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Historical

Sphinx was built in 1939 as a club boat for the Norddeutscher Regattaverein (NRV) at Abeking & Rasmussen’s. The construction was afforded by money subscripted by citizens of Hamburg, especially by the Hamburg tradesman Phillip Reemtsma.

For Henry Rasmussen, being the owner of the shipyard, it was – after his first 12mR yacht “Skeaf” of the year 1914, the tenth and last 12mR yacht that he could build. All in all, during its company history, Abeking & Rasmussen built 102 mR yachts: one 9mR, three 5mR, seven 7mR, ten 12mR, 15 10mR, 25 8mR and 41 6mR yachts. Sphinx was launched on April 28, 1939 and therefore only some days before the Second World War started. Obviously, the attention was turned to the Olympic Games, which sailing competitions should take place 1940 in Helsinki. In summer 1939 Sphinx was sailed by consul Franz Brinkmann, who was during the “Kieler –“ and the “Travemünder Week” always in front of all the other 12mR yachts. But at the Dansk “Öresund Week” the mast broke so that Sphinx only after the war could participate in races again.

After the Second World War the whole sailing world was in a sorry state. Also the NRV had lost its clubhouse and almost all of its boats, but was able to save the 12mR er. After the capitulation the allies committed, that Germans without special permission were only allowed to sail boats smaller than 6m. Initiated by the chairman of the NRV those days, Erich F. Laeisz, it came to that legendary barter deal. Laeisz being a worldwide known ship owner, whose big yachts all started with a “P” – among them the famous windjammer “Pamir”, “Passat” and “Preußen”, was one of the most loyal customers of Abeking & Rasmussen. Laeisz sold Sphinx to two club members of the NRV, Hans and Wolfgang Freudenberg, who were not only holders of a Chilean pass port but also owners of a big wood-shop in Hamburg. Under Chilean flag they were allowed to sail the yacht. Payment was done with a wagon load of oak, larch and mahagony. The NRV passed this wood on to Abeking & Rasmussen and Henry Rasmussen in return delivered 12 “Hummel” boats, five pirates, two small keel boats, type “Sonderling” and eight “Hansa” jolly boats.

These jolly boats were the first exemplars of this later on very popular boat type that Henry Rasmussen constructed due to the constitutions of the allies with a length over all of 5,85m and therefore smaller than 6m. The NRV sold these boats to its club members and was with this establishing the financial basis for building the new club house at the Alster, where the NRV is still located. A model of the Sphinx embedded to the wall still reminds of this new start.

After the war the Freudenberg brothers were sailing the yacht with the name “Lobito”, winning in 1948 the traditional race for the “Blaue Band der Niederelbe”. Ten years later, in 1958, Sphinx was sold to the naval college Mürwik which was using it until 2004 with the name “Ostwind” as a training ship. In the 60ies and 70ies the navy won in total 9 times the “Blaue Band der Flensburger Förde” for the fastest local yacht.

On September 30, 2005 both 12mR yachts “Ostwind” and “Westwind” of the navel college Mürwik were sold by auction. Some citizens of Flensburg tried everything to avoid this. When the auction date was fixed, three Flensburg sailors Jochen Frank, Gorm Gondesen and Oliver Berking decided to make an offer to save at least one of the yachts. They were successful! In January 2006 under direction of Kai Wohlenberg the restoring of the “Ostwind” – which for the future should again bear its original name “Sphinx” – started and will take until spring 2008.

Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):

Owner/Guardian: (1939-1955) – NRV, Erich F. Laeisz
Owner/Guardian: (1956-1960) – Hans and Wolfgang Freudenberg (renamed Lobito)
Owner/Guardian: (1961-2005) – Mürwik Naval School (used as a sail training ship, renamed Ostwind)
Owner/Guardian: (2005) – Oliver Berking, Jochen Frank, and Gorm Gondesen (renamed Sphinx)

Resources

Mürwik Naval School
Norddeutscher Regatta Verein (“North German Regatta Club”)
www.sphinx-12mr.de/

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Database

Historical:

Edmund A. Cutts, friend and disciple of L. Francis Herreshoff, designed and built SPELLBOUND for Abe Oberlin of New York City.

Edmund A. Cutts, a self taught designer like the Herreshoffs and Stephens, and innovator of the Cutts method of yacht construction, built SPELLBOUND with no wooden keel. the centerboard casing is constructed out of bronze, resting on a gasket on top of the lead ballast. Vertically framed with bronze strapping brought well up from the garboards.

The resulting design is beautiful and timeless, and was featured in director Tom Dey’s 2006 Paramount Pictures movie FAILURE TO LAUNCH.

Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):

Owner/Guardian: (1970) Abe Oberlin, New York City.

