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The Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea James W. Graham ForeEdge University Press of New England

The Founding 14 – The Legacy of the Wianno Senior

In 1913, governed by Fritz P. Day, fourteen members of the Wianno Yacht Club, in Osterville, Massachusetts, commissioned the Crosby Yacht Yard to design and build a small fast yacht capable of sailing and racing in the choppy-shoal-ridden sailing grounds of Cape Cod’s South Shore.

Fourteen Wianno Seniors were built and delivered in the spring of 1914. Of the initial 14, three have survived and their specifications and whereabouts are as follows:

Wianno Senior Specifications: LOA: 25′ / 7.62m – LWL: 17.6′ / 5.36m – Beam: 8′ / 2.44m – Sail Area: 366 sq ft / 34 m2 – Draft Board Up: 5.5′ / 1.68m – Draft Board Down: 2.5′ / .76m – Displacement: 4,100 lbs / 1,860 kgs – Ballast: 1,200 lbs / 544 kgs – Designer: H. Manley Crosby – Builder: Crosby Yacht Building and Storage Co. (USA) – First Built: 1914 – Contract Cost: $600.00

Original 14:

1. “Fiddler” , 2. “Wendy” , 3. “Telemark” , 4. “A.P.H.” A.P. Halliday, 5. “Commy” , 6. “Snookums” , 7. “Patsy” , 8. “Sea Dog” , 9. “Marie” , 10. “Qui Vive” , 11. “Fantasy” James G. Hinkle, 12. “Whistle Wing” , 13. “Maxixe” , and 14. “Ethyl”

Existing 3:

Number 7 “Tirza” – Richard A & Mary Lotuff Feeney (Half Centerboard) Osterville Massachusetts. Number 10 “Sea Wings” – M. Christopher Mattoon & Ed Stockman (Half Centerboard) Dalton, Massachusetts. Number 11 “Fantasy” – is in the collections of Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut.

Two boat yards are still building Wianno Seniors. Crosby Yacht Yard, Inc. in Osterville, Massachusetts, and Shaw Yacht, Inc, in Thomaston, Maine. About 200 Wianno Seniors have been built. Hull numbers through 173 were wooden boats; subsequent boats are being built of fiberglass. Hull number 222 was launched in 2011 by Crosby Yacht. Several hull numbers were omitted in the sequence.

Hull Number 94:

In 1932 Hull number 94, was purchased by Joe and Rose Kennedy as a  present for their son Jack’s fifteenth birthday. The “Victura” would become the Kennedy Family’s favorite boat. With a draft of 2.5 feet, with the centerboard up, the Wiannos could easily sail over most shoats, but still had to be sailed with caution around Nantucket Sounds shallowest spot Horseshoe Shoals at 6″

With a graceful low shear the Wianno Seniors were very “wet” boats. Racing the Wianno meant never finishing a race in dry clothes. Former Iowa Sen. John Culver, Harvard classmate of Wianno sailor Ted Kennedy, so eloquently and humorously describes his first sail over to Nantucket on “Victura” ( discussion on Wianno experience starts two and a half minutes into the video)

Osterville Historical Museum’s executive director Jennifer Williams commented during the Wianno classes 100th anniversary. The Wiannos were commissioned by some of the pillars of industry that made Osterville their summer home. The boat “leveled the playing field for sailing” and “changed the face of racing” on Nantucket Sound.

Victura , the beloved sailboat that taught the Kennedy’s about life, family, leadership and winning.

James W. Graham’s new book — Victura: the Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea — offers new insights into the dynamics and magic of the Kennedy family and their intense relationship with sailing and the sea. Many families sail together, but the Kennedys’ relationship with Victura , the 25-foot sloop purchased in 1932 shortly after the family’s move to Hyannis Port, stands apart.

In Victura , James W. Graham charts the progress of America’s signature twentieth century family dynasty, in a narrative both stunningly original and deeply gripping. This true tale of one small sailboat is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the impressive story of the Kennedy’s.

References:

James W. Graham –  Website – Author of Victura: the Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea. – A communications and public affairs professional for a major-brand retailer, was a senior adviser to former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar and the Illinois House of Representatives. He races and cruises his sailboat Venturous out of Wilmette Harbor, north of Chicago.

Osterville Historical Museum – Executive Director Jennifer Williams

The Barnstable Patriot – Reporter Susan Vaughn

Photo Credit: Bob Schutz, July 30, 1961.

Photo/Video Credit: JFK Presidential Library and Museum

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Will you join us in lighting the way for the leaders of tomorrow?

Victura: the kennedy sailboat.

AMY MACDONALD:   Good afternoon. I'm Amy Macdonald, the Forum Producer at the Library, and I welcome all of you here on this May Sunday. First, let me acknowledge the underwriters of the Kennedy Library Forums: lead sponsor Bank of America, Raytheon, Boston Capital, the Lowell Institute, the Boston Foundation; and our media partners, the Boston Globe , Xfinity and WBUR.  

The photos and film clips of Kennedy family sailing Nantucket Sound are so familiar that Kennedys and sailing are almost synonymous in our minds. Of course, the family had many sailboats, but the Victura was their favorite, and it's almost a miracle that it has survived. Acquired by the family in 1932, it was struck by lightning in 1936, endured a hurricane in 1944, and barely escaped a harbor fire in 2003.  It is now safely ensconced at the John F. Kennedy Library Museum from May to November, and at the Crosby Yacht Yard during New England's long winters. 

At the conclusion of this Forum, our author, Jim Graham, would be happy to have a show-and-tell outside by the boat. Hopefully, we won't have that shower they're predicting. His book, Victura , is on sale in our Museum store and after our outside excursion, Jim will be happy to sign books. 

Bios of both Jim and our moderator, Bob Oakes, are in your program. We're so pleased to have Bob Oakes back on our stage. The last time he was here was in 2011, when he moderated a Kennedy Library Forum with Governor Deval Patrick.

Jim and Bob will have a conversation and show slides for about a half an hour, and then we'll take your audience questions.  Please join me in welcoming Jim Graham and Bob Oakes. [applause]

BOB OAKES:  Thank you. So why don't I start out by just saying, Amy, thank you very much. It's a privilege to be back here for this event. Especially – as I'm sure this is the case for most of you -- after all the wonderful days and hours that I spent here with my family as my kids were growing up.  And I say especially because one of the things about this book is I think it takes us so nicely inside the Kennedy family and lets readers experience something that was important to generations of the Kennedy family, and that's the joys, the laughs and the life lessons learned on the water sailing. So thank you.

I want to start by saying, James, it's kind of a treat being able to get to do this twice, because we did this the other day on the radio. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, it was great fun.

BOB OAKES:   I want to open where the book opens. Can I say that you really did catch me. You took my breath away, really, right from the start of the book on page one when, to illustrate your point about how sailing was so integral to the family, you tell us that the night before he died in Dallas, JFK in his hotel room in Houston doodled, drawing a little picture of a sailboat moving through the waves.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, it's really poignant, isn't it?  That all throughout his White House years and Oval Office meetings and elsewhere he would often draw those sketches of a sailboat with a gaff rig, which is the one that has the mast up, an extra boom, up high, which makes it a distinctive sailboat and much like the Victura.  I think that it's also so fascinating to think about him during the Cuban Missile Crisis and other moments drawing little doodles of that sailboat, as if he's trying to transport himself back to his origins or his beginnings. So I think it always came back to him.

BOB OAKES:   Take us back, if you might. What is it that drew the family to the sea and to sailing?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Well, they moved to Hyannis Port, moved into the house and later bought it in the late '20s and then began to acquire sailboats fairly quickly -- little sailboats. The first one or two were called Wianno Juniors, and then they bought a Wianno Senior, which became the Victura.

Joe and Rose Kennedy were not really big sailors. There's no record of them pursuing the sport themselves. But when the children began to sail together, I think that experience together, growing up together during the '20s and the '30s was really something that bound them together and they had so many fond memories that to this day they pass it down generation to generation. 

I think they always saw in the sea an escape, a way to be together, a way to be competitive and enjoy the thrills of competing against Boston Brahmin, who did not necessarily welcome them to their society. And then they loved it so much that though they were the first generation to sail the Wianno Senior sailboats, they passed that down generation to generation, brother and sister, uncle to nephew. So this day even the little children, little Kennedy tribe children out there, nine and ten years old, learning how to fold sails so they one day can sail Wianno Seniors as well. 

They acquired a half a dozen Wianno Senior sailboats over the years since that first boat, the Victura, and keep passing it on. 

BOB OAKES:   The patriarch of the family, Joe Kennedy, Sr., was not much of a sailor, as I understand it. But he watched, intently; he watched the kids sail and scolded them when they screwed up in a race.

JAMES GRAHAM:   He did. John F. Kennedy was once asked about the competitiveness for which the Kennedys were so famous and he said, "Well, much too much is made of that. We aren't really that competitive, although our dad sure did ride our butts about the sailboat races." He used something a little bit more barnyard than that, but, yes, they certainly did love it. They enjoyed the competition. There was never any sense from the kids that they resented their father for the pressure that he put on them for being competitive. It was always really important that they come in first. There may be 12 boats in a race, but if you came in second that wasn't good enough. They had to analyze exactly why they didn't win it and that was true of all of them. 

BOB OAKES:   He preached that winning was really everything.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yes. I mean, well, a little caveat: he would say that once you've tried enough, you've tried everything you can possibly try and still not fallen short, that's okay. But if he saw your effort wanting, that's when you'd be in trouble.

BOB OAKES:   You write at one point that the Kennedys were privileged and ambitious, imbued with both a sense of entitlement and a strong work ethic. How did sailing fit in to that?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Well, they certainly worked very, very hard at it. I mean, they sailed every day. Of course, they loved sailing so it wasn't like it was work. But the parents certainly instilled a work ethic in the children and some of the children worked harder than others. Joe Kennedy, Jr., was a very good student. But it's often said that John F. Kennedy himself was not quite as enthusiastic a student, or as disciplined a student on every subject as some of his siblings were. As I understand it, John F. Kennedy tended to focus on the subjects that really interested him, not necessarily the ones that he needed to study to get good grades.

BOB OAKES:   Since you led us into Joe, Jr., let me ask a few questions. We talked about how Joe, Sr., loved the competition and loved preaching winning to the kids. Certainly, that was the case when it came to sailing races, which bred into many of them, including Joe, Jr. a degree of fearlessness. And Joe, Jr. of course, in World War II was a bomber pilot, killed in England while flying essentially a very dangerous mission and a secret mission that he volunteered for. Tell us that story.

JAMES GRAHAM:   It's an interesting story. John F. Kennedy's famous PT109 incident happened before Joe, Jr. died, and there has been speculation that perhaps Joe, Jr. was feeling a bit of competitive pressure from his younger brother, who had become a war hero, while Joe, Jr. was still flying missions out of Great Britain.  But that said, it has to be said that Joe, Jr. was, without question, a great war hero because he volunteered for a very dangerous mission, experimental aircraft that was packed with explosives, volunteered to fly it. Of course, the mission failed and it exploded in midair.

BOB OAKES:   Looking for V-bomb launch sites, right?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Exactly right. One of the interesting things about that is how so much of this story of the Victura all comes back home again. And after Joe, Jr. died … The news was brought to the main house at Hyannis Port via the two Catholic priests who came and knocked on the door and broke the news to the family – and there were many tears shed, of course, but after a while– they had planned on going sailing that afternoon after they had this news of Joe, Jr. and they said, "Joe would want us to sail." So they went out and sailed together. John F. Kennedy was with them at the time, because he had come back from the war already.

BOB OAKES:   Kind of makes you think that if that sense of competition and that sense of fearlessness wasn't woven into the character of the kids through sailing, then maybe he might not have volunteered for that mission. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   That certainly could be. And I agree the fearlessness was something that was a thread throughout many of the kids. I think so many times they would just jump in and out of sailboats. They were in the water, back in the boat, in the water again. There's a certain fearlessness to that. 

Robert F. Kennedy was famous for being really just a fearless guy. I mean, he just took all kinds of chances. After the death of the President, he was climbing Mt. Kennedy in Canada and was just a remarkable fellow.

BOB OAKES:   The Victura: Jack named the boat the Victura. What does it mean and why do you think he picked it?

JAMES GRAHAM:   I mentioned earlier that he was a good student in some subjects and not so good in others. One of his weaker subjects was Latin. That said, he picked a wonderful Latin word to name the sailboat. Victura means about to conquer. It also means to live. But John F. Kennedy himself said that he meant to use the word in its other meaning, which is about to conquer. I've always thought it was just a perfect name for a sailboat, especially a racing boat. 

BOB OAKES:   Why the Wianno Seniors? There's a picture of it up there. Why the Wianno Seniors? They could have basically had any smaller-sized sailboat that they wanted. Why this model?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Families of the South Shore and Cape Cod asked the Crosby Yacht Yard to design the Wianno Senior sailboat for that particular sailing area, Nantucket Sound. This year happens to be the 100 th anniversary of the construction of the first Wianno Senior. It was built specifically for the environment of Nantucket Sound. It has a shallow keel so that with all those shallows and shoals you would run aground less often, although locals are filled with stories of running boats aground. So that's a distinctive feature of the boat.

