound chasing zephyrs with the fleet following. Finally, when a northwester came in the fleet got off on a triangular course at 4:15 in about a six mile breeze which freshened continually. Perretti got across before the gun and was recalled. Half the fleet stood westward on the starboard tack, and this proved the place to go. The Pirie brothers in Gemini from Wilmette Harbor and Jack Rabbit well sailed by Paul Shields and Macrae Sykes led at the weather mark after good starts. Close behind was Geof Clark's San Souci from Cape Ann, Pimm, Zoa, Gull, Nina, from Puget Sound, Lecky and Chuckle.

On the broad reach which followed Pimm slid into the lead over Gemini, Jack Rabbit, Sans Souci and Zoa, Lecky, Nina, Chuckle, Gull and Harry Nye's Gale from Chicago. On the next leg a close reach, Shields lost a place. Lecky pulled up to fifth, and on the next beat to third, Pimm had widened her lead to about two minutes while Sans Souci had dropped to fifth. On the last two off-wind stretches positions did not change materially aside from the Clark brothers pulling up to third and the Pirie brothers cutting into the German's lead. With two races gone former Atlantic Champion Harold Halsted had a tie with Wegeforth at 66 points with Shields third with 64. Eel embraced a mark and in so doing threw away 22 points.

A cold icy trickle of rain slithered down one's back as I.R.C. and contestants and spectators all shivered before, during and after the third race, sailed in a moderate northeasterly. Pimm, Gale and Gemini stood to the north on the start along with a few others and they soon had a whale of a lead on the rest of the fleet which had gone in shore. Pimm led by a minute and a half at the weather mark with Gale and Gemini the two fast Stars from Lake Michigan behind her and the rest of the fleet well astern in a lightening breeze which had hauled so that the other three legs of what had been a windward and leeward course were just so much reaching.

There was never any question of anybody catching Pimm. It was just a question of how much she would win by as she led the parade back and forth. At the finish she had over three minutes on the Chicagoans Nye and Pirie. Perretti had pulled up to fourth for Italy while the defender Ace, coming from near the tail end of the fleet, passed boat after boat to finally take fifth, just ahead of the ever-consistent Lecky.

A snorting twenty-mile westerly with a choppy sea and low temperature made the fourth race anything but comfortable. Just before the start Gemini broke her rudder post, asked for a fifteen-minute postponement and permission to sail Ibis which Phil Upton had offered. The I.R.C. granted Pirie's request and announced the substitution through the loudspeaker. With the substitute boat Pirie took the start to weather and led all the way to the first mark of a triangular course. Pimm was close behind with Chuckle, Gull, Lecky and Jack Rabbit all threatening.

On the reach back to the starting buoy Pimm unrolled most of her reef as the breeze moderated and walked into a fine lead. As it freshened again on the second beat the Germans really got going in some nasty small boat weather and led Chuckle and Gull by three and a half minutes, increasing this still further on the home stretch. Near the finish the Piries snatched third from Gull. Both Halsted and Shields protested the substitution of Ibis for Gemini and the 1.R.C. after hearing much testimony sustained their protest on the grounds that most of the other boats, including the leaders had not known of the substitution. While the I.R.C. acted according to its responsibility under present rules in permitting the change, the evidence indicated that the other boats had been put at a disadvantage and that the Piries had secured a boat with an outstanding heavy weather reputation.

After the beating they had taken on the inside end of a long tow line in the chop of the previous day both Eel and Altair had not started this race, afraid that the continuance of the boisterous weather would make them open up further. Three other craft secured no points, Aries, sailed by Harry Wilmer of Delaware River, Dubhe, piloted by D. L. Harris and representing the United States Naval Academy in this fleet's first attempt at the Championship and Melville Grosvenor's Escape from Chesapeake Bay. The first two withdrew on rigging trouble of one kind or another, while Escape fouled a mark.

Going into the series finale it was nearly a foregone conclusion that the series would go to Pimm or Lecky, barring accidents. Once again, the hard-weather sailors had their weather, only a little more so. From twenty miles at the start, it breezed up to twenty-five at the finish with possibly thirty in the puffs and a thoroughly wet chop with it all. Four boats were over before the gun, Jack Rabbit, O Sole Mio, Commodore Symonette's Zelda from Nassau and Dubhe. Only the last returned on the recall. Either the others did not hear it or did not choose to return but in any event, they were disqualified as the responsibility does not rest with the T.R.C. to notify boats which are over. Every reasonable effort had been made.

Again, beautifully handled, Pimm led at every mark, widening out her lead on the windward and leeward course until at the finish she had nearly five minutes on Sam and Dorothy Smith in Pioneer from Lake Otsego. The champion Lecky took third with more than enough points to clinch the series and take the Gold Star series once more to California for its last stand in the United States before it goes elsewhere under our revised rules. Lecky had proved her amazing ability under the handling of Wegeforth and Phillips to be right up there in light, moderate and heavy going, the latter much predominating, of course. How Pimm's light rig stayed in the boat was marveled at by all but surely in the last knock 'em down and drag it out race she proved her ability to take it.

A delightful final banquet at the Manhasset Bay Yacht Club was followed by a farewell get-together in the grill room at which the weary contestants sang far into the night and said their farewells until they meet again in what we hope will be a sunnier and a warmer series in the land of sunshine on the Pacific Coast.