Sound Sailors

For six days last week, Long Island Sound off Larchmont was as crowded as China's famed Han River at Hankow. Instead of jostling sampans, junks and tiny tugs the jostlers were Pirates, Buccaneers, Bulldogs, Snipes. It was the Larchmont Yacht Club's 40th annual Race Week, No. 1 outing for North Atlantic sailors south of Cape Cod.

There were 368 boats, 1,500 sailors (from seven to 74). Craft ranged from little Nimblets that looked like wooden bath tubs to twelve-metre boats that looked like debutante sisters of America's Cup yachts. Of the 36 classes, major interest centred on three:

Stars. Most popular of international racing yachts, Star boats are 22 ft. long, cost around $1,500, are descended from a seafaring line of Sharpies used for gathering oysters on Long Island Sound a hundred years ago. Winner last week was Stanley Ogilvy's Jay, a boat that is likely to compete in the International championship, No. 1 event for Star boats the world over, to be held off San Diego in September.

Six-Metres. Almost twice the length of Stars and a quarter that of America's Cup yachts, six-metre boats are a Scandinavian specialty, cost about $8,000, first appeared in the U. S. in 1923. Winner last week was Briggs Cunningham's Fun, which won the series by just one point from George Nichols' Goose. Both will this week compete in the tryouts for the No. 1 international event for six-metre boats: the Scandinavian Gold Cup race to be held off Oyster Bay next month.

Twelve-Metres. Twelves are 68 ft. long, cost around $40,000, are popular in the Scandinavian countries and the British Isles. There are only a dozen Twelves in the U. S. Winner last week was Alfred Loomis' Northern Light which, although tied on total points with Frederick Bedford's Nyala, was awarded the championship because it had won two first places during the week to Nyala's one.

In the days before 1929, Race Week at Larchmont was the rendezvous for big-boat yachtsmen, and America's Cup sloops (with crews of 25 or more) mingled with the small fry. But the day of million-dollar racing yachts has apparently passed. Biggest news, therefore, that came out of last week's regatta was the announced plan to send a fleet of four U. S. Twelves to England next spring for a brand new series of races against boats flying the British, Scandinavian, French, German and Italian flags. Because Britain's T. O. M. Sopwith, unsuccessful challenger for the America's Cup in 1934 and 1937, is racing a twelve-metre this summer, and Harold Vanderbilt, successful defender, tried a hand at sailing a Twelve, Van S. Merle-Smith's Seven Seas, fortnight ago with such success that he is contemplating building one, seasoned yachtsmen predicted that international racing for the America's Cup may go Tom Thumb.

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