It also has a gaff rig, which causes the sail area to be a bit more horizontal than vertical, like a traditional Marconi triangular rig. So that when it leans over in the wind, the wind will wash over it a little bit better. So the boat was built specifically for Nantucket Sound, for the families, so that they could race against one another. 

BOB OAKES:   And hard, not impossible, but hard to tip over.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Very hard to tip over. There is a story of Ethel managing somehow to tip one over. She ran it aground again. The boats are very hard to tip over when they're in the water. But if they're on land or the keel is stuck in the sandy bottom and the wind catches it in a way, you can tip it over. She managed to do that on one occasion with some visiting friends from Ireland, some of whom did not know how to swim so they were holding on to coolers and things of that sort to stay afloat.

BOB OAKES:   And she thought the whole episode was great fun. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Oh, yeah, the entire time, she made everybody feel very comfortable and, "Yeah, we tipped the boat over, but no big deal, we'll all be fine." And they were fine, of course. There were plenty of other boats around to come help. 

But every day was an adventure. I kept hearing that again and again as I talked to members of the family. They sailed every day, and every day was a new adventure. You never knew what was going to happen on a sailing voyage.

BOB OAKES:   We should point out, as you did earlier, that although quite a lot of sailing centered around this one boat – we have it here in front of us on the screen, in addition to it being up there – the family owned quite a few boats. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   They did. They owned a couple of Wianno Juniors, which were smaller versions of this boat. They bought one early on that they called the Ten of Us when they were a family of ten. Joe and Rose had at that time eight children. A few years went by and Ted was born, and somewhat unexpectedly, I gather, because it was several years between the birth of Jean, the next youngest, and then Ted. So they had one boat called Ten of Us, so the next boat they called One More. [laughter]

BOB OAKES:   Jack in World War II: Jack was picked for PT boat training, at least partly, or maybe largely, because of his sailing experience. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, the folks who recruited sailors and skippers for the PT crews actually came to New England and the sailing communities.  They were looking for Ivy League and other collegiate racers. And Jack and Joe, in particular, were topnotch collegiate sailors, so they were good candidates for PT boat work. They were looking for people who were familiar with and comfortable on smaller boats, rather than the big destroyers and the like. There was a PT boat on display, I believe, in Edgartown that Jack Kennedy got to see before he actually was recruited. So the rest is history. A lot of the training happened in Nantucket Sound and that vicinity.

BOB OAKES:   You point out in the book that PT boat duty was not all glamorous, that a lot of it was constantly just trying to keep the ship, the PT boat ready to sail and in addition to that, fighting off the notion that where they were based, in the Solomon Islands, they were out of the mainstream of the war.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, there were all these great battles going on -- Guadalcanal and all the others -- and they were on patrol duty. So they weren't necessarily participating in the major battles. They were out there reconnaissance and chasing after Japanese boats as they came and went, so there was a little bit of resentment that they weren't in the middle of things, but they certainly saw plenty of action when you consider the sinking of PT109.

BOB OAKES:   August 1943: 109 is run over by a Japanese destroyer during a pitchblack night while on patrol in the straits off the Solomon Islands. And thanks to his time on the water and in the water, too, as you pointed out, swimming, Kennedy leads several long swims by the surviving crew members and swims, in addition to that, miles out at night to try and flag down what he hoped would be passing PT boats, although none did pass.  You write that Ted Kennedy, years later, said he was convinced that Jack's sailing experience saved his life and the lives of his crew members.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Ted specifically said the Victura -- that experience that Jack had sailing the Victura -- as one of the reasons he survived World War II. I think it has to be said that his skills as a swimmer had a lot to do with surviving that incident. But of course, you become a great swimmer when you spend so much time in the water sailing. So it all goes together.  But I do believe that we might not have had a President Kennedy had we not had a sailor named Jack Kennedy.

BOB OAKES:   Certainly, one of the things you point out very well in the book is that he was just not afraid of the water and even though he was injured and even though at that point he realized he lost a couple of crew members, he was not afraid to get into the water knowing that he would spend hours floating in the strait. He was not afraid to go out at night to swim and see if he could find a way to find a boat to get a rescue.

JAMES GRAHAM:   It was an amazing feat. The boat, the PT109, was split in half by a destroyer that just came out of nowhere and sliced the boat in half. He had to reassemble his crew. Two, unfortunately, died on impact but the rest of the crew climbed aboard the floating wreckage of the boat. And he managed to lead them ashore by … The rest of the crew, most of the crew, grabbed a piece of wood or something and paddled to shore. He grabbed a  badly injured sailor, who couldn't swim he was so badly injured, and took the strap from the guy's life preserver and put it in his teeth and towed him ashore.  And after that, after hours and hours of swimming that way -- I think it was the next day as night fell -- he swam again way out in the middle of the channel with a lantern, waiting for a PT boat to go by and ready to shine the light at it. Because there are all kinds of Japanese boats going back and forth on their patrols as well. 

What an awful experience, because they're stranded on an island. The rest of the Americans, all the allies think they're dead; they saw the explosion. They can't put SOS in coconuts on the beach of the island because there's Japanese everywhere, so they have to hide in the bush, which is exactly what you don't want to do if you want your fellow seamen to find you. So somehow, miraculously, they got out. 

BOB OAKES:   And the coconut that he wrote on and gave to the natives was in the Oval Office. It was on his desk at the Oval Office, later in the Oval Office of course, which you point out was decorated largely in a seafaring theme.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, when the President took over the Oval Office, he transformed it into this shrine to American seafaring. So he had that coconut on his desk from the PT109 incident. He had two cannons as bookends that were modeled on cannons from the USS Constitution. There were paintings of historic war battles, naval battles, models of ships. Of course, one of the things is when you find out that the President loves to sail, everyone who wants to give a gift to the President gives him more sailing paraphernalia. So the French, for example, gave him a ship that went on display in the Oval Office. 

BOB OAKES:   If you close your eyes and you think about the Kennedy family, what is it you picture most? When I'm running through that catalogue of pictures in my head, I think that I mostly see them on the boats in the water. I think that the majority of the photos in my head probably have Jack and Jackie and Bobby, and Teddy later, on the water, the wind whipping through their hair. I think this is a good time to show us a few historical slides. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   The one thing I wanted to point out about the Victura, there are so many things about it – the importance of what it contributed to the bonds of the family, and their survival during the war, and all of those things -- but also it was so important to the building of the Kennedy brand and the image that we have today of the Kennedys. It started as early as 1934 when Joe Kennedy, Sr. was appointed chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Boston Globe came out to do a photo spread on the family and took this picture of John F. Kennedy and Robert when Robert was, I think, eight and Jack about17 years old. And they're standing on the bow of the Victura. We know that because in the photo caption the Globe identified the boat.

Flash forward about six years to 1940. I always show this photo and ask people if they can identify Ted Kennedy in this photo. [laughter] 1940, Joe Kennedy is now the US Ambassador to Great Britain, and LIFE magazine sends a photographer out to take a picture of the family. This time they send out Alfred Eisenstaedt, who's such a famous photographer.  When I first saw this photo I thought, John F. Kennedy is not in this photo; I wonder if he's taking the photo. But then I thought, boy, it's an awfully welltaken photo; the contrast and everything is so well done. That's because it was Alfred Eisenstaedt taking the photo and John F. Kennedy wasn't on the boat. Eisenstaedt -- famous for taking that photo at the end of World War II of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square. 

Of course, a few more years go by. Right after that last photo was taken, John F. Kennedy went to war and became famous as a war hero. The whole story of PT109 reported in the New York Times and there was one article written about it, interesting thing about the tale of PT109 and how it became the story that made him a war hero.

John F. Kennedy had dated a woman named Inga Arvad, who was a Danish journalist, beautiful woman. He came back from the Solomon Islands and met up with Inga Arvad, who was a journalist, and despite the fact they had dated previously, she wrote a wonderful article about his war adventures abroad PT109 and the whole adventure that he had. 

Then John F. Kennedy went to New York and met up and had dinner with another former girlfriend, who now was married to John Hersey, who was a famous journalist in his own right and became famous for the book Hiroshima and some other works. Hersey wrote the story of PT109 for the New Yorker , and Joe Kennedy had it reprinted for future campaigns. Then 1953, John F. Kennedy is a young, newly elected US Senator and his fiancée Jacqueline Bouvier and he go for a sail on the Victura, again with LIFE magazine. 

BOB OAKES:   You write about this photo in the book: If ever there was a single moment when the Kennedy brand as defined, it was when this picture was taken, July 20, 1953.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, you think they're just newly together, this couple. John F. Kennedy's just newly elected to the US Senate, and they show them on the cover of LIFE magazine, which was much more influential in terms of its share of media audiences than magazines are today. So it did so much to establish them.  Then, go forward a few more years, the 1960 Presidential campaign, and there's John F. Kennedy in Sports Illustrated . This was taken in the summer of '60, shortly after he was nominated to be President by the Democratic Party. 

BOB OAKES:   I spent some time looking in the book at this photo. What I really like about it is I think it captures the confidence with which he sails. I mean, look at the left foot. It's just sitting there – I don't know my boat terminology -- but it's just sitting there, casually, braced on that centerpiece of wood. And the right foot, I just looked at it and I casually braced on that center of wood.  I thought, “How many times over his life did that right foot sit in exactly that spot, bracing him up as the boat heeled over?”

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, it begins to be clear why he enjoyed doodling. He clearly loves what he's doing. You can understand why he's drawing little pictures of it when he's in the Oval Office.

But the sailboat and its contribution to the image of the Kennedys was a two-edged sword. This photo was taken in 1962 and on this very day this photo was taken, the sailboat, he ran it aground in the presence of a number of newspaper reporters. The next day he boarded Air Force One and opened the newspapers, and there was a headline in, I believe, the New York Times and a couple of other national newspapers. Headline UPI -- so it would have been distributed nationally -- the headline line:  "President Runs Sailboat Aground." He was furious because this had been so much a part of the image that President Kennedy had cultivated and all the Kennedys had cultivated over the years.  So he was furious and he summons his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, and demands that he go down to the press corps, who were also in another section of Air Force One, and demand a retraction of the story, "Can't Be True." [laughter] And by the way, you can't have this image of the President all over the newspapers.  So supposedly the reporter reached into his briefcase, pulled out a photograph of the President and his crew waistdeep in water, trying to push the sailboat off the shoals. And this photo had not been published so Pierre Salinger walked back and nothing more was said of the matter. 

BOB OAKES:   On the subject of photos though, a side note: In '62, the President was spending some summer days on the Cape as President, sailing and swimming on an island called Egg Island and – you point out in the book – almost always trailed by a gaggle of mostly friendly reporters, but reporters nonetheless. And around that time, the word that we hear so frequently today, especially at seven o'clock at night when we're looking at TMZ here in Boston, we hear the word paparazzi. And that's when paparazzi came into being. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? The Kennedys certainly enjoyed the presence of news photographers up until this point. After that, they really became a bit wary of it and began laying ground rules for how close the press boats could get and that sort of thing. But it was right around that time that word ‘paparazzi’ was coined.

BOB OAKES:   The sea and Jack Kennedy. You point out that Kennedy's love of sailing influenced public policy and especially in conservation. The best example we have of that today is that Jack sponsored the legislation to propose the Cape Cod National Seashore.

JAMES GRAHAM:   That's right. It certainly influenced that. The Secretary of the Interior at the time had expressed a little bit of frustration that President Kennedy didn't show very much interest in inland wilderness; he was always interested in seashores. So he proposed the Cape Cod Seashore and at least a couple other seashores that became national seashores. So his interest in the sea certainly influenced public policy.

I don't know if you want me to get into this part as well, but I think it influenced public policy in other ways. I write in the book that I think it had some influence on President Kennedy's embracing the idea of sending a man to the moon. He often used metaphors of the sea in describing space travel. He said, "This is a new ocean and we must sail it."

BOB OAKES:   And he called it spacefaring.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Exactly. Of course, this whole competitive spirit that we talked about earlier that had been instilled by Joe and Rose in the kids, there's one wonderful moment when President Kennedy -- a year or two after he'd committed the country to go to the moon -- he invited James Webb into the Oval Office, and talked to him about what the estimate is getting to the moon first your priority of NASA. Webb said, "Well, it is a priority." And President Kennedy quickly corrected him and said, "No, I think it's the priority."  Then he went off lecturing James Webb by saying, "We can't come in second, we can't come in second place by six months. That's no good. We can't spend these enormous amounts of money to come in second. We want people to look at the US and say that they were behind, but by god they pulled ahead." Which sounded exactly like talking about sailboat racing. 

BOB OAKES:   You write in the book -- there was a specific line I wanted to ask you about -- "It would be an oversimplification to attribute Jack's decision to go to the moon to his love of sailboat racing, but it must have added a subconscious allure."

