Friday, January 12, 2018

Happy Birthyear to the Lightning







Welcome to my new blog for the Lightning Class site. I have asked you come over to the test site while we work out bugs in the new site. We will over the next months follow the history of the Lightning and the ILCA in roughly chronological order. It will be comments on a mix of photos, videos, clippings from our Class materials and periodicals. I will use a little music from the period under discussion to take you back in time. Occasionally I will toss in something interesting that crosses my desk. For tradition I will be keeping Mary Huntsman's original column title at the masthead.


Lets go back to 1938 with this tune below. It was the number two song on the 1938 hit parade. The song was the Andrews Sisters breakthrough song done for a 1938 movie. When the Lightning was being developed in the Skaneateles Boat Company shop in 1938 this would have be playing on the radio...







The idea of the Lightning was born in conversation at the Skaneateles County Club in 1938. Lead by Comet sailors Linzey Nickolson and Gordon Cronk the parameters were set for 20'ish sloop for racing and daysailing. Two members of the group, boatbuilders John and George Barnes, recommended 19 feet for  best use of standard 20 pieces of lumber. John Barnes would suggest they use a the hottest new design team to draw the boat. That would be the new firm of Sparkman & Stevens in NYC. A deal was struck with S&S do the boat and sell  enough sets of plans to satisfy the fee.  Then they would sign rights to the design over  to a new class association. And the name? Why not the fast old clipper ship Lightning.




Here are the young gentlemen that gave us out boat. Over the next months lets get to know them better.

 





To view this as it should appear click the 2017 archive to the right  and start with the first entry. Keep clicking up and it will keep reloading, appearing as it would in order.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Craig Thayer & Bill Fastiggi's notes on Fleet #7

After posting earlier on Fleet #7  I received an email from Bill giving me insight in to what happened at Riverside YC. He says in the Forties that the Fleet Lightnings were loaned to the Juniors during the summer weekends  and raced by the parents on weekends. Great arrangement. By end of the Forties the kids were wanting a sportier boat. Riverside YC would go to the Fireball, a small plywood scow with a trapeze. Bill says this was the story all along the Sound.
 Craig, who grew up on the south side of the Sound in Huntington dose not re
member  Lightnings as Junior trainers. He remembers the S&S Bluejay ( a 13' miniature Lightning) being the kids boat.

Two different takes by two reliable sources. Looking into it I find they are looking at two different times.  The Fall 2016 issue of Flashes  had a photo in my history column of a cover from the August 6 , 1945  Life magazine showing kids rigging a Lightning at Riverside YC.

Note the magazine's date... it's the day the Atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan ending WWII.

Going back to my files to review the issue I re-read the article which was about the Juniors Program at Riverside which describes the program being sailed in Lightnings. The instructor is Jane Webb who's dad was an early Lightning hotshot on LIS. Better yet looking at the photos we find old 'Tam', #289, again,  
 so we now have #289 as a cover girl (we have many more Lightnings on magazine covers over the years including Ladies Home Journal and Sports Illustrated, we will get to them in the coming months ). Now with Bill's contribution we can tie it all together. Here, slip back to 1945 and enjoy the Life article:



If your club or class boat made the cover of a leading publication you would want the world to know.  Lets look at Yachting. The magazine  ran in the back pages several columns for sailing areas and classes. There it was in the October 1945 issue of Yachting. We find our Class President James M. Trenary (#298) penning a section called "Lightning Flashes". He announces the August Life article and we find the Life photographer who did the piece was crew on Lightning #675. 

From a couple of seconds clip from a video I published a couple of posts back we have tied things together to  give us an insight into our early Class history. Here is the Yachting, note the establishment of the first Class office, Karl Smither ( Fleet 12) goes for a swim and we read of the start of Lightning sailing in Columbia SA. 






Now for Craig, he is a decade ahead in the 1950s. The Blue Jays he remembers was designed by Sparkman & Stephens. Like the Laser the Blue Jay started as a sketch on a napkin. Doodled by Drake Sparkman (Lightning #5) and his fellow YC members in 1947. One suggested the name "Blue Bird" and Drake refined it by calling it "Blue Jay" making for an inexpensive Class insignia, using  a stock sailmakers blue colored letter 'J' .  Taking it to Olin Stephens the plans for the boat were drawn in 1948 and the first Blue Jay was shown at the 1949 New York Boat show. S&S would ( and still does) sell the plan for a nominal fee. The Blue jay went to fiberglass in the Sixties. Two of the molds made are owned by the Blue Jay Class and are in good hands at Allen Boat Co. in Buffalo. Need a 'J', give Tom a call.   

Motorboating   January 1949






And last, looking for Webb in our 1946 Lightning Class Yearbook we find a Rosenfeld portrait of the Webb family.
                                                   


Thanks to Bill and Craig for helping us out here.

Sunday, December 31, 2017

#7, THE PHANTOM FLEET ( test for fleet history/newspaper clipping))

In the first yearbook, 1940,  fleet #7 would be the largest fleet in the new Lightning Class. For thirty two years the Fleet would report in the yearbooks increasing number of boats, in 1971 they reported 34 boats in the fleet. Then the next year Fleet 7 does not report and disappears from our records... An entire fleet of 30+ boats gone in one year! What happened? A search of everything turns up nothing "Lightning" at Riverside YC...
From the 1941 Lightning Class Yearbook

The Riverside YC in Greenwich Conn on the north side of Long Island Sound was founded in 1888 and the first clubhouse was built. The Clubhouse of today was built in 1929 and looks pretty much like it did when the second Lightning Class Championship (NA's) was sailed in 1940. Eighteen boats are listed pretty much in consecutive order, a fleet purchase? Checking the Class boat Files of the 18 only 7 of the owners names match up as first entry... Suspecting Skaneateles I checked Dave Miller's SBCo.  Building Log and there they were, all in a row, names and boat numbers matching up. Sooooo... beware of the 1- 5000 ILCA Boat Files. And who is out there selling whole fleets of Lightnings in our first year?
From the 1941 Lightning Class Yearbook

Fleet #7 Would give us some of our early officers and our 1944 Champion, Theodore Maher. In 1945 the Nationals would return to Riverside and the Class would hire the famed marine photographer Morris Rosenfeld to shoot the races. Many of these were were used in the '46  yearbook. All now reside in the Rosenfeld Collection at Mystic Seaport.
From the 1941 Lighting Class Yearbook

But Fleet 7, were did they go? 1972?