Comments

Charlie Stahl – May 17, 2016

Fantastic sailing video! Heeled over and hauling ass!!! Way better viewing than the movie scene! Like the wheel design and would love to see below deck.

Historical:

The fleet of NY50s was commissioned by the New York Yacht Club and built in the winter of 1912-1913 by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company of Bristol (HMCo), Rhode Island. The boats were graceful yet powerful, comfortable in heavy weather and so swift that they won the Astor Cup for sloops 9 times.

Of the 9 NY50s built, the only known remaining vessel is Spartan (though Barbara may be out there somewhere, according to legend). Originally constructed as a jack yard tops’l gaff sloop, Spartan measures 72’ LOA and 50’ LWL. She has a 14’ 7” beam and a draft of 9’ 9”, displacing about 74,000 pounds. She carries 35,500 pounds of lead ballast.

Like her sisters, her topsides were double-planked and diagonally strapped for extra strength in the Herreshoff tradition; the hull was built upside down. Because they were constructed so efficiently, the NY50s only cost $17,000 to build.

Restoration

Allen Pease, Spartan’s owner at the time of her dismasting, had her towed to Brewer Pilots Point Marina in Westbrook, Connecticut. A survey revealed that a complete rebuild was needed. In 1981 he hired Ed McClave, Ben Philbrick and later Andy Giblin, who Pease knew would “do the job right” because of their collective experience in restoring Herreshoffs (24 in total, including Spartan) and other classic boats. The team worked on Spartan over the next 8 years as funds became available, and in the process formally established MP&G with headquarters in Mystic, Connecticut.

“We completed framing with steam-bent white-oak frames, replaced her floor timbers, her stem and part of her horn timber, and replanked her from the garboards to just below the sheer,” wrote McClave in a 2010 paper published by the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers for the 4th Classic Yacht Symposium at the Herreshoff Marine Museum. In addition, her deck beams were replaced with white oak, and steel strapping was substituted for bronze to prevent future corrosion.

To reduce the commute time for MP&G, Pease had Spartan towed to Crocker’s Boatyard in New London. The restoration ceased in 1989, and 3 years later Spartan was moved by truck to the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol, Rhode Island. There, she was set up as an exhibit while Pease looked for an appropriate buyer to finish the work he started. It took 18 years. “I had many offers from abroad and in the U.S., but I turned them all down until I met the current owners, who impressed me with their recently gained knowledge of all things Herreshoff, and their desire to have the restoration continue with MP&G, which was important to me,” said Pease.

Spartan’s owners, who wish to remain anonymous, wanted to maintain the boat’s original look without sacrificing safety. “I wanted the aesthetics of the boat to be such that it transports you back in time, so that when you sit on deck or go below you don’t see anything modern,” said one of the owners, who has restored a few houses in Scandinavia and 3 Buzzards Bay 30s, and was keen to test his skills on another classic boat.

In their search for reference materials to aid in the restoration, the owners tracked down old photographs and original drawings of Spartan and other NY50s from collections at Mystic Seaport, the Mariners Museum in Newport News, Virginia, and the Haffenreffer-Herreshoff Collection in the Hart Nautical Collection at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Restoration Continues:

The MP&G team renewed their work on Spartan in 2005, picking up where they had left off. They replaced the boat’s plywood deck covering with solid teak. They replaced the forefoot timber, the timber keel and the horn timber with white oak. They replaced all steel fastenings with silicon-bronze, including the floor timber bolts and chain plates. Because of significant water damage to the plank keel, most of it was replaced with a beautiful piece of knotless white oak measuring 12” thick by 27” wide.

The ballast keel was removed and sent to Canada to be repoured. The yellow pine covering boards were replaced with mahogany, and mahogany toe rails were added. Items like the capstan, binnacle and wheel were also restored.

For the interior, MP&G copied the panels from Pleione, another NY50 that had been partially salvaged by Mystic Seaport before being scuttled. Even the light fixtures were taken from 1915 patterns, the earliest period possible for electrical lights. “Spartan is not a museum artifact. She’s meant to be sailed as a racing boat, so everything we put on her was tested to destruction for maximum expected usage because we intend to sail her hard,” said one of her owners.

Skilled Craftsmen Pitch In:

While MP&G was the lead shop for this very extensive project, many subcontractors contributed their skills. For example, Taylor & Snediker, LLC of Pawcatuck, Connecticut, made the mahogany hatches with help from J.M. Reineck & Son of Hull, Massachusetts, who cast the bronze hardware. French & Webb of Belfast, Maine, built some 250 wooden shell blocks for the rigging that had been redesigned by MP&G from HMCo drawings. William Lowe Inc., of Rockland, Maine, produced the metal components. French & Webb also constructed Spartan’s hollow main mast, which measures 89’ 5” long and 13” at its widest diameter, from Douglas fir.