JAMES GRAHAM:   I think so. Michael Beschloss wrote a really great article about the motivations of why President Kennedy chose to send a man to the moon. And people have speculated about a lot of things – it was a distraction from the Bay of Pigs, which had just happened weeks earlier than the speech about going to the moon.  President Eisenhower thought it was crazy to send a man to the moon and spend all that money on it. Eisenhower, I don't think, ever appreciated the symbolism of the race, of getting there first and establishing a finish line as President Kennedy did. Kennedy spoke often of going to the moon, as not something he wanted to do for the science, but to demonstrate American technological superiority and our ability to win a race.  So I think that notion of the race and the competition really resonated with President Kennedy in a way that might not have with a politician like Dwight Eisenhower. 

BOB OAKES:   Do you think that if not for his life and experience sailing competitively in sailboat races, if not for that, maybe he would not have made the decision to go the moon?

JAMES GRAHAM:   No, I would not make that argument. But I would say it was a contributing factor. As with so many political decisions, there are many, many factors that go into them. But I do think that very early on he asked his staff … The Soviets were doing all kinds of one-off stunts. They had the first woman in space and they had the first dog in space. Before Kennedy, they had launched the first satellite. Kennedy said, "What can we do over the long term that will redefine the race as something we can win?" And they knew at the time that if given time they could develop the rockets necessary to get Americans to the moon. So I think it was a contributing factor, for sure. 

BOB OAKES:   Let me ask about Bobby and Ethel. They purchased their own sailboat just like the Victura, a Wianno Senior, and they called theirs the Resolute. Tell us about the significance of that name.

JAMES GRAHAM:   I've asked Chris Kennedy, the son of Robert Kennedy, where the name came from because as many of you probably know, especially if you've toured the

Museum, you know about the Resolute desk in the Oval Office that John F. Kennedy had. I asked if it was named for that desk. He thought it was either that or because of the famous British boat for which the Resolute was named. The desk is made from the timbers of the Resolute.   Iit was probably more a combination of things for the legend of the Resolute, the desk, and the rest. Max Kennedy actually bought a Wianno Senior later and named it Ptarmigan, which is coincidentally – the British ship, the Resolute, was first called Ptarmigan and then it was renamed when it was outfitted for Arctic exploration, renamed the Resolute. So he just liked that little historic reference. 

BOB OAKES:   Talked a little bit about Ethel earlier. She loved to sail. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Ethel loved to sail every day. After her children lost their father, I think she really valued that time sailing. She was not so much a racer, but just loved taking the children out. No child was ever left behind -- any child who wanted to join the crew. She's got 11 kids, that's a lot of childhood friends, so the boat was always loaded with kids. There's one most memorable incident. Ethel Kennedy, one thing that she very firmly believed -- and she was a woman with strong beliefs …

BOB OAKES:   I know where you're going with this. It's the ferry episode.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yes, yes. She really firmly believed that a sailboat always has the right of way over a powerboat, and it doesn't matter how big that powerboat is. So a ferry that carries cars and hundreds of passengers, it's still a powerboat.  So she had an ongoing feud with the captains of various ferries, one of which was called the On Cantina[?]. She got in its way and the captain of the On Cantina came running out on the flying bridge, screaming at Ethel and her crew to get out of the way. He's yelling at her and the On Cantina's crew is yelling at the captain saying, "Look out where we're going," and he's too distracted by yelling at Ethel. The On Cantina ran aground in the shoals, damaged the propeller and Ethel just kept sailing on.

I had a chance to ask Ethel about this incident and her feuds with these big ferryboat captains and she looked at me and squinted her eyes and said, "Sometimes when people are big, it goes to their head." [laughter] And she clearly thought of herself as David and these ferries as Goliath.

BOB OAKES:   You wrote that after Bobby's death, Ethel sailed almost every day when she could. What drove that, do you think?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Well, she loved to sail. She loved the time with the kids. You mentioned Egg Island earlier.  It really wasn't an island, it was a sandbar. They'd go up there and load up coolers with sandwiches and crackers and cheese and beverages. There's a man there who always hung out on the beach; he had a little powerboat and he couldn't speak, but he had a powerboat with a little outboard motor on it. So they named him Putt for the sound of his motor.  There's a great story that Ethel also shared with me. Putt eventually died. He lived in a little shack around Hyannis. She went and looked into the shack after he had gone, and there was a picture of Ethel pasted on the wall. Ethel, as she's telling me the story, said, "I didn't really ever photograph well.  I wasn't a very pretty woman, but there I was on the wall. And the rest of the wall was covered with pornographic pictures of women." [laughter]

BOB OAKES:   Any further comment?

JAMES GRAHAM:   I didn't pursue that line of questioning any further. [laughter] 

BOB OAKES:   I'm going to get you to read from a passage here. It's marked on 159 and 160. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Sure.

BOB OAKES:   In the book, Jim points out that the family often wrote letters to document important moments, and Ted wrote one after Bobby's death to his children. It was published in a private family book, and you included a passage of it in here. I had never read it before and it was, I thought, very moving.

JAMES GRAHAM:   I'll read this. To be clear, these are Ted Kennedy's words in a letter that he wrote to the children after Robert Kennedy died.

When I think of Bobby, I will always see Cape Cod on a sunny day. The wind will be from the southwest and the whitecaps will be showing, and the full tide will be sweeping through the gaps of the breakwater. It will be after lunch and Bob will be stripped to the waist, and he'll say, "Come on, Joe, Kathleen, Bobby and David, Courtney, Kerry, come on, Michael, and even you, Chris, and Max. Call your mother and come for a sail." One of the children would say, "What about the baby?" And the father would reply, "Douglas can come next year."  They'd push off from the landing, the sails of the Resolute catch the wind, and the boat tips and there are squeals of laughter from the crew and Bob says, "I think today is the day we'll tip over." And there are more squeals. And the Resolute reaches toward the end of the breakwater.  He will dive overboard and catch hold of the line that trails behind, inviting the children to join him. Child after child jumps into the water, grabbing for the line and those who appear to miss are pulled toward it by his strong and suntanned arms. 

Again, that's Ted Kennedy's words. 

BOB OAKES:   The imagery is incredibly powerful. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, and so much of the lives of the Kennedys are filled with those kinds of memories. I really think one of the powerful things about the Victura -- this is a book about a sailboat -- but it's really more so a book about a family and what made a family strong. And they all have memories like that and as I said, every day was an adventure, and they all have their own adventures that they'll recall for you.

BOB OAKES:   It's so interesting to me that in writing that letter, Ted chose to write about Bobby and the family sailing.

JAMES GRAHAM:   It's also of interest that so often when somebody dies in the Kennedy family and a eulogy is given that there are tales of sailing together. I mean, one of the things I often say, what motivated me to write the book, why I thought it was a good idea -- it's just the story of a little sailboat, right? When Ted Kennedy died, a lot of people got up and gave eulogies, many of them here in this building and some at a church in Boston. President Obama gave a eulogy. But four different people got up and in order to boil down the essence of who Ted Kennedy was, they told stories of sailing with him on the Victura. One of which was Senator John Culver, who told a wonderful story; you can watch it on YouTube or go to my website, TheVictura.com , and see it. It's definitely a wonderful story to hear.

BOB OAKES:   Eunice, talk a little bit about Eunice for a moment or two. You write that she was the best of the sailors among the daughters.

JAMES GRAHAM:   You know if you said to her, "Were you the best of the sailors among the daughters?," she would immediately say, "No, the best, period." [laughter] Men, women, all. She absolutely believed she was the best of the sailors.

There's one moment when they were out racing together and Eunice was on the boat, and they're racing along and she somehow – this is not evidence as her skill as a sailor, but it's illustrative. They're sailing along and somehow she fell out of the boat. They're going down wind so they're flying the spinnaker, which is that big parachute, or balloon-shaped sail, hard to raise and lower. So she comes up and starts treading water and she waves to the sailors, "Keep going round the mark, come around and come and get me on the next leg of the race." So she treaded water for 15 minutes or something like that. That was how committed she was to racing and winning and competing. 

BOB OAKES:   She sailed with fierce intensity and wild daring recklessness. And what you just said is really a pretty perfect example of that. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah. She was often compared to Joe, Jr. in terms of her bravery at the tiller. 

BOB OAKES:   She was such an accomplished person in life on dry land. Do you think that the way she sailed matched the seriousness and purposefulness in the way she approached life? She had several jobs or careers and worked tirelessly for people who were mentally or physically challenged.

JAMES GRAHAM:   The wonderful thing about the Kennedy family is all the things that kind of come together and grow the family. They had a daughter named Rosemary who was intellectually disabled, and Eunice was very close to her. Eunice was also an athlete. She played tennis I believe for Stanford and was a great sailor. And isn't it wonderful that that combination of things after she became an adult and the President took office, she was able to convert those two passions into forming the Special Olympics?  There's apparently a biography being written about Eunice, and I really think we need that because she really redefined how Americans in particular, and really the world, understand people with intelligence disabilities or disabilities of all kinds. It's a really remarkable contribution that I think in history she'll be noted for. People have said she would have made a great President herself if she had been born in a different era.

BOB OAKES:   Certainly was driven in life and, circling back to sailing, you point out in the book that despite a bunch of accidents over the years and some serious illnesses, she sailed well into her 80s and sometimes had to force a nurse or two, she dragged them on to the sailboat just so she could get out onto the water.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, Chris Kennedy told me a story. He was coming in from a day of sailing and Eunice was heading out to go sailing with a nurse in tow, the crew, and Chris asked her, "Where are you going?" "Going sailing." "Well, wait a minute, let me call one of my brothers to go with you." "Why? You don't think I can sail myself?" [laughter] But she definitely loved sailing. 

There's a moment I describe in the book in which she was very near death and not feeling very well. Ted, who was also ill, went to visit her. They spent several minutes and in an effort to cheer her up, decided to go through the brothers and sisters and ask which of these were serious sailors and which were not serious. So Ted threw out Jack: "Serious," she'd say. And Kathleen: She'd say, "Not serious at all." And run through the list and then of course Ted had to ask her, "Who is the best sailor of all?" "I am," she said. [laughter] I've already said that that would be her answer. 

BOB OAKES:   So let's spend a few minutes talking about Ted. We picture Ted, I think, mostly on his beloved Mya, but he loved the Victura as well.

JAMES GRAHAM:   He did. He was really an outstanding racer and took racing very seriously. He also saw it as a way to connect with his children and with nieces and nephews, who were now fatherless by 1968. He took his children out often sailing for a few days. Patrick's described … He had an annual father/son outing where they'd go out on the Victura and go camp, sail on Martha's Vineyard, or wherever the winds happened to be blowing, where the boat would go.  He clearly saw that as a family time. It was something he loved to do. And it worked because the children clearly loved it, too.

They're all, so many of them have now acquired boats of their own and sail as well.

BOB OAKES:   When I ask about the development of sailing, so to speak, in Ted's mind, when he was younger, long before he became the lion of the Senate, he lived in the shadow of his brothers. And you wrote here: "For years to come, no matter his accomplishments, Ted's status as a Presidential younger brother made him seem even less self-made than the other sons of Joe Kennedy. The exceptions were accomplishments racing the Victura, where nepotism gave no aid." He had independence and a sense of self-accomplishment on that boat.

JAMES GRAHAM:   That's a good point. If you think about it, he was always in the shadows of such accomplished, older brothers and sisters. But as a skipper in a sailboat race, the name Kennedy meant nothing. Either you won or you lost. And he must have loved that, that he could prove himself in that way. It's kind of an amazing thing that President Kennedy, when he was President, did not race, to my knowledge, much at all, if at all. But he loved coming out and watching his younger brother Ted race sailboats. So he'd be out there on the Presidential yacht watching Ted race around in the Victura.

BOB OAKES:    Late 1940s, Edgartown Regatta, a special moment, you write, for both Jack and Ted on the Victura. Jack was in Congress at the time, wanted to sail the race and asked Jack[sic] to crew. And the Congressman flies in at the eleventh hour. Tell us what happened. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Apparently, you're supposed to have a ticket or be on the boat and the rules did not allow for this, but Ted and the family friend, or cousin I guess, Joe Gargan, were on the boat waiting for Jack to arrive. They were late to get to the starting line, but they really wanted to sail with their Congressman brother Jack. Jack, the plane lands and he runs out in a suit and his briefcase to the end of the dock, jumps on the Victura, goes down below, changes clothes. Comes out and they make their way. I think they can hear the starting gun in the distance, but they rush out and get in the race and it was kind of a cloudy, rainy, misty day. I don't remember what the outcome of that race was, but they …

BOB OAKES:   You wrote that Ted gave Jack the tiller and when they got to the starting line, Jack could see the line that the other boats were sailing in, so he went in another direction. He took a chance in order to see if they could catch the rest of the participants.

JAMES GRAHAM:   That's right. I had forgotten about that. They really did know how to read the waters. I'm a Lake Michigan sailor, and there's no such thing as a tide in Chicago. But here the tide going in and out is a big factor in sailboat racing and they were really, really good at that. And that might have been a factor in that particular race.

