April/May Boatus Magazine
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LEADERSand LegendsThe world of boating has attracted impressive individuals who’ve helped to make this the sport we enjoy today. To mark our 50th Anniversary, we’re profiling 50 of these innovators and news- makers. This month, we introduce you to 27 of them; look for more in our upcoming issues By Carol Newman Cronin, Tim Murphy, Michael Vatalaro, E. Mertz, Bill Roche, Bernadette Bernon STEVE AND DORIS COLGATE Teaching The Joy of Sailing hen 27-year-old Doris Horecker signed up for a sailing course in the 1960s, she had no idea she’d Wend up marrying her instructor, Steve Colgate – and joining his business, Offshore Sailing School. Colgate, an Olympic sailor, sailed in an America’s Cup campaign by the time they married in 1969, and in another the next year. Later, in the disastrous 1979 Fastnet Race that claimed 15 lives (see page 52), Steve’s crew not only finished; they won their class. In the decades since they became a team, the Colgates have sailed thousands of miles together and taught more than 130,000 people to sail, expanding the school from its original two boats in City Island, New York, to eight locations ranging from the U.S. East Coast to the Caribbean. Their Colgate 26 distills three decades of their experience; today military and maritime academies use it to teach sailing to cadets. Doris’s book, Sailing: A Woman’s Guide, addresses the different ways men and women learn; in 1990 she founded the National Women’s Sailing Association, and continues to champion “the freedom, sense of self-esteem, and confidence” built into learning to sail. “The more you sail, the more you want to share it with others.” — DORIS COLGATE PHOTOS: OFFSHORE SAILING SCHOOL (LEFT), MARIANNE PAPA SCHOOL SAILING OFFSHORE PHOTOS: 58 | BoatU.S. Magazine APRIL | MAY 2016 “The old masters always told me the most beautiful machines have the least moving parts.” TIBOR “TED” JURACSIK Perfected The Saltwater Fly Reel altwater and fly reels didn’t get along in the early Legends days of the sport. But Ted Juracsik – a Hungarian Stool-and-die maker (and enthusiastic fly fisherman) who’d fled Soviet persecution in the 1950s – changed all that. In 1976, his Billy Pate Fly Reel was introduced, named after Juracsik’s fishing buddy and the renowned fly fisherman who went on to set many world records with Tibor’s equipment. Eight hundred world records have been set using Tibor’s reels, surpassing any other fly reel in history. The reel itself hasn’t changed from its initial design 40 years ago, a testament to its original execution. Ted’s still fishing at 79, and his family business, Tibor Reel Corporation, continues to be a leader in producing high-quality fishing reels worthy of the old masters. ONLINE EXTRA The Colgates, with the BoatU.S. Foun- dation, offer an online learn-to- sail course. www.BoatUS. org/Courses ATTRIBUTIONS FOR QUOTES USED IN THESE PROFILES CAN BE FOUND BY VIEWING THIS STORY ONLINE: WWW.BOATUS.COM/MAGAZINE THIS STORY VIEWING BY BE FOUND CAN PROFILES USED IN THESE QUOTES FOR ATTRIBUTIONS APRIL | MAY 2016 BoatU.S. Magazine | 59 ZANE GREY DENNIS CONNER Author & Big-Game Transformed The America’s Cup Fisherman bove all, the man who became or the author who earned the known as “Mr. America’s Cup” reputation as “the father of Awanted No Excuse To Lose – not Fmodern big-game fishing,” it coincidentally, the title of his third book. was writing about the desert that He sailed in 10 Cup races and won the made it possible for him to fish the Auld Mug four times. Conner, now world’s oceans. Zane Grey spent the royalties from his popular western novels (including bestseller Riders of the Purple Sage, 1912) on expeditions to places with deep water and big fish – the Keys, Nova Scotia, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia – then used his writing talents to bring those adven- tures to life. He published 89 books, both fiction and non-fiction, including eight fishing books. Grey set 14 deep-sea-fishing LIN & LARRY PARDEY records in the 1920s and ‘30s, and “First Couple” Of Cruising was first to catch a 1,000-pound fish on rod and reel. His achievements ust three days separated the Pardeys’ popularized a new sport: light-tackle 1968 wedding and the launch of their fishing. He also was one of the first firstJ boat, Seraffyn, which they built to advocate for releasing any fish that 74, is credited with transforming the themselves. Since then, little has sepa- wouldn’t be eaten – perhaps to make America’s Cup from amateur to pro; rated Lin and Larry