Goose and the Golden Shell

In 1922 the Nylandska Jaktklubben (Royal Finnish Yacht Club) put up a golden nautilus shell, no larger than a lady's hand, to stimulate international competition at six-meter yacht racing, an old Scandinavian specialty. No longer than it took them to say smorgasbord, rich U. S. yachtsmen began to build six-meter boats (almost one-fourth the length of America's Cup yachts), found them fun to maneuver and comparatively inexpensive to maintain (about $3,000 a year in addition to some $8,000 initial outlay). Within four years there were enough good six-meter sailors in the U. S. to send a representative (each country is limited to one entry) to compete in the international matches.

By last week the little nautilus shell, more formally known as the Scandinavian Gold Cup, had become recognized as the world's No. 1 yachting trophy for small boats. Norway had won it seven times, Sweden six times, the U. S. four times. Because a U. S. boat had won the series the past three years (and consequently defended the cup in its home waters), U. S. yachtsmen last winter sportingly offered to hold this year's defense in Finnish waters to spare Europeans the expense of sending their boats across the Atlantic for the third year in a row. So, last week the 18th Scandinavian Gold Cup races were held in the Baltic off Helsingfors, and Manhattan Cottonman George Nichols and his Goose (defending champions) lined up against the slickest sloops of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France, England and Germany.

Most skippers like to have two weeks or more to get acquainted with strange winds and tides. Skipper Nichols, however, arriving in Finland just a few days before the races started, was not dismayed. He had been sailing boats for almost 50 years--had handled almost every type of windjammer from the 15-footers he used to sail off Oyster Bay in his undergraduate Harvard days to the big Class J boats Vanitie and Weetamoe he skippered in the America's Cup trials in 1920 and 1930, after he had married J. P. Morgan's daughter. Once he had gone around the Horn--from New York to Honolulu--in a square rigger.

Last year, when asked why he named his lovely new sloop Goose (reputedly a foolish fowl), 61-year-old Sailor Nichols chirped: "Because it seems a bit foolish to go into the keen six-meter competition at my age." Last week George Nichols demonstrated that he and his Goose were anything but foolish: they outsmarted the Scandinavians at their own game in their home waters, won the Gold Cup in three straight races for the second year in a row. On both sides of the Atlantic, Goose was hailed as the world's fastest small boat, George Nichols one of the world's smartest helmsmen.

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