Wartime designation: CGR 3070
Sail Number: 51
LOA: 65’0″ / 19.81m – LOD: 57’5″ / 17.50m – LWL: 41’0″ / 12.50m – Beam: 14’1″ / 4.29m – Draft: 7’8″ / 2.34m – Displacement: 53,800 lbs / 24,403 kg – Sail Area: (original 1,834 – main 970, forestaysail 330, medium quadrilateral jib 534) current 2,160 sq ft – Original Owner: George E. Ratsey – Year Launched: 1937 – Designed by: John G. Alden – Design No.: 645 – Built by: Henry B. Nevins, City Island, NY – Hull Material: 1-5/8-inch African mahogany planking over 3-inch bent white oak frames – Documentation or State Reg. No.: 236183
“The prettiest, slimmest, snootiest, trimmest little dame to ever walk the water.” – Old World Radio
Historical:
The John G. Alden designed Cutter Zaida was the third vessel of the same name for George Ratsey of Ratsey & Lapthorn. Mr. Ratsey was the great-grandfather of Greenport residents Jane Ratsey Williams and her brother Colin Ratsey.
Due to the cruising and racing success of Mr. Ratsey’s previous boat, Zaida has practically the same underbody. Her draft slightly deeper, waterline, overhangs carried out, and her freeboard increased.
“Her construction is heavy and to the highest standards. Her backbone is of selected white oak, frames and beams of oak, planking is single mahogany and the deck of Port Orford cedar fastenings are of Everdur, as are chainplates and diagonal hull straps.”
Originally rigged as a Marconi main and gaff fore schooner, until 1935 as a Marconi rugged cutter; her speed increased notably. During her war years she served her country proud as a yawl.
WWII service
WWII Wartime designation: USCG 1941 – CGR 3070 – Picket Patrol — (nine-man crew) A part of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary made up of motor boats, yachts and other small craft.
Zaida, became legendary in December 1942 as it was ending its week-long patrol, the 58-foot yawl with her crew of nine nearly rolled on its beam in gale force winds that snapped the mizzen mast and caused other damage. Skipper Curtis Arnall, one of the radio voices of comic book hero, Buck Rogers, was able to send a distress message. Then he headed the boat southwest, running sometimes with winds so strong that they sailed barepoled. Over the course of the next twenty days, more than twenty-five planes and ships of the U.S. Army and Canadian Air Forces, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. and British navies searched for the sturdy craft. During this time, all the while experiencing a number of wrenching failed rescue attempts, Zaida sailed 3,100 miles from off Nantucket Shoals to Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina. Finally the boat was sighted fifteen miles from shore by a blimp and was taken in tow by a Coast Guard cutter. The hunt for Zaida constituted the largest search and rescue operation in the Atlantic by Allied Forces during World War II.
Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):
- Owner: (1937) – George Ratsey
- Owner: (1978 – current) – David Lish
- Commander: Curtis Arnall
Resources
- Bravo Zero: The Coast Guard Auxiliary in World War II
By C. Kay Larson
National Historian
United States Coast Guard Auxiliary - Old Time Radio DVD
- Motorboating 1937