“There were literally hundreds of people involved in this project. It really was a labor of love because everybody went above and beyond in terms of craftsmanship, time and care,” said the owner. “She’s a special boat to sail, and I think everybody recognized that. Special boats seem to get extra attention.”

Stonington Boat Works, LLC in Stonington, Connecticut, built the 48’ boom, the 32’ gaff, the jack yards, and the mast hoops. “[They] built 20 mast hoops and my rigging crew leathered them. Everything that comes in contact with the wood on that vessel has a leather sleeve sewn around it to protect it from gouges,” said Nathaniel S. Wilson of Sailmaker, Inc. in East Boothbay, Maine, who built the standing and running rigging and made the sails from woven, synthetic, polyester sailcloth instead of Egyptian cotton, which was once commonplace.

Spartan is configured with a 450-square-foot jack yard tops’l; a 570-square-foot club jib; 3 different jib tops in various sizes; a nylon balloon jib for light air; and a 1970-square-foot mainsail designed with 2 reefs instead of its original single reef, for broader use. Because of Spartan’s narrow, efficient hull, and large sail area, she creates her own apparent wind and does very well in light air. “She has a self-tacking jib, so when you are head-to wind, you basically just turn her and go. You back the jib and her nose spins right around. As soon as she makes headway, she is completely maneuverable and handles like a dinghy. We sailed her off the mooring and off the dock,” said her owner.

Spartan Sails On:

The 2 owners sail Spartan with a crew of 10 and have worked with sailing master John Bardon. Bardon was brought to the U.S. from Europe to prepare the crew for racing and for the Med in 2012.

He has sailed on classic yachts most of his life. His resume includes the 214’ luxury yacht Creole; the Schooner Yacht America; the 178’ 3-masted topsail schooner Adix (formerly Jessica); and Shenandoah, another 3-masted schooner. “It’s a steep learning curve because nobody on the eastern seaboard has a gaff racer like this one,” said the owner, who has had limited sailing experience, but is determined to learn how to sail his own boat instead of hiring someone to do it for him. “It’s our boat. And if we win, we win by sailing her ourselves. There’s no achievement in paying people to do it for you. The people on the classic sailing circuit are great. It’s more of a collegial atmosphere instead of litigious. That’s why we got into it.”

The owners took Spartan on the racing circuit last summer (2011) starting in Maine, where they participated in the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta. There, they led the Herreshoff Class fleet at the twelfth annual Castine Classic Yacht Race to Camden, and took honors in all three races that also included the Camden Feeder Regatta. After Maine, Spartan returned to Nantucket to compete in the 39th Opera House Cup Regatta where she had been dismasted 31 years before. She placed third in her division. Next winter Spartan’s owners plan to take her to the Med to race against the Fifes where she is certain to do well.

“There is scuttlebutt over the NY50s being the greatest one-design class ever built. I certainly agree with that statement,” said Spartan’s former captain, John Wenz. “I have never sailed anything quite like her. She responds like a nimble modern ocean racer but yet has a solid feel of a classic yacht. She is all thoroughbred and all business. She wants to go fast all the time.”

Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):

Owner/Guardian: (1912) – Edmund Randolph
Owner/Guardian: (1976) – Virgin Islands
Owner/Guardian: (1978-1993) – Allan Pease
Owner/Guardian: (1993-2006) – Pease/Herreshoff Museum
Owner/Guardian: (2015) – Victor Paul

Comments

Don Miller – July 11, 2018

I have two signed Morris Rosenfeld Photos of the Spartan undersail taken sometime in the 30’s when the Spartan was owned, and lived on, by the Homestead family. I have a third unsigned photo of the Homestead family at the helm. Rosenfeld was a family friend of the Homesteads, and I in turn am a friend of the Homestead’s son Dick who is a resident of Sausalito CA.

March 15, 2019

Hello,
 My sister and her husband, Dr. Ralph Wadeson, were partners in a partnership which owned the Spartan in the mid 70s. They are identified as “1976 Virgin Islands” in the history of ownership above. I am curious if you have a photo of the Spartan to sell since my only picture is very faded.
She sure is a magnificent boat.
Regards, Chris Hague

Cornelius Harrison – January 30, 2023

Hello
I was lucky enough to sail on the “Barbara” from Antigua to Dominica in 1976. Many good memories and I have some photos if you would like to see her. We were told the boat was heading to the west coast somewhere. I was telling the story of that sailing the other day and told the person it was a NY50. They had never heard of them. I decided to look it up and that brought me to your web page.
Thanks CC

Historical:

The South Wind, one of the last great two-masted schooners to grace the seven seas with her cloud of sail.

