In a Class by Herself

摘要

The time: August 8, 1949. The harbor: Edgartown, on Martha's Vineyard. The occasion: the annual cruise of the New York Yacht Club just before the start of the Astor Cup race. There she lay at anchor, her black hull and gilt covestripe agleam, her yawl rig tall, her presence unforgettable. To the kid of 11 rowing around and around her, she was the epitome of beauty. Fifty-odd (sometimes very odd) years later, she haunts me still. Her name? Her name then (she'd had others earlier) was MANXMAN. At 117′ LOA and built of steel by Herreshoff in 1927, she was among the grandest creations of the great yacht designer W. Starling Burgess. I will forever mourn her untimely passing.