A Crew & Its Skipper

The race was a six-day nightmare of groping through fog, hunting for the flicker of a breeze, and battling howling gales of 60 knots that heeled over the big ocean racers, ripped sails, snapped rudders, and forced sailors to lash themselves to their craft. But fair weather or foul, the short, stubby yawl out of Annapolis was the master of the Atlantic, clipping off miles with the regularity of an ocean liner. When the fleet of 135 boats finished the 635-mile thrash from Newport to Bermuda last week, the overall winner, for an unprecedented third straight time, was Finisterre, owned and skippered by a shrewd, affable, literary-minded salt named Carleton Mitchell, 49.

At first glance, Finisterre should sail like a washtub. Traditionally, the rulers of the sea have been rakish racing machines of 60 ft. or more with deep, stabilizing keels. But the 38-ft. 8-in. Finisterre, plump as a pigeon, is built for the good life. With only a vestigial keel, she relies on a retractable centerboard to keep her steady in the water. Below decks she is as roomy as any family cruiser, is loaded down with such superfluous gear as an ice-making machine, a hi-fi set and a second head. Even so, the heavy Finisterre drives well to windward, boils downwind with her centerboard up. More important, because Finisterre's lines are far from classic, she gets a whopping break under the Cruising Club of America Measurement Rule, a complex, formula-ridden system of giving the short and stout a time allowance to cancel the inherent speed advantage of the long and lean. Though Finisterre finished 31st in the Bermuda fleet, her handicap of 24 hr. 41 min. gave her victory by 25 min.

Envy & Despair. But Finisterre's glittering record is built on far more than her time allowance. The ocean was thick last week with boats that were flatteringly close copies of Finisterre's hippy lines. Finisterre's greatest asset cannot be duplicated for there is only one Carleton Mitchell, and he has gathered and trained an assortment of veteran yachtsmen into an expert crew that is the envy and despair of rival skippers.

Son of a physican, Mitchell began sailing at the age of eight on Lake Pontchartrain outside his home town of New Orleans and grew up with a tiller in his hand. After a restless year at Ohio's Miami University, Mitchell went to New York, served a hitch as an underwear salesman at Macy's before heading for Florida and odd jobs around the Caribbean. Married in 1939 to Elizabeth Myers, wealthy daughter of the founder of Ohio's Myers Pump Co., Mitchell lives on a 30-acre estate with a half-mile of waterfront on Sharps Point outside Annapolis, owns Maryland's most valuable private collection of paintings (Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh), and uses a luxuriously appointed houseboat as a writing hideaway (four published books on sailing, one unpubished novel).

Detail & Dedication. Generally recognized as the world's best ocean racer, Skipper Mitchell is a personable perfectionist. He demands the same rare blend of qualities in his crew: men with the sharp will to win, but with temperaments that will not snap under the stress of a race. Finisterre's crew members, whose average age is close to 50, are completely interchangeable. A crack helmsman, Mitchell always handles the starts but thinks nothing of giving up the wheel if he feels his touch is off. Chick Larkin, a plastics engineer from Buffalo, and Cory Cramer, a New Haven prep school history teacher, are not only fine navigators but can also turn a neat trick at the wheel. Dick Bertram, a Miami yacht broker, and Bobby Symonette, operator of a yacht basin in the Bahamas, are famed as helmsmen but are also skilled sail handlers. Mel Gutman, the boat's only hired hand, can tackle any job from cockpit to foredeck.

Every man aboard reflects Mitchell's devotion to detail that leads him to read ancient books about ocean currents, worry about the brand of cookies stored in the galley, and take water-temperature readings to trace the warm Gulf Stream with a thermometer graded in 100ths of a degree. No one on Finisterre would think of lounging about during off-hours; each man dons eyeshade and earplugs and hits the sack for some serious sleep. In action, the crew spots trouble so swiftly that Mitchell seldom gives an order. As easily as lowering or raising a window shade, the men can change a sail in 15 seconds or less. Says a blue-water veteran who once shipped aboard Finisterre: "I felt like the village idiot watching those guys work."

Before the start of last week's race. Crewman Bunny Rigg, burly editor of the Skipper magazine, cracked slyly: "Don't bet against us." Few did. When the winds freshened to gale strength on the fifth day out, other boats were plagued with seasickness. But Finisterre's shipshape crew kept every possible inch of sail flying, whipped past far bigger boats laboring under storm rigs. "That blow came through like a buzz saw," said Mitchell later. "The boat was knifing out of the water and porpoising. It was wet below, but we had our hot meals on schedule."

When Carleton Mitchell had won his race, rival skippers were full of frank praise for him and his crew. Summed up Mosk Farnham, Figaro's navigator: "Whether it blows hard or easy, they give their very best to that boat. They are dedicated to Finisterre."

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