[L16-usa] Bar Harbor Luders Results

[Sturgis]

ANCIENT HISTORY - Adding to the  Luders Patina

The decades old results of former races may not be  seem relavant or of immediate interest to many Luders sailors. Still, a knowledge of the  interesting history of the class does - in its way - add to the richness of the larger Luders 'package.'  The Bar Harbor fleet disbanded many years ago. It was always a small one and paled, considerably, by the more glitterly one elsewhere on Mount Desert Island. 

Over the decades - since the founding of the  short-lived Mount Desert Island Racing Association, at Bar Harbor, in 1900 -  that resort has endured a number of  conspicuous up and downs. Nothing reflected this more than that resort's succesive yacht clubs and racing fleets.  In 1903 the Association raced a dozen 50-foot long Herreshoff Bar Harbor 31-footers (lwl). Today, there is no one-design racing there. 

The relatively brief interlude of Luders racing exampled, too, perhaps the last fling of Bar Harbor's old guard. Milliken, Strawbridge, Eno and Colket represented the remaining aristrocracy  Shortly, the gates were opened and the BH YC faced a new epoch as motels replaced mansions.  Even a few Luders could not be sustained.  

Yesterday this writer copied the following from a vintage Bar Harbor Yacht Club trophy.  It is no longer in competition. This is conjecture, but the cup was likely used as a July or August series cup.


EDWARD BROWNING MEMORIAL CUP

Inscriptions begin in 1925. It appears that winners up until 1939 raced in the 27-foot  Herreshoff S-class.  At least three of these early winners were members of prominent Chicago families; Miss Mildred McCormick (who won in Periwinkle) in 1931, Edward McC. Blair, who skippered Three Brothers to victory in 1931, 1933 and 1936 and his brother, Bowen Blair, who  also won in 1937 in his Flying Cloud.  The two Blair brothers, now in their 90s, are both alive. The former still summers on Mount Desert Island.
Periwrinkle, long Jacataqua, has been owned by the Gamble family, of Sorrento, since about 1935.  In 1926 the Club presented a Captain's Cup  for the S-class.- to be raced  annually  by the profession captains (who sat aft in the cockpit and usually tended mainsheet.) . The names of 14 different men are inscribled on the cup.  Curiously, no winner's are listed.

On the Browning Cup there are no inscriptions from 1938 until 1947. WW II saw the demise of the S-class and the arrival of Luders 16s. 

The Luders inscriptions are as follows: (I have added sail numbers.)

1947 Northwind, Minot K. Milliken (BH #51)
1948 Anemone, Charles C.G. Chaplin (BH #54)
1949 ditto
1950 ditto
1951 Salty, Amos Eno (BH #56)
1952 The P.S., William J. Strawbridge, Jr.(BH #52)
1953 ditto
1954 Northwind, Minot K. Milliken
1955 ditto
1956 ditto
1957 Tries, Tristram C. Colket, Jr.(NEH #22)

In 1958 the cup began to bear other names indicating that it might have been recycled into a handicap class. The last winner, in 1972, was Colket in Tries. This was the single Luders  winner in the 3rd phase of the cup.

Northeast Harbor  Luders nos. ran from 1 up to 28. Bar Harbor (wishing to avoid confusion with NEH, assigned club numbers 51 thru 56). One Bar Harbor Luders  (Anemone) was later sold to NEH and assumed #28 there. It was been in distant waters for many years and is expected to return to MDI this summer and compete with the Southwest Harbor Fleet Luders.

Two of these Luders remain in Bar Harbor. Tries, was been owned by Colket since before 1954 and is still kept off his estate on Cromwell Cove. 
By curious happenstance, - not without irony perhaps - Bar Harbor  is known less  today for its Luders racing than the fine restoration work by the Elks Yard  there on aging Luders.

A tiny bit of Luders history to mull.

Thanks.



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