BOB OAKES:   One by one, you wrote, they caught the other boats and finally eked out a victory at the end. I imagine that had to be one of many, many memorable moments for Ted on the Victura.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, there are so many stories of the Kennedys sailboat racing and coming from behind. That's part of the family lore, those various races. There's one other one about Jack when he was a youngster, coming from behind, even though the gaff rig busted and yet somehow he managed to win the race. I think that is a metaphor for life; Ted sailing is a metaphor for life. That notion of coming from behind is something that politicians really understand well, because so often somebody comes from behind in an election.

BOB OAKES:   You write about how after Jack and Bobby passed, Ted would sail the Victura out at night just to think all by himself.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, imagine the trauma of losing both your brothers. By that time, he'd also lost Joe, Jr. and his older sister Kathleen, now Jack and Robert. For days, he would go out sailing alone at night under the stars and collect his thoughts. There are other stories of the Kennedy family really enjoying sailing at night. There's a wonderful passage from Eugene O'Neill that Patrick Kennedy read at a funeral for his sister Kara, in which O'Neill writes about sailing at night and gazing up at the stars.

BOB OAKES:   You think sailing at night for Ted gave him a sense of purposefulness again? Certainly, his relatives thought it helped him focus.

JAMES GRAHAM:   I think so. The Kennedys are famously Catholic, but I think that they connect with their Maker as much at sea as anywhere. Kerry Kennedy told me that she never really feels closer to God than when she's out on a sailboat at night. I think that really puts life in perspective when you're out there on the water and experiencing the infinite sea. John F. Kennedy famously had on his desk, the Resolute, a little plaque that said "Oh, God, the sea is so great and my boat is so small." I believe that plaque is here in the Museum, if I'm not mistaken.

BOB OAKES:   Amy says yes. Summer 1994 – I'm wrapping up in a few minutes -- get ready with your questions – summer 1994, in the grips of a tight US Senate race. I remember this well, I covered this race as a reporter, that race with Mitt Romney. Looked for a while like he might very well lose, even the Senator's own campaign polls had the race nip and tuck or dead heat. Senator had to be concerned. And the afternoon before everyone knew what would be an extremely important first debate, he asked his driver to take him here to the Library so that he could stand and reflect near the Victura. Tell us about that. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   He did. It was the afternoon of a debate. He's down in the polls, or the polls had him and Romney neck in neck, more or less, and some polls had him behind. You know when you're a challenger to a guy like Ted Kennedy, being on the stage with him as an equal, challenging Ted really is a boost to your campaign. So it was a really crucial debate between Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney. And just to collect his thoughts, he came here and walked around the lawn. I think he sat on a bench somewhere outside part of the time and also must have spent some time with the sailboat. He said later that it was just a chance for him to collect his thoughts and reconnect with his values and the memory of his brothers and sisters. 

There was a line in the debate -- I don't remember exactly -- but he was challenged on a scandal in which the family was accused of profiting on some kind of a real estate deal involving the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, I believe. He basically responded by saying,

"Our family has paid too high a price to try to profit financially from public service."

BOB OAKES:   We're on the same page, because I actually have that called up right here. I remember that moment in the debate back then. When you cover a lot of politics, I think every now and then you can find a moment or two where you can actually see a campaign change right in front of your very eyes. That happened once to me in the race for President that John Kerry was nominated for. We were out in Des Moines, Iowa, and he had been slipping, slipping, slipping and at that moment, on that one particular day, he gathered a bunch of veterans together and it was a very, very moving moment at an event near his campaign headquarters. The energy in the room was incredible, and you could feel the momentum in that Democratic primary swing back to John Kerry at that moment.

It was overpowering.

I remember this line in that debate and you knew when he said that line, you could hear it on the other end of the televisions all across the Commonwealth, people saying, "Wow, that is a campaign-changing moment." I think he had one of those moments at that time. You wonder, if he would have been able to call that up had he not been here that afternoon, reflecting on his life with his brothers and the boat right next to the Victura.

JAMES GRAHAM:   One of the wonderful things about the story of the Victura is, as I said, it's the story of the family, it's not really just the story about John F. Kennedy as a 15 year old boy sailing it. It's that relationship between John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, and Robert and then Joe, Jr. and the others. What I really love is that with the construction of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate nearing completion, that that boat – I hope that that boat becomes more a symbol of the family and the relationships between them and what that chemistry meant than just about John F. Kennedy. Because I think that's the real story of the Victura.

I will also say that I think that sailing together was a really powerful shared experience. It was deliberately pursued by people like Ted Kennedy trying to connect with his children. There's really valuable family lessons from that, in that if you can find something to share with your children and your cousins that is a really wonderful shared experience – it doesn't have to be sailing, it can be anything. It could be fly-fishing; I think you fish for trout, right? It could be quilt making, it could be all kinds of things – but find your own Victura as a family and I think you'll do well. 

BOB OAKES:   I've dragged my kids on many fishing trips. Okay, questions from the audience. Step up to the microphone.

Q:   I have a question. I don't know if it's in your book but in Jacqueline Kennedy's, the tapes that came out, her long interviews with Arthur Schlesinger, one of the last things he asks her is when was President Kennedy most relaxed, and she said on a boat. Because there was no telephone.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, yeah, and certainly that photo from the Sports Illustrated spread really shows it. There's another news account at the time when he's President and he's with Ted and they're coming in from a cruise on -- might have been the President yacht coming back to Hyannis, it must have been Hyannisport -- and they see the Victura, winds blowing 30 knots or something like that and they look at it and they just say to each other, We've got to go out. So the President and Ted go out sailing. So clearly, he relished those moments. . 

Q:   Then just one quick question – the grandchildren of the next generation, the Shrivers, the Smiths, the Kennedys, who are some of the most outstanding sailors in the family?

JAMES GRAHAM:   I know that Robert and Ethel's son Joe really spent a lot of time with Ted and became an avid sailor. I know Max has raced a lot with the family. Chris Kennedy, who I came to know because he lives in the Chicago area, actually owns the boat – after they gave the Victura to the Kennedy Foundation for this Museum, they acquired another Wianno Senior and named it Victura. That has now come into the hands of Chris, although many of the members of the family sail it.  So I'm not sure if any one of them really stands out. Certainly, Joe, and Ted Kennedy, Jr. was a very good competitive sailor. I think his name shows up as a winner of many races.

Q:   I had the pleasure of running into the Kennedys several times in Maine. They used to go sailing there quite a bit. Is that in your book? And how much time did they actually spend up there?

JAMES GRAHAM:   In Maine. I don't really know the answer to that, but I know that there's a story of Robert and Ethel taking the children up to Maine sailing. The story was that they used to navigate with roadmaps instead of nautical maps. [laughter] And the rocky coast of Maine is not a place you want to take lightly. 

But that was an incident where Kathleen Kennedy, now Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, was not with them and fell off a horse, on their way to Maine. So a Coast Guard boat came to give them the news and Robert jumped off the boat and swam in high waves and everything else, swam across the water to the Coast Guard boat so he could get ashore to be with Kathleen, to be with her and attend to her injuries.

Q:   You had spoken before about the PT109. I've often wondered, it's sort of known that Jack Kennedy had sustained a very bad back, or had a back problem and he also had Addison's disease. Did he sustain his back injury during World War II, or was it due to something else?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Well, he had back issues prior to World War II. Whether that incident aggravated his back injuries, it's hard to say. I mean, after that incident, he was able to do all that swimming, so his back must not have been bothering him very much then. But I think it's been said that many people after World War II said that John F. Kennedy injured his back on PT109. In fact, I think he had injured it earlier. And he didn't necessarily correct those reporters who said that so it's not entirely clear how the back conditions were sustained.

Q:   You open the book by quoting the Tennyson poem Ulysses . I just wonder if you can talk about sort of what that meant to the family and how it entered family lore, et cetera. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Thanks for bringing that up. Ulysses , of course, is a Tennyson poem from the 19 th century based on Homer's Odyssey of the legend of Odysseus, who was a great mariner. And it all started with a little ten-year-old girl named Jackie Bouvier who memorized the poem with the help of her grandfather when she was only ten years old. When she became engaged to John F. Kennedy, she recited the poem from memory to him. Jack was just delighted by it and it became his favorite poem, and he used it in speeches. 

There's one moment when he was running for President and he wanted to conclude his speech with words from that poem, but couldn't remember them. So he writes, "Jackie, give me the last words that begin with 'Come my friends.'" She proceeds to write several lines of that poem, starting with "Come with my friends, tis not too late to seek a newer world."

And of course after John F. Kennedy's death, Robert Kennedy took up that poem himself and began using it in speeches. He published a book called, To Seek a Newer World , taking a title from that. Then, when Robert F. Kennedy died, Ted Kennedy became under prominent consideration for the Presidency and his greatest speech was in 1980 at the Democratic National Convention, when he was conceding the race to President Carter and he gave his famous "Dream shall never die speech." But before he got to that concluding line, he quoted from Ulysses.  

To this day, there are grandchildren of that generation of Kennedys who memorize portions of that poem, sometimes performing it for the family at the dinner table. Conor Kennedy recently, who's I think is 18 years old and a grandson of Robert and Ethel – he's more famous for having dated Taylor Swift [laughter] -- but he also memorized the poem in its entirety for a class of his own.

BOB OAKES:   Before we go outside, we started by talking about doodles and we're going to finish by going back to art.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Before I go to this, I do want to say one quick word. I really wanted to say a word of thanks to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, because their support of my research here for this book was really, really invaluable. Of course, they preserve the boat but I spent a lot of time in the Library doing research and the help of the Library staff and all these photographs, the one that I love so much of John and Robert, I had not seen it anywhere but I found it here in this Library.

But one of the indications of how much this boat meant to the Kennedys as a family and especially a generation of the Kennedys who were the children of Joe and Rose, in 1963 the three sisters -- Jean, Patricia and Eunice -- decided that what their three brothers really wanted for Christmas were paintings of the sailboat Victura. And they commissioned an artist named Henry Koehler, who's in this photo, in the fall of 1963 to go out to Hyannis Port and go out on a boat. It might have been the Honey Fitz or it might have been the Marlin, I'm not sure. A powerboat. Joe Kennedy, Sr., who was an invalid at this time because of a stroke, they gave him a ride on the boat with him as this artist Henry Koehler drew sketches of the sailboats.  So here you have the President, the Attorney General of the United States, and Senator Ted Kennedy together, very important people in this country at that time and the sisters think that the thing that they most really want for Christmas are paintings of the Victura.

So Henry Koehler made these paintings. This is one of Jack and Jacqueline, and then this is of Ted and Joan Kennedy, and then nother one of Robert and Ethel. And in the fall of '63, as he's working on these paintings in his New York studio, one of the sisters wanted to come by and check on the progress of his work. So she came by the studio. Henry turned off the radio because he didn't want the gathering to be disturbed so they could have a conversation. The sister looked at the paintings. He can't remember which sister it was. He just said it wasn't Eunice; it was one of the other two. The sister thought the work was great, and she walked out the door and headed down the street. And the phone rang and it was the artist's, Henry Koehler's fiancée, saying, "Do you have your radio on?" "No." "The President's just been shot."  He ran out the door to see if he could find that Kennedy sister, and she was long down the block somewhere. He found out later that the sister learned of it from someone who recognized her on the street, a stranger had grabbed her and said, "Your brother's just been shot." 

But these paintings were nonetheless finished. He thought he'd lose the commission as a result of that. But he finished the paintings and delivered them for Christmas. Jacqueline had to accept for her husband.

BOB OAKES:   I said this the other day on the radio -- sorry about the cough, still coming off a cold -- I said this the other day on the radio and let me conclude– first of all, before I conclude I want to say that James is going to go downstairs next to the boat and take some one-on-one questions from you, if you want to question him there.  But on the radio the other day, at the end of our other interview, I said that this book -- if you love the story of the Kennedy family and you love a great story about how a family develops together through one shared interest -- this book is a gift. It's a real gift. And thank you very much. I appreciate it.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Thank you, Bob.  [applause]

9. The Kennedy Sailing Tradition

One of the most well-known Kennedy pastimes is sailing around Hyannis Harbor, Lewis Bay and into the Nantucket Sound. JFK spent many summers sailing with family in his Wianno Senior "Victura" in these waters. U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy often raced in the legendary Figawi regatta every May in his wooden schooner,  Mya . Many Kennedy family boats are moored at Hyannis Port Yacht Club, less than one mile from here. Visitors may wish to board a sightseeing vessel to see the Kennedy Compound from the water. Boats leave from Bismore Park docks.

 The Kennedy Sailing Tradition

Close by, at the Hyannis Port pier is where Ted Kennedy's beloved sailboat Mya could be seen on its mooring if he wasn't out winning a race! It wasn’t just Ted and JFK, but most of the Kennedys that have enjoyed taking to the waters in a vessel powered by wind. Today, the next generation of Kennedy sailors race their various Wianno Senior sailboats. The famous Crosby Yacht Yard made the "Seniors" in nearby Osterville to navigate our shifting Cape Cod shoals.

Sailing on the Cape

For the majority of Cape Cod’s history, sailing was a necessary part of life. Before the engine and modern infrastructure, marine travel was the most effective means of getting from place to place, and for longer distances, sailing was less rigorous than the alternative of rowing. As most know, large ships set sail to transport people and goods or explore other parts of the world. Fishermen also used sailboats for their work. Sails formed the foundation of Cape Cod.

