January/February 2006 Issue 46 www.goodoldboat.com

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was unknowingly the prototype for the term “Renaissance man” long before Don Launer’s the term caught on. Many would be satisfi ed with the combination of technical expertise and creativity involved with this ca- reer, but there’s more to Don. He has the skills of a concert pianist and still plays daily on the piano his family owned when he was a boy. He tends an herb garden. He is a rather expert winemaker. But there’s more.

Built a brick house The year Don and Elsie Launer’s sec- ond child was born, Don bought some books, a concrete mixer, and 28,000 used bricks. He knocked the old mor- tar off each brick and built the home in which he and Elsie (and the two children during their formative years) lived for 33 years until his retirement from ABC in 1989. It shouldn’t surprise any of us that this master of many trades also built his Lazy Jack 32 schooner from a bare hull, should it? That boat, named Delphinus after the constellation, is the focal point of the home on a waterway that he and Elsie share in Forked River, New Jersey. The boat- building project was conceived in the Lazy Jack 32 late 1970s as Don began contemplating retirement. He had sailed a number of boats as a youth and raced in a fl eet of Lightnings in his 30s, although he gave up racing when he realized that the He’s a jack of all trades intensity of weekend racing does not provide a good escape from a stressful and master of most work week. As a family man, Don has owned more than 18 boats during his life, by Karen Larson including a 17-foot Picnic boat and a 22-foot Rhodes, both by General Boats (see his article in May 2005). ENAISSANCE MAN WAS NOT A TERM and-white broadcasting to an entirely Then there was an Essex 26, one of in use when Good Old Boat different medium with instant satellite the few center-cockpit models in that R contributing editor Don Launer transmissions and real-time news and was growing up prior to World War II. It worldwide special events. Delphinus, Don Launer’s Lazy Jack 32, was not a concept during his service as From the age of 11, Don knew he this page, is a familiar sight on the a sergeant/radio operator and repair- wanted to be in broadcasting. He got man in the war, nor when he studied his ham license, studied for the job, waters of Barnegat Bay near his home for an electrical engineering degree and was at the right place at the right in Forked River, New Jersey. Don pur- afterward. time as television broadcasting got chased the boat from Ted Hermann in It was not a term when he joined its wings. He led the technical teams 1980 as a bare hull, photo at top right. ABC as a television engineer and that covered special news events such Then, as always, he did the work him- moved through the ranks to the title as presidential conventions, missile self. These days he’s a one-man band of engineering supervisor. At ABC launches, and — for 20 years — all he served at the leading edge of the the Olympic games. He has two Emmy running a two-masted schooner from television-broadcast revolution as Awards on his mantel for Olympic cov- to stern. Despite an approaching it moved from simplistic live black- erage. That is one facet of the man who 80th birthday, he makes it look easy.

4 GOOD OLD BOAT January/February 2006 It shouldn’t surprise any of us that this master of many trades also built his Lazy Jack 32 schooner from a bare hull, should it? size range. The family made some all, 35 hulls were created before Ted memorable cruises on these boats, but Hermann ceased production. Don’s is as retirement loomed, Don says, “ I hull #31. Since the boat was in produc- wanted to retire with a good cruising tion at the time, Don could have had boat. I began looking for a salty-look- a completed boat delivered, but what ing shoal-, keel/cen