Commissioned in 1929 at Boothbay, Maine by Houston’s Benjamin Clayton, the South Wind sailed into one of America’s most romantic eras.

Her masters read like a who’s who in Hollywood. Included in her past masters are such greats as Charles “Buck” Jones, Joseph Maniewicz, George Brent, Jack Warner, and Jackie Coogan. While Warner owned her, the flamboyant Errol Flynn escaped upon her decks. Murry Samuals, who was her master during the early fifties drank many a rum and coke with Ernest Hemingway anchored in Havana Harbor.

Originally designed by John Alden of Boston, the South Wind was commissioned Sartartia by Benjamin Clayton. Sartartia was the name of one of the Clayton’s family plantations. Two weeks after she was launched, Clayton and his new bride took their honeymoon cruise aboard her to the Bahamas. Clayton sailed her two years and on February 7, 1931, the Sartartia was sold to Harry J. Bauer of Los Angeles who renamed her the South Wind, thus beginning her career as “Yacht of the Stars.”

In 1962, D.F.W. Downey, a multi-millionaire Houston builder. Bought her for the price of $400,000.00. Downey refitted her in Boston and added the small deck cabin. She originally was a flush-decked schooner. Downey made her ready for chartering business in the windward and Leeward Islands, sailing the waters of the Carribean.

In September of 1971, “Doc” Rail of Nassau Bay, Texas, purchased the South Wind. She was berthed at Morgans Point for a number of years after Downey’s death and was badly in need of repair.

Rail was refitting her in Galveston at the Galveston Yacht Basin, when a freak storm blew out of the Northeast on November 23 with winds up to 30 knots. The South Wind beat herself to death and sank in 35’ of water. She had taken a 4’ x 4’ hole in her starboard side at the beam. But damage was more extensive than that; her keel had also pulled away from the bottom. The South wind seemed destined for the salvage heap… The South Wind, “Yacht of the Stars.”

Under George Brent’s Stewardship

“Operation Miserable”

1946 San Pedro-Honolulu Race – “Eighteen minutes into the race, Brent was at the helm of South Wind when it passed buoy 2-A the last yacht in the fleet of competitors.” Aside from being last to start….A lovely sight except for one thing George’s boat was going in the wrong direction.

Twenty-five-days of sailing lay ahead before reaching Diamond Head.

Tom Fleming, South wind’s bullheaded skipper, had insisted that the starting line was outside the breakwater. He was wrong, no one aboard heard the starting gun. The tension on deck was becoming impossible noted crew member Carl Cook. “Brent was speechless and went under deck. Cook, a Pacific veteran, wrote that skipper Fleming was a hopeless, nasty sourpuss. and absolutely no sailor.”

By the close of the day they had made no headway and ended up East of San Clemente…in calm waters They realized they had lost the race!

By the fifth day out, Cook wrote, “Brent remarked, “Since this appears to be a Mailbu Charter Cruise, I might as well get a tan.” Tension were released when someone placed an air bladder under Cook’s dining room cushion. “It sounded horrible, he admitted. “We had beans the day before. Crew member Pat Watson almost died laughing….

Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):

Owner: (1929-1931) – Benjamin Clayton, Houston Texas cotton broker
Owner: (1931) – Harry J. Bauer, Los Angeles Ca – renamed her the Southwind
Owner: (1933,1934) – Cyril Tobin, Commodore St. Francis Yacht Club
Owner: (1936) – Charles “Buck” Jones, Van Nuys, screen actor, horseman, yachtsman, member and Vice-Commodore of the Pacific Writers Yacht Club
Captain: Alexander L. Van Valin
Owner: (1939) – Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Pacific Palisades. Film director, screenwriter, and producer.
Owner: (1940) – Joe E. Brown, actor and comedian
Owner: (1941) – George Brent, stage, film, and television actor.
Owner: (1941) – Jack Warner, producer
Actor: Errol Flynn
Owner: (1946, 1947) – George Brent, repurchased vessel
Captain: Tom Fleming
Crew: (Transpacific Race Crew) Pat Watson, Carl Cook…
Guest: Ernest Hemingway
Owner: (1962-1971) – Doyle Downey, Houston, Tx. – Homeport: Galveston, Tx (chartered for $2,975)
Owner: (1971) – “Doc” Rail, Nassau Bay, Texas

Sources

George Brent: Ireland’s Gift to Hollywood and Its Leading Ladies
By Scott O’Brien
The Yachting News Magazine
Weems Collections – Maps, Ships and Architecture
Coronado Citizen
Aldens Designs

Photo acknowledgement(s): (in order of appearance)

South Wind 1964 English Harbour Antigua – H. Danvers
George Brent
Buck Jones
Buck Jones