Yachting and recreational sailing became popular in America in the early twentieth century, and numerous yacht clubs opened up on Cape Cod during that time. With the establishment of these clubs came some of the first regattas on Cape Cod, such as the Chatham Yacht Club regatta first held in 1921, which is still held annually to this day. The Figawi Regatta, which occurs annually on Memorial Day weekend, is the most notable of the Cape’s regattas, and originated in 1972.

The Crosby Yacht Yard is a historic shipyard in Osterville, well-known for its construction of the Wianno Seniors beginning in the early twentieth century, and the Crosby brother’s model of the catboat designed in 1850. The aforementioned Victura was bought by the Kennedys in 1932 and is to this day stored and maintained in the Crosby Yacht Yard during the colder months. In the warmer months, the boat stands on display outside the window of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Bobby Kennedy

Robert “Bobby” Kennedy, active in politics and instrumental in the civil rights movement, was born on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Massachusetts. He and his wife Ethel, who married in 1950, had eleven children. They purchased the second of three houses that formed the Kennedy Compound as their family started to grow. Robert managed his brother John F. Kennedy’s successful senate campaign in 1952 and went on to manage JFK’s national campaign in 1960. JFK appointed him U.S. Attorney General. In that role he worked closely and confidentially with his brother, serving as advisor during difficult times such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. He resigned as attorney general after his brother’s death. He was then elected U.S. Senator from New York. Robert was shot on June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles, California during his campaign for President. He was pronounced dead the following day.

The 35th President of the United States, 1961-1963

1. the kennedys and cape cod, 2. 1960s main street, hyannis, 3. rose fitzgerald kennedy, matriarch of the kennedy family, 4. the kennedy church, 5. site of presidential election acceptance speech, 6. protecting cape cod’s seashores, 7. peace corps memorial, 8. the kennedys’ contribution to maritime heritage, 9. the kennedys sailing tradition, 10. the 35th president of the united states, 1961-1963, explore hyannis, while you are in hyannis, plan some extra time to explore main street and its shops, restaurants and extensive arts and cultural offerings  for a list of current events and things to do in hyannis:.

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Manitou, John Fitzgerald Kennedy's Bermudan yawl

John Fitzgerald Kennedy chose Manitou from the American fleet as his personal pleasure craft. He often crossed him off alone, accompanied by pretty women, including actress Marilyn Monroe

A pedigree made for speed

Built in 1937 in Maryland by Davies & Sons, Manitou was later known as "The Floating White House".

His architect Olie Sparkman (The Sparkman of Sparkman & Stephens) designed him to be a courier for competitions on the American Great Lakes.

The sponsor of its launch, James Lowe, was a wealthy racing driver who was determined to get the fastest racing boat of the time.

He spoke to Sparkman & Stephens, the already famous architects of the moment, known for their designs that won the America's Cup several times.

Later, Sparkman and Stephens were, among others, the architects of Nautor, producing the beautiful Swan in Finland .

A powerful, elegant and comfortable Bermudan Yawl

• Length: 18.90 m
• Length at waterline: 13.40 m
• Width: 4.20 m
• Draught: 2.60 m
• Weight: 28 tons
• Ballast: 4 tons

His rig as a racing Bermudian yawl and the 167m2 of canvas he carried upwind made Manitou (which means "Spirit of the Water", the deity of all deities in Algonquin Indian) a powerful, comfortable and elegant sailing boat.

Manitou requisitioned by the US Navy

After having won all the important races that interested his owner before the war, Manitou would participate in the Second World War. When James Lowe was drafted into the US Navy in 1942, the ship followed him there. Manitou would spend World War II on motorized patrol along the northeast coast of the United States on surveillance missions before joining the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1956.

The president is looking for a yacht

Shortly after winning the 1961 presidential election, JFK put his naval aide-de-camp on the lookout for a sailboat belonging to the U.S. fleet that could serve as a presidential yacht. Manitou's elegant design and pedigree quickly made this point to the President's envoy who, after validation by JFK, quickly sent him to the Chesapeake Bay for a somewhat special start-up.

James Bond equipment

At the height of the Cold War, the American Presidential Yacht was intended to keep the President in constant contact with his aides and ministry. A powerful communication system (for the time) allowed him to reach the whole world - including the Kremlin - from his side!

For his comfort (and that of his guests), a bathtub had been fitted in the owner's cabin at the stern.

Although the president was still sailing surrounded by Secret Service boats (the President's protection service), a camouflaged crew in the aft cabin was carrying a Colt 45 ACP and ammunition. It was later replaced by a more peaceful rocket launcher!

1968, the boat returns to a sailing school

In 1968, the "Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship" acquired Manitou, which had been left empty since the assassination of President JFK. For the next 15 years, the boat was used to bring young teenagers from disadvantaged areas of the United States, much like Father Jaouen in France.

Finally, the descendants of its first owner bought it back in the 1980s to restore it and since then it has participated in many regattas and classic nautical events.

Manitou, who scours the regattas of old Mediterranean rigs, has just changed owners again.

• JFK: a president with a passion for boats

Most members of the Kennedy family shared a love of boats, of recreational and competitive sailing, and John F. Kennedy, one of America's most famous presidents, was no exception. Throughout his life, he sailed and raced a variety of boats, winning multiple awards in yachting competitions. After all, he began sailing long before graduating from Harvard, long before becoming a senator, a war hero or even a president and it remained a passion of his throughout his lifetime.

The Kennedy sailing tradition

A prominent political dynasty, the Kennedys are renowned for their involvement in public life, contributions to the United States and the world, as well as a series of family tragedies, the most notable being the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. A little know fact, however, is that the Kennedys were avid and successful sailors.

John F. Kennedy and his eight siblings were introduced to yachting by their father, Joseph Kennedy, who was chairman of the Maritime Commission, as well as holding many other important positions, particularly in finance. Interestingly, despite their wealth and ability to afford huge luxury yachts, the Kennedys preferred to sail in smaller, sport boats they could steer and pilot themselves.

Joseph Kennedy encouraged his children to learn to sail from a young age, sailing together as a single crew, or competing against one another. It soon became clear that most of them had a natural flair for sailing. The most successful of them was JFK, winning numerous awards for his sailing achievements, such as victory in the Nantucket Sound Star Class Championship cup in 1936. Both his brother Joseph Jr. and sister Kathleen were also very accomplished sailors.

Read stories of other famous personalities and sailors:

The sailboat Victura, his lifelong companion

The first boat JFK helmed was a 22-foot Olympic sailing boat named Flash II . It was at her helm that the President learned the basics of sailing and went on to win several major American regattas.

President JFK on his sailing ship Victura.

John F. Kennedy's greatest love, however, was his second boat, the Victura , a 25-foot sloop he received from his father for his 15th birthday. JFK kept this classic wooden sailboat throughout his life, often taking his entire family out on it during his presidency. As it was easy to handle, it was on the Victura , that he taught his children Caroline and Johnny Jr. to sail. In fact, the Kennedy family kept the sailboat long after his death and sailed it for more than 50 years. Today, she sits with her bow pointing out to sea in front of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Kennedy's love of yachting and boats, as well as his love of the sea, provided a welcome respite from his tumultuous presidency. Even while the administration was negotiating the Cuban missile crisis, it is said he was sketching drawings of yachts and often used sailing-inspired phrases in his speeches: 

"We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of preeminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war."   JFK

Captain JFK and the sailboat Victura

All the President's ships

After JFK became president, he almost immediately acquired an official presidential boat, the 62-foot yawl Manitou , on which he not only sailed with family, but also welcomed Hollywood stars, statesmen and other notable personalities. This 1937 performance yacht, made of mahogany with teak planking, had caught his eye when he was just a senator. And as soon as he took office, he converted it into an office, from which he could communicate not only with the White House, but also the Kremlin. Manitou was quickly dubbed the "Floating White House".

Other official presidential vessels included the motor boat Marlin and the presidential yacht The Honey Fitz, which   John. F. Kennedy used on a regular basis, as had former presidents, such as Truman, Eisenhower, Johnston, and Nixon. The Kennedy family spent most of their summer weekends and holidays with close friends on this yacht, where it is said he was at his happiest. In fact, it was aboard The Honey Fitz  that Jackie Kennedy threw him his last birthday party just months before his assassination. 

"It is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea — whether it is to sail or to watch it – we are going back from whence we came." JFK

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FRIDAY'S TFE LIVE: Edit and Peter Harken (USA) via Skype from Pewaukee

MOB: Sending in a Second Soul?

TFE LIVE: Today, Richard Pound (CAN), longest serving member of the IOC, with his views on the postp

TFE LIVE: Today, Terry Hutchinson (USA), Skipper and Executive Director of NYYC's American Magic

Classic Boat: The complete story of John F Kennedy’s yacht MANITOU

CANNES, FRA – MANITOU was built at the MM Davis & Son yard in Solomons, Maryland, in 1937. She was conceived by James Lowe of Grand Rapids, who was so determined to win the Chicago Mac Race (from Chicago to Mackinac Island, across Lake Michigan) that he commissioned the young naval architect Olin Stephens to design her specifically. She is one of Olin Stephen’s famous inboard yawls, a lineage that started with DORADE in 1930, many examples of which are still loved and raced to this day. The yacht is now owned by a syndicate of keen Med racers. What he [Mr Lowe] wanted was a performance cruising yacht that would race well under heavy and light conditions. So Stephens designed a 62ft (18.9m) cutter-rigged Bermudan yawl with 44ft (13.4m) in the water, a 13ft 9in (4.2m) beam and a four-ton keel. She had teak planking on deck and mahogany on oak for her hull. MANITOU was launched in 1937 and promptly won the 1938 Chicago Mac Race in the cruising division (on corrected time), beating all previous records. She came a close second the next year and came back to win it again in 1940 and 1941. After these successes Mr Lowe sold her, and in 1955 she was donated to the US Coast Guard [or did the author mean the Naval Academy? –TFE] to be used as a training vessel. It was while she was at Annapolis that MANITOU was first spotted by a young Senator Kennedy. She obviously made an impression on him because, when he was elected, the presidential yacht at the time was the 92ft (28m) power yacht HONEY FITZ (named after his own grandfather) and, as was customary, a fighting ship ready for naval action. Being a keen sailor, however, and now the president, Kennedy sent naval aide Captain Tazewell Shepard Jr , to search out a suitable sailing yacht that could accommodate the equipment needed for him to keep in touch with the White House, and even the Kremlin. – The esteemed Guy Venables writing in Classic Boat Magazine issue 294. Read the delightful photo essay here .

JFK at MANITOU's helm circa 1962. White House photo by Robert Knudsen .

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JFK, the sailing President

20 Feb JFK, the sailing President

“I really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it is because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it is because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it we are going back from whence we came.”

 –  President John F. Kennedy speaking at the America’s Cup in Newport, RI in 1962.

Before John F. Kennedy was President of the United States – indeed, before he met Jacqueline Onassis, before he was a U.S. senator, a Congressman, a Naval hero, a Harvard graduate – he was first a sailor. It could be argued that for JFK sailing was not only his first love, it was the love of his life.

He began sailing at a young age with his family. As a racer JFK won several events, including the Nantucket Sound Star Class Championship Cup in 1936, and the MacMillan Cup and East Coast Collegiate Championships in 1938. Even as president, he took time to sail in the waters off Hyannis, Palm Beach, and on the Potomac. For JFK sailing was a respite, a way to (at least temporarily) escape the heavy burdens of his office.

JFK owned many boats, but one boat remained his favorite throughout his too brief life. On his 15th birthday, his father Joseph Kennedy gave him a 25 foot Wianno Senior, a classic wooden gaff-rigged sloop made nearby on Cape Cod. JFK named her Victura ,   Latin for “about to conquer” – fitting for a young man with big dreams. He went on to other, larger boats – most notably the Sparkman & Stephens designed S/Y Manitou , and the Presidential motor yacht Honey Fitz   –  but it was Victura that captured and held his imagination and his heart.

JFK enjoyed sailing Victura for her simplicity, ease of handling and performance. It was on Victura that he taught Jackie and his children Caroline and John Jr. to sail. There are many photos of the Kennedy family and JFK sailing  Victura , and in those pictures there’s no mistaking the huge grin on his face. It is the smile of a man who loved his boat and loved sailing it. Friends said that he often told them he was never happier than at the helm of Victura .

The next day, hotel staff were cleaning the suite when they learned JFK had been shot in Dallas. In the trash, they found a simple pencil drawing of a sailboat that looked much like Victura , beating through the waves.

The Kennedy family kept Victura and sailed her for almost 50 years. Today, Victura stands on the lawn of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston , with her bow facing out to sea. A moving and fitting tribute to our sailing President.

Did you enjoy this? Here’s another piece of sailing history you might like:  A Shamrock for St. Patrick’s Day  

John F. Kennedy: The Yachtsman President

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As the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy was a towering figure on the world stage, embodying an era of hope and progress. But behind his image as a statesman, there existed another persona, one less known but just as defining – John F. Kennedy, the Yachtsman President.

