July 2014

A Century on the Sound

Cape Cod Life  /  July 2014 / , ,

Writer: Susan Dewey

A Century on the Sound

July 2014

Cape Cod Life  /  July 2014 / , ,

Writer: Susan Dewey

 

Crosby Yacht in Osterville is one of America’s oldest continuously running boatyards. Photo courtesy Jock Shafroth.

Crosby Yacht in Osterville is one of America’s oldest continuously running boatyards. Photo courtesy Jock Shafroth.

A compelling part of Cape Cod and American history, the Victura was the beloved Wianno Senior of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, which he began to sail as a 16-year-old during summers in Hyannisport. There are all kinds of stories floating around about JFK and the Victura , one of which relates that as president, Kennedy would frequently sketch his boat during Cabinet meetings, or when he was trying to solve an especially knotty issue, such as the Bay of Pigs crisis.

A story shared in another recent book, Victura: The Kennedys, A Sailboat, and the Sea by James Graham, says that on the day of his assassination, a maid cleaning a hotel room where JFK and Jackie Kennedy had rested for a few hours before the parade, found a small sketch of the President’s in a wastebasket. It showed a small sloop, sails flying.

Lucy Steere—one of those who shared some colorful stories about the Kennedys—says she believes the Wianno Senior played a pivotal role in launching JFK onto the national stage as it gave the young politician

the confidence and resourcefulness he would need to persevere through a grueling presidential campaign. “I really believe that sailing the boats and being accepted by everyone involved with the Seniors gave those boys the confidence to accomplish what they did in life,” says Steere.

This opinion was seconded by the late Senator Edward Kennedy in a video about the Seniors created by Fox News cameraman Andrew Fone—who also happens to be a Centerville resident and a lover of Wianno Seniors—titled “Lady of the Sound.”

In an ironic twist of fate, the Victura stayed safe and sound during a devastating event that destroyed much of the Senior fleet in December of 2003. A fast-moving fire burned much of Crosby Yacht Yard to the ground that night, including a storage shed housing 23 Wianno Seniors, some of which were antiques from the 1920s and 1930s.

One Wianno Yacht Club family—the Fallons—spent many an hour sailing with the Kennedys and skippering their own Seniors to nearly unparalleled success in weekly competitions and the class’ annual Edgartown Regatta race. John Fallon recalls the days when his father, Jack—one of the Seniors’ most colorful and skillful skippers—would routinely cruise past every contender to win trophy after trophy every summer. The elder Fallon, as a matter of fact, won nine Scudder Cup trophies, an annual award given to the skipper with the highest season-long record.

Susan Dewey

Susan Dewey, former associate publisher and editor at Cape Cod Life Publications, lives in Centerville where she grows vegetables and flowers for Cape farmers' markets, designs perennial gardens for her son’s company, Dewey Gardens, and enjoys living on beautiful Cape Cod year round.