ISBN:0-9702569-5-7
Item Name: Messing About with Boats for 80 years, with Jack SutphenItem Number: 1001
Price: $28.00
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Jack Sutphen has been messing about in boats for 80 years. At age nine he learned to sail at the Larchmont Yacht Club (LYC), and at age 15 he was racing small one-designs and crewing for some of Larchmont’s top skippers.
He married Jean, his high school sweetheart, in 1939, and the next year they started 35 winters of Frostbite racing at Larchmont. Their marriage spanned 61 years. He also began doing some offshore racing and did five Newport to Bermuda races, and many St. Pete to Lauderdale and Miami to Nassau races in the SORC.
In 1958 while with Ratsey & Lapthorn Sailmakers, he worked on the 12-meter
Weatherly’s sail inventory for the 1958 America’s Cup. His connection with the Cup lasted for nine campaigns — seven with Dennis Conner — which led to his induction into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame.He still races a thirty-one foot Pacific Class sloop in the San Diego fleet, and messes about in a Herreshoff twelve-and-a-half named
Loafer, and a Nelson Zimmer classic one cylinder launch named Aloha Jean.Jack tells about these 80 years in an easy-going story-telling manner. It is not just about Jack Sutphen, but tales about lots of people and many boats. There are 33 stories and over 100 pictures.
by Dennis Conner
Perhaps no one is a better example of the skill and dedication it takes to earn a spot with us than Jack Sutphen. He is a great natural sailor who has gotten the most out of Long Island Sound sailing country, and he used to win almost everything there was to win at the Larchmont Yacht Club.
Involved in every America’s Cup defense of the modern era (there were no races between 1937, when the last gigantic J-boat competed, and 1958, the first year 12-meters were used), Sutphen’s path crossed mine in 1974. He is the perfect example of "What goes around, comes around." In 1974 I was asked to join
Courageous as the starting helmsman after the crew had pretty much been selected. My coming aboard meant someone had to go, and that someone who got the knife in the back was Jack Sutphen, the tactician. Jack never held a grudge against anyone and his reputation as one of the finer gentlemen in the sport continued to grow.Jack is someone to whom I owe an awful lot. When, for the 1980 campaign, I needed someone completely trustworthy, mature, and steady to help me with
Freedom, I asked Jack. He started out by coming up to Newport on weekends and eventually he was there all the time. He’s been with us ever since. Jack loves to sail and he’s very good at it. He’s been my sparring partner, the helmsman of our trial horse, for many years now and he’s always been perfectly steady and indefatigable. For hour after hour during our sail-testing drills, Jack never wavers. Although he was a confirmed East Coaster for so many years, when we got Stars & Stripes rolling, he and his wife, Jean, moved to California.