Going to the newspaper search engine Newspapers. Com we try several searches and one hits in the Bridgeport Conn. March 16 1975 with a piece describing the precipitous decline in the old one design classes on Long Island Sound. My guess is the entire fleet moved to the Soling in one year.

In future posts we will explore what happened to racing small centerboard boats in the the Untied States.


Friday, December 29, 2017

How to do a boat history (test for attaching photos)

To illustrate how a search is done lets find out about the Lightning in the video clip below. Its Lightning #289. We see three people, a man and two younger women. Dad & daughters? The boat? Looking closely we find features found on the Skaneateles boats. The seats are dead ringers for SBCo. The motor mount looks like SBCo.. The boat is being sailed in a large body of water with much larger sailboats. The rig is 1940 style.


So with this info lets look in to the Class boat files. The entry for #289 lists two owners but no builder the first owner is listed 'no fleet' but sailing on Lake Quasapaug in Middlebury Conn. Googling that we find a 296 acre lake. Too small for the video clip. Something is not right here.
Being a Skaneateles we go to the SBCo Building Log transcribed from the hand written entries for us by Dave Miller at the Skaneateles Historical Society ( work supported by the ILCA Huntsman History Fund). We find SBCo. serial number 6259 was a Lightning with racing number 289 sold to "Scott Yard" with buyer listed a "Trenary".  Note the racing numbers are not always consecutive. Suspecting Scott Yard is a dealer we look around the log and find others listed as going to them so we have a dealer and buyer but no location.
Now to the Class yearbooks , this is the most time consuming part.  In the 1941 yearbook #289 shows up as belonging to James M. Trenary sailing with fleet #7 at Riverside YC on Long Island Sound. Thats water big enough to match the video clip. But in '41 no address are listed in the YB.  In the '44 (we do not have copies of '42,'43) we hit paydirt. "Tip" Trenary ( sailing #289 ' Tam') is now Class Sec/Tres. with a business address of 45 Wall St..  Googling that we find in 1944 the US Trust of NY. Googling that we find that he worked there until retiring as Ex. V P in 1960. In 1945 he becomes Lightning Class President. In 1946 he sells #289 and buys #1600. Again the Boat Files fails to list him as an owner ?????   Following Trenary he stays with fleet #7 eventually buying #5670 till '58 and then is listed as no boat, Life Member. In '62 YB he disappears??  Nothing Googles up on him except for some bank stuff. Now to the magazines circa '60 - '62. Going to Google Books searching Trenary- Rudder, Yachting ,etc. We get a hit with Motorboating Feb 1962 pp 106 and sadly find an obit for him dying of a heart attack a 58 years of age.. We find he has four daughters and most interestingly find that Trenary was Chairman of the US Olympic Yachting Committee. He raised the money to send our team to the Naples Olympic Games. Once again we see Lightning sailors leading the sport of sail racing.  

Here is a photo from the '45 YB.  Note the hairline, gotta be the fellow in the video clip

Courtesy, Skaneateles Historical Society
As to #289 she would pass through seven other owners. All were on Long Island Sound until going to the first mentioned lake in 1958 at that point she passes from our records until 1999 when she turns up in Maine (Boat Files). Googling up his name we find a musician still performing there. Bet the old girl is in his back yard.


Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Video Test #2 and a linky test.

In 2004 we sailed Lyra to Mystic Seaport for the Sparkman & Stephens 75th Anniversary. I had the opportunity to shake the hand that gave us our Lightning. A short documentary  film was made for the event. Here is a short clip of the Class at Mr. Stephen's party.







Here is the video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWxW-miza8w&t=2s 


The Mystic Seaport video 'Simply Brilliant' name derives from the S&S schooner Brilliant, their sailing ambassador. Brilliant was owned by Briggs Cunningham, (Lightning #1588), and his wife Lucy, (Lightning #3500), for years before they donated her to Mystic.  Craig Thayer and friends chartered her a few years  back (2006?).  He says she steers "like a 40 ton truck."

In this video of S&S designs sailing you will see a DUKW. This amphibious truck is one of our S&S sister ships. Its development earned Rod Stephens the Medal of Freedom.






Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Video Test #1   Lightnings on Long Island Sound 1948


Newsreel clip of Larchmont YC regatta in 1947

When asked to do a blog for the Class I immediately turned to a blog I have enjoyed for the last few years. Rod Mincher's blog sets the standard for classic racing sailboats. The Classic Moth is much like our Classic Lightning group. Building, restoring and racing  classic wooden sailboats. Rod captures this in his blog. With period videos like the one above, photos and old magazine clippings he brings it alive.  In his work I found the roots of our Lightning design in 'Departure', the basis of the Star and Comet designs. Jeff and Amy Linton sail  with these folks. While  I  have yet to cross paths with the Lintons  we have several mutual friends in the Flying Scot Class and the Watertribe. So here is Rod's Blog.  I like the tunes he throws in. Mine will be covers of tunes of the times we are covering. So click on the link. Hit the Youtube, cut up the volume and listen to the old B-3 as you scroll down for the pics...



Lifted from Rod's blog