Pardey. Their inspi- up for an unfortunate earlier habit of his 1980-1983 campaign was the first rational voyages, shared in a dozen books harpooning bottle- to replace traditional summer “gentle- and hundreds of articles, helped shape “Hope burns nose dolphins. His man” crews with full-time teams. cruising under sail for 30 years. They always in the records have since He lost the Cup sailed small, engineless wood boats. In heart of a fallen, and fish sizes twice, most memo- “When I go out, retrospect, it’s remarkable that a couple fisherman.” have dwindled. He rably in 1983, when I thrash the with tastes so far out of the mainstream died in 1939 at his slower boat, boat around became icons for a generation of sailors. age 67, but Grey’s Liberty, ended a the course. I Genset? Watermaker? Refrigeration? books still bring to 132-year U.S. win- punish it. I’m Nope. In lieu of gadgets, they showed life a time when both desert and ocean ning streak at the likely to crash just how far applied craftsmanship and hid unknown mysteries. hands of Australia good seamanship could take you. They II, sending the Cup it into other have sailed around the world, twice. out of America for boats. Boats The Pardeys, now in their 70s, live on the first time in are simply a an island near Auckland, New Zealand. living memory. No means to an Parkinson’s has slowed Larry, but Lin one knows if he end. A boat’s remains full on: among other pursuits, was asked to use performance creating a boat club and founding L&L his teeth to remove Pardey Publications, a platform for the the bolts holding has a lot to next generation of sailing writers. On the Cup in place at do with my her Facebook page, she recently posted the New York Yacht happiness.” the words from a sign at the boat club Club, as legend she helped found: Through Discipline predicted would be and Adventure to Happiness. “That,” she the losing skipper’s wrote, “describes the man who shared and fate. He won and reclaimed the trophy helped create the best 50 years of my life.” four years later, bringing it home to an American hero’s welcome: In 1987, he “Go simple, go small, go now.” was on the covers of both Time and Sports Illustrated and was named ABC Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year. FORSTER DANIEL (WWW.ZGWS.ORG), SOCIETY, WEST GREY’S ZANE PARDEY, LIN AND LARRY PHOTOS: 60 | BoatU.S. Magazine APRIL | MAY 2016 “No one had ever seen powerboat performance to approach it. I know I hadn’t.” — DICK BERTRAM RICHARD BERTRAM & C. RAYMOND HUNT When the two men teamed up to build Moppie for the Innovators Of The Deep-V Nassau race, Hunt had already burnished his credentials in n a gusty Bahamas day in April, 1960, two men – both sail and power circles, with the Concordia Yawl (1938) yacht broker Dick Bertram (above, left), and revolu- and the unsinkable Boston Whaler 13 (1956). But Moppie Otionary designer Ray Hunt (right) – changed pow- changed everything. Dick Bertram was the man who could erboating forever. The seas during that Miami-Nassau Race not only recognize a good idea when he saw it – he could sell were running eight to 12 feet; it was blowing 30. Most of their it, too. Madison Avenue loved him: His face sold Camel ciga- competitors never finished the race. Bertram and his mates rettes from a Times Square billboard; he appeared in full-page weren’t having an easy time, either, but their 31-foot Moppie magazine ads selling Hennessy Cognac. “The country’s econ- made Nassau in eight hours flat, two hours ahead of the fol- omy may take a nosedive and people may go broke,” Bertram lowing boat, breaking the record by four minutes. once said. “But the records show that even the in the worst Moppie was an innovation: the first fully conceived expres- financial crises, there is always a man ready to buy a boat. And sion of the Hunt-designed deep-V hull. Its benefits: minimal I’ll be there to sell it.” pounding in a seaway, sure steering in displacement and plan- Over 16 years, Dick Bertram built and sold 1,860 Bertram ing modes, ample buoyancy in the forward sections to prevent 31s, still regarded as a watershed model. Fully a quarter of his burying, a high chine and lower spray strips to knock down clients, he reckoned, had never owned a boat before. Today, spray. These deep-V features were well-exhibited in that fore- years after her champions’ passing, Moppie’s descendants and runner to the Bertram 31. Since then, they’re the features the lessons of that 1960 race can be seen in every deep-V hull PHOTOS: HUNT DESIGN, BERTRAM YACHTS BERTRAM HUNT DESIGN, PHOTOS: of numerous knockoffs.