Kennedy’s love for the sea began in his youth, nurtured by summers spent in the coastal town of Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. There, the future President discovered not just the call of the ocean, but a lifelong passion that would accompany him well into his presidency.

His yacht, the Victura, was a constant presence in his life, a 25-foot Wianno Senior class sloop built by the Crosby Yacht Yard in Osterville, Massachusetts. This particular class of sloop, a single-masted sailing boat with a fore-and-aft rig and single headsail, was and still is, a popular choice for both racing and pleasure sailing. The Wianno Senior class was named after the Wianno area of Osterville, Massachusetts, where these boats were first conceived and crafted.

She was designed with a full keel, which extended the entire length of the hull, offering stability in heavy winds and seas. The full keel also included a cutaway forefoot, reducing wetted surface area and increasing speed potential. In combination with her design, Victura’s overall weight of around 4,400 pounds added stability, but also required a skilled hand to navigate effectively.

Victura was equipped with a marconi rigged main and a jib. The Marconi, or Bermuda rig, characterized by a triangular mainsail, allowed for better windward performance. The sail area, approximately 338 square feet, was sizeable enough to harness the wind efficiently but not overwhelmingly so.

The deck of the Victura was relatively Spartan, designed for functionality rather than luxury. It would typically contain the essential controls and rigging required for sailing, such as the helm, winches for the sails, and cleats for securing lines.

The interior of the Victura, while modest, was functional. Given the boat’s purpose—racing and day sailing—there was little need for substantial accommodations below deck. However, there would likely have been space to stow gear and provisions, as well as some form of simple seating or berthing.

In essence, the Victura, like other Wianno Senior sloops, was a seaworthy, reliable, and nimble vessel, designed to provide an authentic and engaging sailing experience. Her design and features reflect the seafaring traditions of New England’s coastal communities, an apt match for a seaman like John F. Kennedy.

This vessel was no simple pleasure craft, but an essential part of Kennedy’s identity. It was a gift from his parents on his fifteenth birthday, and the Victura would carry Kennedy through numerous sailing regattas, family outings, and moments of solitude that he so often sought on the open sea.

The Victura was a vessel of simplistic beauty, characterized by a glistening white hull and a single, towering mast that hoisted a canvas of sails. The intimate quarters below deck spoke of a boat built for racing and leisure, rather than grandeur and luxury. Yet, it was within these confined spaces that Kennedy found solace and quietude, the soothing rhythm of the waves serving as a counterpoint to the demanding pace of his public life.

Kennedy’s companions on the Victura were as varied as the seascapes he sailed. From his brothers and sisters to friends, dignitaries, and his wife Jacqueline, all experienced Kennedy’s love for sailing firsthand. It was on the Victura that Kennedy courted Jacqueline, their shared journeys on the boat becoming a metaphor for their life together. Those who accompanied him on his maritime voyages often spoke of his transformation when he took the helm – from a dedicated statesman to an enthusiastic sailor, his eyes lighting up with the same zeal that marked his speeches.

Perhaps the most pivotal moment in Kennedy’s sailing career came in August 1936, when he won the Nantucket Sound Star Class Championship. Kennedy was a competitive racer, his skill and tactics refined by hours spent at the helm of the Victura. His victories on the water were a testament to his tenacity and strategic acumen, qualities that would later guide him during his presidency.

The Victura was more than a boat to Kennedy – it was a symbol of his youth, his competitive spirit, and his love for the sea. His relationship with the boat was often reflected in his speeches, where he used nautical metaphors to inspire a nation yearning for direction and progress.

Following Kennedy’s untimely death in 1963, the Victura remained a poignant reminder of a President whose life was inextricably tied to the sea. Today, the Victura is carefully preserved at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston, her hull still gleaming, her sails furled. Each year, on Kennedy’s birthday, the Victura is launched into the sea, a tribute to the Yachtsman President.

John F. Kennedy’s maritime legacy is a narrative of passion and commitment. It is a testament to a man who, despite the weight of his office, never lost sight of the boy who first fell in love with the sea. His story serves as a reminder that even in the face of immense responsibility, one can find solace and strength in the pursuit of personal passions.

From the shores of Hyannis Port to the Oval Office, the Victura carried Kennedy on a journey unlike any other. As we look back on his life, we are reminded that before he was a President, before he was a statesman, John F. Kennedy was, and will always be, a sailor. And in the silence of the sea, his legacy continues to resound, a beacon of hope navigating the course of history.

What sparked JFK's passion for sailing?

JFK's passion for sailing started at a young age, nurtured by his family's love for the sea and the location of their home overlooking Nantucket Sound.

What was the name of JFK's personal sailboat?

JFK's personal sailboat was named Victura, a 26-foot Wianno Senior sloop.

Where is the Victura now?

The Victura is now displayed at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

What role did JFK play in the navy during World War II?

JFK served as a skipper of PT-109, a Patrol Torpedo Boat during World War II in the Pacific Theater.

How did JFK's love for the sea influence his presidency?

JFK's love for the sea provided him with a relaxing escape from the pressures of the presidency. He often spent time sailing in the waters of Cape Cod.

Did JFK continue sailing during his presidency?

Yes, JFK continued to sail during his presidency, with sailing being one of his favorite pastimes.

What did JFK say about the sea?

JFK once stated: I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because...we all came from the sea.

What was JFK's role in the navy?

JFK served as a naval officer during World War II. His leadership and heroism were showcased when he led his crew to safety after their Patrol Torpedo Boat, PT-109, was rammed and split in two by a Japanese destroyer.

How did sailing shape JFK as a leader?

Sailing taught JFK critical leadership skills, including decision-making, teamwork, and resilience. These skills proved invaluable during his naval service in WWII and his presidency.

What is the significance of JFK as a yachtsman?

As a yachtsman, JFK embodied the virtues of sailing—leadership, courage, resilience—and left an indelible mark on the sailing world. His legacy continues to inspire sailors around the globe.

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• Sailing Anarchy

56m luxury sailing yacht sinks off Sicily, 7 missing

• Thread starter Matagi
• Start date Monday at 2:03 AM

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Long island.

• Today at 6:18 AM

<iframe framespacing='0' frameborder='no' scrolling='no' src=' https://video.corriere.it/video-emb...b1xlk?playerType=embed&tipo_video=embed_norcs ' width='540' height='340' allowfullscreen></iframe>  

Super Anarchist

• Today at 6:19 AM

It's not uncommon to see these boats in the Caribbean with the dinghy garages (stern and hull) partially open. Closed enough to stop an intruder but open enough to allow a breeze. That practice has now probably ended. Odd to imagine that it went bow down, wonder how they know that?  

• Today at 6:21 AM

Delphia40 said: This was a supercell event turbocharged by climate warming. Storms are getting more intense. And this activity will continue to get worse until we get to net zero Click to expand...

• Today at 6:23 AM

WaterThruSun said: HAARP , DEW's exist, are real, verified. Ask my neice im Lahaina, ciew silaritu with 'wearher' even Paradise. See The Dimming at geoengineering.com; what entities in the USA -trillionaire international bankster elite - affect many outcomes And own your news - [what 25 global families own 92% of all global corporate stock of BlackRock and Vanguard who own the MSM GLOBAL press - worols leader dictators know ro and how to control a narrative...JFK, fake pandemic gratis Fouci- USA DOD "virus" aka bio weapon that now has turbo cancers skyrocketing globally, 9/11, J6, false flags leading to 29th and 21st century news to name a smattering... watch on a site that doesnt censor such as does Google (orignially funded by USA govt), brighteon.com or rumble.com the documentary "Who Owns the World". Then after you get up to speed with reality beyond what you lap-up spoonfed from MSM, 'Follow the Money' and other circumstances as follows: The wealthy inventor patent holder of a prized-by-global-intelligence -agencies, not only died, body missing most recent report, not only this but consider his one partner in this prized billionaire potential product is dead too as of last month. Partner run over by a car while walking on side walk on a nonbusy street. Entertain motive, how did some one some interest terrify these teo inventors initially, and tying them up in court facing bamkruoty and long jail sentences. Shortly after narrowly escaping this attack on their Intel gathering major creation, they are dead. Wouldnt be first time an entire planeload, craft taken out to kill just one by USA govt. For you who believe all the govt tells you, all the mainstreammedia reporting, im certain this presentation i give is too unsettling for you to accept that would cause u to then wonder what else your media-govt has convinced you is reality, but are lies. Did you swallow the newsnpropaganda about biolab made Foici-Wuhan virus amd take then let them inject you with the now verified clot-shot ,cancer-neuro disruptive- auto immune disease escalator deadly injection falsely named a vaccine. Awake? Take a look at stats of Amish kids' health records who are never given usa mandated childhood schedule: free of the plagues childhood chrooc disease unleashed after Reagan signed the 1986 baccine bill- up til then USA kids fot 3, not 78 forced. Research: on anove websites, not google! dr Tenpenny, McCullough, dr Lee Merritt, MD's who ade Naruropaths/Functional med doctors not the brainwashed coming out 1920's rockefeller curriculum medical schools of AMA producing brainwashed MD's. Western medicine treats symptoms not etiology, works hand in hand with Big Pharma to keep u sick on dozens of meds for side-effects of original. A highly trained Stanford U ugrad amd med school,surgeon specialiat and with her Harvard MBA SC lobbyiest have awakened to what ive known since 1980's working at Stanford U Children's and UCSF Med Ctr as an RN , is Dr Means andher brother- read their book and or get A synopsis by watching Tucker's interview of them at tuckercarlson.com (#1 podcast). You still clueless about Google - Alphabet? Sundar Pichai and Larry Paige??? Read first few pages of top Google engineer, whistleblower Zach Voohries' book on his website www. Googleleaksbook.com Book title is Google Leaks. If he Hadnt had a kill switch when book released with Project Veritas, his Noe Valley San Francisco home Sureounded by men in black with uniform with their stoooges SFPD...NSA, CIA, Homeland. Far-fetched for your fragile reality mind? are uou too youns to know the Edward Snowden NSA reveal, Obama chasing him down globally- where he has finally fled to to be safe from clutches of USA CIA. You believe Hollywood dribble-programming glorifying CIA??? READ! "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" Aloha Click to expand...

Virgulino Ferreira

Breamerly said: cacophony of morons, cranks, and people who barely speak the language . Click to expand...

• Today at 6:33 AM

The Bayesan's route in the last 16 minutes​

3:50 a.m.: the waterspout and the sailing ship swinging​, 3:59 a.m.: the anchor has now given way​, 4 a.m., the blackout: the yacht is already taking on water​, 4:05 a.m.: the bayesian sinks​, the shipwreck: the sailboat sank vertically​.

• Today at 6:34 AM

long island said: PALERMO — It seems to see it, the Bayesian sailing ship . The AIS tracking system , which correlates the instruments on board a boat with the coastal stations, accurately draws its course in the most tragic minutes, until the end. A map of the disaster, in essence. The Bayesan's route in the last 16 minutes​ It is one of the many documents acquired by the Termini Imerese prosecutor's office, but it is also a route available to the Italian Sea Group , the company that took over the assets of Perini Navi, i.e. the shipyard that built the sailing ship in 2008. And they, starting from the AIS tracking and cross-referencing all the other available data, calculated the distances traveled and movements of the Bayesian, times, winds and rotation of the yacht , from when the waterspout arrived until the last centimeter of the sailing ship ended up under the surface of the water: 16 minutes of pure terror. Not only the 60 seconds filmed in the famous video in which he is seen disappearing in the dark: those were only part of what happened. There was no very fast sinking recounted by some witnesses . Sixteen minutes to save themselves, to raise the alarm, to try to avoid sinking and, above all — for those who slept in the cabins furthest from the exits — sixteen minutes to understand that death was there waiting , hidden in the waves, the very strong wind and the water that dragged further and further down. 3:50 a.m.: the waterspout and the sailing ship swinging​ In the AIS route, the critical time comes at 3.50 a.m. on the night between Sunday and Monday. The gale is powerful, the wind rises impetuously, the Bayesian begins to sway dangerously. The tracking system shows an area that graphically resembles a child's scribble on a piece of paper: it is the sailing ship moving back and forth, then to the side, then again forward and backward again. 3:59 a.m.: the anchor has now given way​ Those marks scrawled on the paper say that the yacht was like a dog on a chain , tied to anchor and unable to run away from danger. But after a few minutes "you can see that he is still gone," interprets an investigative source. The anchorage no longer holds, the boat is free but is not in a position to keep up with the wind that forces it to follow its path. At 3.59 a.m. an important turn, again dictated by the wind. 4 a.m., the blackout: the yacht is already taking on water​ It is probable that at this point the ship begins to take on so much water that it becomes unmanageable; it is now at the mercy of the storm and in blackout, a sign that the water has reached the generator area or the engine room. 4:05 a.m.: the Bayesian sinks​ From here to the end there are another 6 minutes. At 4.03 a.m. a new slight change to the course, at 4.05 a.m. the Bayesian disappears, after having "drifted" a total of 358 meters. A few moments later (and it is 4.06 am) his "EPIRB", a sort of GPS that acts as an emergency device, automatically raises the alarm for the sinking at the "Cospas Sarsat" satellite station in Bari, managed by the Coast Guard. The shipwreck: the sailboat sank vertically​ The superyacht — so say the 15 survivors — went down the bow, vertically, and then rested on the starboard seabed , that is, on the starboard side. The ship's cook died trying to get out and was found immediately; The other six guests, surprised by the water in their cabins as everything overturned, desperately tried to save themselves by looking for air. This is the hypothesis of those investigating that starts from the cabins in which they should have been, according to the accounts of surviving relatives. "We found them all on the highest side of the sailing ship lying on the seabed," reveals a qualified source who explains: "We had maps with the location of the cabins and the positions of the guests, and it is not where we then recovered them. Evidently as the water came in they tried to move in search of salvation ." READ ALSO Click to expand...

