Author: admin

Historical

Jascha Heifetz, many considered him the greatest violinist of the 20th century. Heifetz owned the 1714 Dolphin Stradivarius, the 1731 “Piel” Stradivarius, the 1736 Carlo Tononi, and the 1742 ex David Guarneri del Gesù. Jascha with one of his Stradivarius’ locked safely away onboard, raced in the 1938 Transpacific on his N-Class sloop SERENADE, with Humphrey Bogart as crew.

Jascha Heifetz, widely regarded as one of the greatest performing artists of all time, was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, which was then occupied by Russia, on February 2, 1901.. He began playing the violin at the age of two. He took his first lessons from his father Ruvin, and entered the local music school in Vilna at the age of five where he studied with Ilya Malkin. He made his first public appearance in a student recital there in December 1906, and made his formal public debut at the age of eight in the nearby city of Kaunas (then known as Kovno, Lithuania). With only brief sabbaticals, he performed in public for the next 65 years, establishing an unparalleled standard to which violinists around the world still aspire….more

A little known ambition in the life of Jascha Heifetz became known to those working with him at Samuel Goldwyn studios when the world’s greatest violinist disclosed that he had entered his yacht SERENADE in the grueling race to Hawaii in 1939. The race, which is biannual and scheduled to start on July 4, 1939, is the longest regularly established yacht contest. The course is from San Pedro Light to Diamond Head Light, a distance, as the crow flies, of approximately 2,400 miles. Heifetz had recently completed work in his first picture, “The Restless Age,” will skipper the vessel himself, with an amateur crew.

Sandeman comments – SERENADE was designed by American West Coast sailboat designer Nicholas Potter, who working from the late 1920s through the late 40s; is often known as the “‘Herreshoff of the West.’ Commissioned by the famous Lithuanian violinist Jascha Heifetz, she built by Wilmington Boatworks California for the 1938 Trans Pacific Yacht Race (Los Angeles to Honolulu) the longest of the two oldest ocean races in the world. Other celebrity owners have included the Cousteau family and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Donald Douglas Sr. of aircraft building fame often skippered her when he was not sailing his own Potter M class yacht. SERENADE is noted in the Nicholas Potter entry of the Encyclopaedia of Yacht Designers by Lucia del Sol Knight and Daniel B. MacNaughton. A note on Nicholas Potter; he had willed that his boat plans be destroyed by burning. In the case of SERENADE however there is a surviving plan.

Owners comments: There are no sail tracks on the boat as we use the fact she has two tack downhauls to position the lead. This combined with several leads on the deck enable us not to have a genoa track; the original did not have either. She has lazy jacks for easier sail handling. The original wire reel halyard winch has been removed (but kept in storage) so that we can use a self tailing Bronze Lewmar. The original owners – the Heifetz family – wanted to achieve that difficult combination in a yacht: a competitive race boat while at the same time a comfortable cruising boat for the family, all packaged in an attractive shape. In order to take advantage of the active racing fleets on the West Coast, he specified that the boat be built using the Universal Rule as an NClass racing sloop. Other boats of that class included the Herreshoff NY 40s. He also specified that the boat be able to accommodate guests properly and so the boat has 6 feet of headroom throughout. In addition, a separate guest cabin was configured which is unusual for a boat her size. When cruising short-handed, she is sailed with an original configured self-tacking jib. The boat was originally configured with two headstays: one for the self-tacking jib which is regularly hanked on, and the other one ready for any headsail change. This insured that the boat is not sailed bald-headed. While this is convention today, it was not the case in 1938. In addition, she has 2 spinnaker poles – the spinnaker pole attachments on the mast are off centre. This was to accommodate the fact that the Transpac is largely a reach as in many offshore races. As a result, SERENADE gybes her large spinnaker by simply raising the new spinnaker pole to meet the new luff. In effect, you gybe with two spin poles rather than the dip pole gybe. Finally, in an effort to take every precaution regarding his “insured” hands, all sheets were led to the middle of the boat. Thomas Skahill, the noted West Coast yacht historian notes that Elsa Potter tells of a race in which she was aboard along with Florence Heifetz, who cautioned her husband to be careful setting up a running backstay. He replied that each finger was insured for one million dollars!