CalamityDave

• Today at 6:35 AM

bythelee said: (quite apart from using the wrong density for seawater). Click to expand...

bythelee said: Once actively flooding, it becomes a question of displacement mass versus residual bouyancy from spaces remaining watertight and structure, plant and contents of the flooded areas below a sequence of worsening waterlines, with trim & stability calcs at every stage to work out where those waterlines are. Click to expand...

bythelee said: Wouldn't it be good if there was a profession which did this stuff? Click to expand...

bythelee said: Maybe thanks to modern computer power they'd even be able to look at it from first princip le s (sp) to a higher resolution than ever before. Click to expand...

bythelee said: Perhaps engage in some more constructive play with your toy boats in the bath. Click to expand...

bythelee said: P.S. in a different thread, I might get into a debate about this, but engaging in a shit flinging match over a sideshow to a recent incident with 7 fatalities is just distasteful. I've said my piece, please stop posting misleading assertions as fact. Click to expand...

WaterThruSun

Skippered cnc39-virgin gorda.decades older now.

• Today at 6:47 AM

Matagi said: Boat is identified as Bayesian 15 people rescued, media says the ship was hit by a tornado, unconfirmed at this moment. Edit: length is said to be 56m , hence the edit Click to expand...

• Today at 6:48 AM

Matagi said: Here is more from the Daily Mail. Here is more from Express. Last known position is right off the harbour. View attachment 702904 CCTV seems to support that at least a very strong gust was coming through. There was a strong thunderstorm going through, this is lightning activity at 4:00 am local time, about the time the ship sank. View attachment 702907 Click to expand...

Methersgate

• Today at 6:52 AM

Blether said: It depends on the longitudinal centres of mass and buoyancy, but she's beamy in the quarters. Knocked down, she'd only have to float 1.5 degrees bow-down, as shown, and this low with the deckhouse door open for that elegant offset main staircase to do the kind of dirty work that - IIRC it was Zonker - suspected of it - and for the downflooding to run forward. Hard to see how the door'd stay open with that much inward flow tho' View attachment 704329 Click to expand...

Sailor Twift

• Today at 6:53 AM
• Thread starter

WaterThruSun said: HAARP , DEW's exist, are real, verified. my niece on Lahaina, 'weather' events :,Paradise. California. See "The Dimming" at geoengineeringwatch.com; what entities in the USA -trillionaire international bankster elite - do indeed affect many outcomes;, your news - [ 25 global families own 92% of all global corporate stock of BlackRock and Vanguard who own the MSMedia GLOBAL press - world leader dictators know to and how to control a narrative...JFK, fake pandemic gratis Fouci- USA DOD "virus" aka bio weapon that now has turbo cancers skyrocketing globally, 9/11, J6, false flags leading to 29th and 21st century news to name a smattering... watch on a site that doesnt censor as does Google (orignially funded by USA govt). Instead research on brighteon.com or rumble.com the documentary "Who Owns the World". Then after you get up to speed with reality beyond what you lap-up spoonfed from MSM, definitely see 'Follow the Money' to verify Your NYTIMES CNN maybe lies, and other circumstances as follows: The wealthy inventor patent holder of a prized-by-global-intelligence -agencies, not only died, body missing most recent report, not only this but consider his one partner in this prized billionaire potential product is dead too as of last month. Partner run over by a car while walking on side walk on a nonbusy street. Entertain motive!. how did some one, some interest terrify these two inventors initially...tying them up in court facing bankruptcy and long jail sentences. Shortly after narrowly escaping this attack on their prized Intel-gathering major creation, they are dead. Wouldnt be first time an entire planeload, craft taken out to kill just one by USA govt. For you who believe all the govt tells you, all the mainstreammedia reporting, im certain this presentation i give is too unsettling for you to accept; that would cause u to then wonder what else your media-govt has convinced you is reality, but are lies. Did you swallow the newsnpropaganda about biolab made Fouci-Wuhan virus and take them- let them inject you with the now verified clot-shot ,cancer-neuro disruptive- auto immune disease escalator deadly injection falsely named a vaccine. Awake? Take a look at stats of Amish kids' health records who are never given usa mandated childhood schedule: free of the plagues childhood chrooc disease unleashed after Reagan signed the 1986 baccine bill- up til then USA kids fot 3, not 78 forced. Research: on anove websites, not google! dr Tenpenny, McCullough, dr Lee Merritt, MD's who ade Naruropaths/Functional med doctors not the brainwashed coming out 1920's rockefeller curriculum medical schools of AMA producing brainwashed MD's. Western medicine treats symptoms not etiology, works hand in hand with Big Pharma to keep u sick on dozens of meds for side-effects of original. A highly trained Stanford U ugrad amd med school,surgeon specialiat and with her Harvard MBA DC lobbyiest have awakened to what ive known since 1980's ( me working at Stanford U Children's and UCSF Med Ctr as an RN ), Hear from is Dr Means and her brother- read their book and or get A synopsis by watching Tucker's interview of them at tuckercarlson.com (#1 podcast). You still clueless about Google - Alphabet? Sundar Pichai and Larry Paige??? Read first few pages of top Google engineer, whistleblower Zach Voohries' book on his website www. Googleleaksbook.com Book title is Google Leaks. If he Hadnt had a kill switch when book released with Project Veritas, his Noe Valley San Francisco home Sureounded by men in black without uniforms with their stooges SFPD...NSA, CIA, Homeland. Far-fetched for your fragile reality mind? are you too young to know the Edward Snowden NSA reveal, Obama chasing him down globally- where he has finally fled to to be safe from clutches of USA CIA. Sidebar: vekky ibteresting war monger Ibama next given Novel Peace Prize and after he had American citizen killed overseas with a drone. Another assignment for yoyr new reality: look who and why nobel prize created . ! dont use google or wikipedia OR stay in your bubble cocoon accepting we have a functional President, not a demented, dissappeared by his handlers, paedophile, treasonous (with Hinter sold usa secrets to china flying in USAF presidential ride, not to mention war mongering in Ukraine, Epstein accolyte)...see his decades old interviews by Dan Rather quoting, " i can be bought, bribed..snigger chuckle". Without due process his democrat machine has beem ordered to remove him, bypassimg the supposed masses who votes for him- NOT ! Rather Dominion and Canada's Smartmatic election software elected Alzheimers Biden which i could see in his primary debates! The same ones we use in third world countries to install our puppet leaders for our corporations to rape and pillage resources You believe Hollywood dribble-programming glorifying CIA??? READ! "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" Aloha Click to expand...

Overlord of Anarchy

• Today at 6:58 AM

It's some of the most entertaining drivel ever seen on these pages!  

Canal Bottom

• Today at 6:59 AM

Mark Morwood said: It seems that there are lots of unwarranted assumptions being made about what the situation might have been for the crew as the boat went down. It could easily have been that most of the crew were dumped into the water from where they were working on deck securing the boat for a squall before then picking passengers out of the water into a raft that had auto inflated. The one story I read about the mother and baby certainly sounded like she had very quickly ended up in the water and then been rescued from there. Or maybe they were all collected calmly on the stern deck counting passengers before the boat went down, but that sounds unlikely from the mixed reports so far. It appears to have happened very quickly on a very large boat. It's not like it was a J24 getting knocked down! Click to expand...

• Today at 7:02 AM

Zonker said: Me either. Once it goes past 73° IT KEEPS GOING. An anchor watch is SOP and probably required by most flag state regs, certainly on passenger ships. One of the deck department is usually up all night, often a junior. And if not required on a 12 passenger boat, if bad weather is expected, it would certainly be normal to have one. Note - SOLAS defines a passenger ship as anything carrying MORE than 12 passengers. That is why >99% of charter boats are max 12 passenger boats; to avoid much more stringent regulations required of true passenger ships. Once you're over 12 you might as well go for 20 or 100 and become a mini cruise ship. First off its not a centerboard in the sense of something with minimal ballast on smaller boats. It's really a very heavy swinging keel. Secondly at 5 am, when the sound of a freight train comes roaring, and the boat is knocked on her beam it's already too late. It would be a very cautious skipper who raises anchor on the possibility of a what might be a windy thunderstorm at anchor. Nobody expects a microburst/weather bomb/waterspout winds because they happen very quickly; faster than you can imagine. I've been in one with winds >85 knots and most of the monohulls were knocked down with spreaders in the water during the event. Wind went from flat calm to 85+ knots in less than one minute. Click to expand...

sail(plane)

• Today at 7:04 AM

WaterThruSun said: HAARP , DEW's exist, are real, verified. my niece on Lahaina, 'weather' events :,Paradise. California. See "The Dimming" at geoengineeringwatch.com; what entities in the USA -trillionaire international bankster elite - do indeed affect many outcomes;, your news - [ 25 global families own 92% of all global corporate stock of BlackRock and Vanguard who own the MSMedia GLOBAL press - world leader dictators know to and how to control a narrative...JFK, fake pandemic gratis Fouci- USA DOD "virus" aka bio weapon that now has turbo cancers skyrocketing globally, 9/11, J6, false flags leading to 29th and 21st century news to name a smattering... ..... bla bla bla You believe Hollywood dribble-programming glorifying CIA??? READ! "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" Aloha Click to expand...

• Today at 7:05 AM
• Today at 7:11 AM

minca3 said: good find nevertheless. but I think it uses the old mast. Click to expand...

• Today at 7:12 AM

terrafirma said: It didn't happen in 2mins - the builders claim 16 minutes.! Big difference https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/firm-that-built-superyacht-bayesian-say-human-error-is-to-blame/news-story/258dac1061b09930b65ef47f638fd4d1 Click to expand...

• Today at 7:13 AM

https://www.thelocal.it/20240823/divers-search-for-uk-tycoons-daughter-after-sicily-yacht-sinking  

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Five bodies found in sunken superyacht, officials say

Divers have found five bodies in the sunken wreckage of a superyacht that sank off Sicily this week, Italian officials told news agencies and local media Wednesday, leaving one person still missing.

Three bodies were brought ashore and two others were also found inside the shipwreck, Salvatore Cocina, head of the Sicily civil protection agency, told the Associated Press, after divers were photographed by the agency unloading body bags. Cocina did not identify the deceased.

The British-flagged, 183-foot-long Bayesian was carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew members roughly half a mile from the Sicilian fishing village of Porticello when it encountered what authorities called a “violent storm” about 4 a.m. Monday.

Of the 15 people rescued, eight – including a 1-year-old girl – were taken to hospitals in conditions that were not life-threatening. The body of the yacht’s chef, identified as Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian Antiguan, was found during initial recovery efforts.

Among the passengers was Mike Lynch, 59, the British founder of the tech venture capital firm Invoke Capital and co-founder of the tech firms Autonomy and Darktrace. This summer, he was acquitted of all charges after a decadelong U.S. fraud trial related to the 2011 sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard.

The voyage on the Bayesian, owned by a company controlled by Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was intended to be a celebration of his legal victory, Britain’s Telegraph reported.

Among those missing were Lynch; his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah; Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy; and attorney Chris Morvillo, a partner at Clifford Chance in New York who represented Lynch in the recently concluded legal battle, and his wife, Neda. Bacares, Lynch’s wife, was among the survivors.

It’s not clear exactly what type of storm struck the Bayesian, but weather data suggests it was probably a tornadic waterspout or severe thunderstorm.

Charlotte Golunski, a guest of Lynch who was rescued, described to Italian media holding onto her 1-year-old daughter, Sophie, amid the storm. “For two seconds I lost my baby in the sea,” she told Giornale di Sicilia. “Then I immediately hugged her again amid the fury of the waves.”

Lynch sold Autonomy, which was once England’s biggest software company, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 for more than $11 billion. He was subsequently accused of overvaluing the company and was charged in the United States with fraud. He was acquitted in June.

The Bayesian was built in 2008 by Italian shipmaker Perini Navi, according to the SuperYacht Times.

The Sir Robert, a Dutch-flagged sailing vessel anchored nearby, responded immediately to help survivors before the Italian coast guard arrived.

The yacht sank to a depth of more than 160 feet. The first attempt by fire-brigade cave divers to search inside the yacht was unsuccessful, rescue authorities said.

Bryan Pietsch contributed to this report.

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Lynch Yacht Sinking Off Sicily Proves as Baffling as It Is Tragic

As bodies were recovered, the authorities and experts wondered how a $40 million, stable and secure vessel could have sunk so quickly.

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By Emma Bubola and Michael J. de la Merced

Emma Bubola reported from Porticello, Italy, and Michael J. de la Merced from London.

Two months after being cleared in a bruising legal battle over fraud charges, the British tech mogul Mike Lynch celebrated his freedom with a cruise. He invited his family, friends and part of his legal team on board his luxury sailing yacht, a majestic 180-foot vessel named Bayesian after the mathematical theorem around which he had built his empire.

On Sunday night, after a tour of the Gulf of Naples, including Capri, and volcanic islands in the Eolian archipelago, the boat anchored half a mile off the Sicilian coast in Porticello, Italy. It chose a stretch of water favored by the Phoenicians thousands of years ago for its protection from the mistral wind and, in more recent times, by the yachts of tech billionaires. The boat was lit “like a Christmas tree,” local residents said, standing out against the full moon.

But about 4 a.m., calamity unfolded. A violent and fast storm hit the area with some of the strongest winds locals said they had ever felt. Fabio Cefalù, a fisherman, said he saw a flare pierce the darkness shortly after 4.

Minutes later, the yacht was underwater. Only dozens of cushions from the boat’s deck and a gigantic radar from its mast floated on the surface of the sea, fishermen said.

In all, 22 people were on board, 15 of whom were rescued. Six bodies — five passengers and the ship’s cook — had been recovered by Thursday afternoon, including that of Mr. Lynch, an Italian government official said, adding that the search was continuing for his daughter.

It was a tragic and mystifying turn of events for Mr. Lynch, 59, who had spent years seeking to clear his name and was finally inaugurating a new chapter in his life. Experts wondered how a $40 million yacht, so robust and stable could have been sunk by a storm near a port within minutes.

“It drives me insane,” said Giovanni Costantino, the chief executive of the Italian Sea Group, which in 2022 bought the company, Perini, that made the Bayesian. “Following all the proper procedures, that boat is unsinkable.”

The aura of misfortune only deepened when it emerged that Stephen Chamberlain, 52, a former vice president of finance for Mr. Lynch’s former company and a co-defendant in the fraud case, was killed two days earlier, when he was hit by a car while jogging near his house in England.

Since June, the two men had been in a jubilant mood. A jury in San Francisco had acquitted both on fraud charges that could have sent them to prison for two decades. There were hugs and tears, and they and their legal teams went for a celebratory dinner party at a restaurant in the city, said Gary S. Lincenberg, a lawyer for Mr. Chamberlain.

The sea excursion was meant as a thank-you by Mr. Lynch to those who had helped him in his legal travails. Among the guests was Christopher J. Morvillo, 59, a scion of a prominent New York family of lawyers who had represented Mr. Lynch for 12 years. He and his wife, Neda, 57, were among the missing.

So, too, was Jonathan Bloomer, 70, a veteran British insurance executive who chaired Morgan Stanley International and the insurer Hiscox.

The body of the ship’s cook, Recaldo Thomas, was recovered. All the other crew members survived. Among them was Leo Eppel, 19, of South Africa, who was on his first yacht voyage working as a deck steward, said a friend, who asked not to be identified.

Since the sinking, the recovery effort and investigation have turned the tiny port town of Porticello, a quiet enclave where older men sit bare-chested on balconies, into what feels like the set of a movie.

Helicopters have flown overhead. Ambulances have sped by with the sirens blaring. The Coast Guard has patrolled the waters off shore, within sight of a cordoned-off dock that had been turned into an emergency headquarters.

On Wednesday afternoon, a church bell tolled after the first body bag was loaded into an ambulance, a crowd watching in silence.

The survivors were sheltering in a sprawling resort near Porticello, with a view of the shipwreck spot, and had so far declined to comment.

Attilio Di Diodato, director of the Italian Air Force’s Center for Aerospace Meteorology and Climatology, said that the yacht had most likely been hit by a fierce “down burst” — when air generated within a thunderstorm descends rapidly — or by a waterspout , similar to a tornado over water.

He added that his agency had put out rough-sea warnings the previous evening, alerting sailors about storms and strong winds. Locals said the winds “felt like an earthquake.”

Mr. Costantino, the boat executive, said the yacht had been specifically designed for having a tall mast — the second-tallest aluminum mast in the world. He said the Bayesian was an extremely safe and secure boat that could list even to 75 degrees without capsizing.

But he said that if some of the hatches on the side and in the stern, or some of the deck doors, had been open, the boat could have taken on water and sunk. Standard procedure in such storms, he said, is to switch on the engine, lift the anchor and turn the boat into the wind, lowering the keel for extra stability, closing doors and gathering the guests in the main hall inside the deck.

12 guests occupied the yacht’s six cabins. There were also 10 crew members.

Open hatches, doors and cabin windows could have let in water during a storm, according to the manufacturer.

Open hatches, doors and

cabin windows could

have let in water

during a storm,

according to the

manufacturer.

Source: Superyacht Times, YachtCharterFleet, MarineTraffic

By Veronica Penney

The New York Times attempted to reach the captain, James Cutfield, who had survived, for comment through social media, his brother and the management company of the yacht (which did not hire the crew), but did not make contact.

So far none of the surviving crew members have made a public statement about what happened that night.

Fabio Genco, the director of Palermo’s emergency services, who treated some of the survivors, said that the victims had recounted feeling as if the boat was being lifted, then suddenly dropped, with objects from the cabins falling on them.

The Italian Coast Guard said it had deployed a remotely operated vehicle that can prowl underwater for up to seven hours at a depth of more than 980 feet and record videos and images that they hoped would help them reconstruct the dynamics of the sinking. Such devices were used during the search and rescue operations of the Titan vessel that is believed to have imploded last summer near the wreckage of the Titanic.

After rescuers broke inside the yacht, they struggled to navigate the ropes and many pieces of furniture cluttering the vessel, said Luca Cari, a spokesman for Italy’s national firefighter corps.

Finally, as of Thursday morning, they had managed to retrieve all but one of the missing bodies, and hopes of finding the missing person alive were thin. “Can a human being be underwater for two days?” Mr. Cari asked.

What was certain was that Mr. Lynch’s death was yet another cruel twist of fate for a man who had spent years seeking to clear his name.

He earned a fortune in technology and was nicknamed Britain’s Bill Gates. But for more than a decade, he had been treated as anything but a respected tech leader.

He was accused by Hewlett-Packard, the American technological pioneer that had bought his software company, Autonomy, for $11 billion, of misleading it about his company’s worth. (Hewlett-Packard wrote down the value of the transaction by about $8.8 billion, and critics called it one of the worst deals of all time .) He had been increasingly shunned by the British establishment that he sought to break into after growing up working-class outside London.

He was extradited to San Francisco to face criminal charges, and confined to house arrest and 24-hour surveillance on his dime. In a townhouse in the Pacific Heights neighborhood — with security people he jokingly told associates were his “roommates” — he spent his mornings talking with researchers whom he funded personally on new applications for artificial intelligence. Afterward, he devoted hours to discussing legal strategy with his team.

Despite his persistent claims of innocence, even those close to Mr. Lynch had believed his odds of victory were slim. Autonomy’s chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, was convicted in 2018 of similar fraud charges and spent five years in prison.

During Mr. Lynch’s house arrest, his brother and mother died. His wife, Angela Bacares, frequently flew over from England, and she became a constant presence in the San Francisco courtroom during the trial.

After he was finally acquitted, Mr. Lynch had his eye on the future. “I am looking forward to returning to the U.K. and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field,” he said.

Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting from Pallanza, Italy.

Emma Bubola is a Times reporter based in Rome. More about Emma Bubola

Michael J. de la Merced has covered global business and finance news for The Times since 2006. More about Michael J. de la Merced

14 Style Lessons I Learned From JFK

How to dress like the man who mastered relaxed confidence and laid-back sophistication.

1. Invest in a statement watch.

2. When in doubt, throw on a chunky crew-neck sweater.

A great crew-neck sweater, preferably in neutral tones like oatmeal or camel, is the epitome of casual chic.

3. Master the mismatched suit.

For less formal events and dinners, pair a darker wool or tweed jacket with a crisp pair of lighter slacks. It says, 'I know how to dress, but I don't take myself too seriously.'

4. The white oxford is beach uniform.

Whether on the Atlantic or Pacific, Mediterranean or Baltic, opt for a white oxford or linen button-down rather than a graphic tee or tank top.

5. It's okay to dress down an outfit with sneakers.

I love to dress down an everyday put-together look with a pair of simple sneakers, like these classic Vans from J. Crew .

6. Crease your pants.

Before any event, make sure your pants are creased and your shirts are ironed, preferably at a dry cleaner. People will notice.

7. Always have a wool sport coat on hand.

JFK mastered the Ivy League look. Elevate any outfit with a tailored wool sportcoat.

8. Wear a bow tie every chance you get.

Because every gentleman knows that black tie means black bow tie .

9. Know the right pair of sunglasses for your face.

Invest in the perfect pair of sunglasses, and wear them confidently.

10. A long overcoat is the best kind of overcoat.

It's time to say adieu to that cropped peacoat you've rocked since you were eight years old. A long wool or cashmere overcoat says, "I'm on my way to a very important meeting"—no matter where you're heading.

11. The oversized sweater is your friend.

Sunday morning? Oversized sweater. Long flight? Oversized sweater. Running late to work? Oversized sweater.

12. The right frames can change your face in a good way.

A friend of mine once told me I look better when I'm wearing my glasses. I didn't know if I should be offended or not; JFK was rarely seen in his round tortoiseshell frames. Either way, the right pair of glasses—for those of us who aren't 20/20 fortunate—can embellish an already-handsome visage.

13. A plain white t-shirt can look put together.

A well-cut tee, like this one from Incotex , coupled with a pair of black jeans or navy chinos, evokes an understated sophistication.

14. A skinny tie with a simple pattern never fails.

A simply patterned necktie adds a fun twist to any plain grey or navy suit.

@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-11dm4xz:before{margin:0.625rem 0.625rem 0;width:3.5rem;-webkit-filter:invert(17%) sepia(72%) saturate(710%) hue-rotate(181deg) brightness(97%) contrast(97%);filter:invert(17%) sepia(72%) saturate(710%) hue-rotate(181deg) brightness(97%) contrast(97%);height:1.5rem;content:'';display:inline-block;-webkit-transform:scale(-1, 1);-moz-transform:scale(-1, 1);-ms-transform:scale(-1, 1);transform:scale(-1, 1);background-repeat:no-repeat;}.loaded .css-11dm4xz:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/latest/townandcountrymag/static/images/diamond-header-design-element.80fb60e.svg);}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-11dm4xz:before{margin:0 0.625rem 0.25rem;}} Preppy Clothes @media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-pog6h6:before{margin:0.625rem 0.625rem 0;width:3.5rem;-webkit-filter:invert(17%) sepia(72%) saturate(710%) hue-rotate(181deg) brightness(97%) contrast(97%);filter:invert(17%) sepia(72%) saturate(710%) hue-rotate(181deg) brightness(97%) contrast(97%);height:1.5rem;content:'';display:inline-block;background-repeat:no-repeat;}.loaded .css-pog6h6:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/latest/townandcountrymag/static/images/diamond-header-design-element.80fb60e.svg);}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-pog6h6:before{margin:0 0.625rem 0.25rem;}}

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Home / School, courses also ONLINE / Russia

Sailing schools and courses (ISSA, RYA, IYT) in Russia

The possibilities for yachting in russia are unlimited, since this is a country with a long maritime history. you just need to choose where you want to sail. small and big lakes, full-flowing rivers, warm and cold seas — all this is available to those who want to try sailing in this country..

Practical yachting

You will be able to master the skills of sailing; learn to feel the boat, approach and leave the pier, learn about the safety measures on the water and much more.

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International Bareboat Skipper (IYT) Course

Having received the International Bareboat Skipper Certificate, you can independently charter a yacht on a charter and operate it in the waters of any country.

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ISSA Offshore Skipper course

The certificated confirms the skills sufficient to sail the yacht in light and dark hours at a distance from a sheltered port up to 100 sea miles.

IYT International Crew course

This is a certificate of excellence for those candidates who wish to train to become an active crew member on a power or sailing yacht. It includes Introduction to Boating for power and sail yachts.

IYT Introductory Sailing Skills course

This course is great for groups of friends or like-minded people to get together for a few days of fun sailing while learning skills to better help as crew onboard.

IYT Try Sailing Course

It’s a fun hands-on course to enjoy being on the water while learning basic sailing skills.

Yacht management training in the Moscow region

In three hours of training, you will learn the basic techniques of managing a yacht, learn some of the specifics of working with a yacht, a helm, sails.

RYA Coastal Skipper course

Advanced skippering techniques for yachtsmen with considerable knowledge of sailing and navigation, wanting to undertake coastal passages by day and night.

RYA Competent Crew course

This course is for beginners and those who would like to become active crew members rather than just passengers.

RYA Day Skipper course

A course for aspiring skippers with some yachting experience and basic navigation and sailing skills.

RYA Start Yachting course

A short introduction to sailing for complete beginners.