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

• Owner/Guardian: (1938) – Jascha Heifetz
• Captain: (1938) – Mel Beatty
• Crew: George Hoag II
• Actor: Sailing Friend: Humphrey Bogart
• Owner/Guardian: Charles Isaacs (Wife Hungarian actress Eva Gabor)
• Owner/Guardian: (1975) – Philippe Cousteau
• Owner/Guardian: Philip Kaminis, Beverly Hills,
  California
• Captain Mike and Cathy Lewis
• Captain: (1985) – Dave Topping
• Owner/Guardian: Glenn Kim

Resources

Sandeman Yacht Company: http://www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk/
Jascha Heifetz website: http://www.jaschaheifetz.com
LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/

Historical:

Seaward was designed by John G. Alden and was built by the Adams Company, East Boothbay, Maine in 1920 for Mr. L.A. Norris, of San Francisco, Ca. She was acquired by the Navy on 31 January 1942 from Cecil B. DeMille Productions, Los Angeles, California. Sold in April 1945 to Charles A. Williams of San Pedro, Calif., and resumed service as the yacht SEAWARD. Transferred to French registry 1951.

 Under Cecile B. DeMille Stewardship

Cecil Blount DeMille was an American filmmaker. Between 1914 and 1958, he made a total of 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cinema and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history. His films were distinguished by their epic scale and by his cinematic showmanship.

Some of Hollywood’s most intense research for Cecille’s various Paramount Pictures spectacles were conducted onboard his yacht Seaward. While underway Cecille, along with screenwriter Harold Lamb, worked out the details for “The Crusades,” The Crusades is a 1935 American historical adventure film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and originally released by Paramount Pictures. It stars Loretta Young as Berengaria of Navarre and Henry Wilcoxon as Richard I of England.

Cecil B. DeMille and the Tiburón Island Adventure – Thomas Bowen

Cecil B. DeMille had been working hard preparing for a new motion picture to be titled “The Ten Commandments” (the 1923 silent black and white version), and he needed a break before the exhausting job of filming began. What better way to rest up he thought, than to get together with some friends on his beloved “Seaward” for a few weeks of sailing and casual hunting and fishing. And what better place to get away from the Hollywood pressure cooker than Mexico! He and his friends could sail south to the tip of Baja California and then head northward into the Gulf of California. To add a little extra adventure, they could chart a course for the fabled Tiburon Island and take a firsthand look at the notorious Seri Indians. But the idyllic voyage he had in mind proved to be anything but smooth sailing. Things began to go awry right from the start, and through a combination of misinformation, misunderstanding, perhaps a bit of hubris, and plain bad luck, it turned out to be a trip that would dog him for the rest of his life.

The idea of sailing into the Gulf of California and visiting the Seri Indians was a familiar one to Southern Californians, for intrepid sailors had been occasionally been doing just that for more than two decades.

Unfortunately, some of the earlier trips had come to tragic ends. Two parties of Americans who went ashore on Tiburon Island in the mid 1890s disappeared and were presumed killed by Seris. The fate of the missing Americans had made lurid copy for the Los Angeles newspapers. For a while, imaginative journalism ran wild, and the Seris were accused in print of cannibalism and a litany of other sins against God and Nature. These fanciful reports induced a number of prominent and self-righteous Southern Californians to concoct schemes to buy Tiburon Island, conquer or exterminate the louthesome Seris, and turn the Island into a cattle ranch or a vacation resort with luxury hotels. Nothing ever came…to be continued

WWII service

The auxiliary schooner was placed in service on 19 February 1942, assigned to the 11th Naval District, and homeported at San Pedro, California. On 23 July, Seaward was assigned to the Western Sea Frontier. Seaward ended the year at Mare Island Navy Yard. She was placed out of service on 1 April 1943, and was struck from the Navy List on 18 July 1944.

Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Notable Guest, and Reunion Information):

Owner: (1920-1923) – L.A. Norris Co. San Francisco, Ca.
Owner: (1923-1942) – Cecil B. DeMille Productions, Los Angeles, California
Screenwriter: Harold Lamb, was an American historian, screenwriter, short story writer, and novelist.
Owner: (1942-1944) – World War II Service
Owner: (1945) – Charles A. Williams

Comments

William Thomas – April 21, 2020

My father served as crew with two of his friends when Charles Williams bought it. He and his friends were high school ages (15-16) and Williams paid them t help him repair the damage the boat had taken (rammed by a fishing trawler in a fog while in the hands of the navy). After damage was repaired, Williams taught the boys to sail and took it out for a shakedown cruise around San Pedro Harbor area. Later they sailed to Santa Catalina Island and back. He then offered to take them on as crew for a trip to Hawaii and they actually got permission from their parents and went! After many adventures the arrived in Honolulu and were greeted by a yacht club member who claimed to have greeted every sailing vessel to have come to Oahu from the mainland since the turn of the century (1900) and he was astounded by the age of the crew, saying they were the youngest crew he had ever met to do that passage.

Last word was the Seaward had run aground on the Great Barrier Reef and was destroyed. I don’t know when or exactly where, but that’s what my father told me.

Rob Davidson – June 19, 2021

Hello, thank you for your interesting post…. My father was a naval officer assigned to the Seaward in 1942-43 to serve as part of the Navy’s offshore patrol mostly off the California Coast between San Diego and San Pedro. My father was a crack navigator, John Davidson, and used the time primarily to train seamen on their navigational skills, proper use of sextants, dead reckoning, etc. I have a letter from him, written while on-board dated January 10, 1943! He always spoke highly of his time spent on the USS Seaward.

William Thomas – June 26, 2021

I communicated with Bob Brokaw, a yacht salesman from San Diego whose father George served on the Seaward during the war as well. At least they used an image of Seaward on their website for years and I asked them about it.

Historical:

The Seabird plan dates from William Fife III 1889, but this example was built by Stagnol Yard in 2001 respecting the original plans as closely as possible. Light weight wood epoxy construction has enabled the installation of a motor whilst respecting original build weight. An exceptional boat in every respect this true modern classic is easily handled and was originally designed to be sailed single handed.

Historical:

The yacht “Scheherazade” was named after the clever and exotic heroine of The 1,001 Arabian Nights, ” (a collection of West and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age.”

With a staff of up to one-hundred people working on Scheherazade at one point during the build, the project took approximately four years to complete.

On a foggy morning on September 27 in East Boothbay, ME, 3000 people showed up for the launch of Scheherazade. The 154’ ketch is the largest private yacht built in the US as of 2003.

Hull Construction:

Scheherazade’s hull is made of multiple layers of Douglas fir, western red cedar and WEST SYSTEM epoxy. Total hull thickness is 3-1/2″. The first layer glued to the frames is vertical grain Douglas fir, 7/8″ thick and oriented longitudinally. The next four are 7/16″ thick and oriented diagonally, primarily western red cedar with occasional substitutions of Douglas fir in highly loaded sections of the hull. The last layer will be another layer of 7/8″ thick Douglas fir oriented longitudinally. The hull will be encapsulated with two layers of fiberglass cloth and epoxy before it is faired and finally rolled over.

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

Owner/Guardian: (2003) Bill and Barbara Stewart

Historical:

Australian square metre class comments www.asqma.com

Jonas Brundin is the Swede who came to Australia in 1992 as a business migrant bringing with him the plug for the 30-square-metre yachts, a Harry Becker design. He joined up with Garth Stewart and John Taylor with the view of building 30-square-metre yachts in Australia.

The three fibreglass 30-square-metre yachts were launched in 1993. Pinchgut and Business Class (originally SAS Business Class) were built at Boatspeed in Gosford (which has since gone bust). They have a hand- laid foam-sandwich hull and deck.

The original Swedish hull which acted as the plug for the Australian mould was sold to Ross Wilson in Lake Macquarie. Ross named it Wisper. In 1994 Robert Skol purchased it from Ross, sailed it back to Sydney Harbour and re-named it Scarlett O’Hara.

The Australian mould was kept at John Taylor’s factory in Rouse Hill, but unfortunately, since John passed away nobody knows what became of the mould.

Scarlett O’Hara has had, and continues to have a very active presence on Sydney Harbour. She sails in multiple clubs and attends almost every big event on the water. The passion in her name describes her well as she is often flaunting her good looks with an invigorating experience for her crew.