Evening star., 1939-09-03
Design Was Old Line
Man, S Gift 10 Sport
Seven Years Ago
William White, Potomac
Leader, Rated Strong
Chance for Title
By MALCOLM LAMBORNE, Jr.

By MALCOLM LAMBORNE, Jr.
1t will be homecoming next week
end for the Comet Glass Yacht
Racing Association, which stages its
Fifth Annual National Champion
ship Regatta at Oxford, Md.
At this picturesque shipbuilding
and grabbing village on Maryland's S
Eastern Shore next Friday, Satur-
day and Sunday an estimated so
boats, representing fleet champions
from many sections of the United
States, including Washington and
Puerto Rico, will compete in three
race series. To the winner will 20
the Presidents Perpetual Trophy
and the title of No. l skipper in
Americas fastest growing small-boat
class.
William White, 54-year-old Poto-
mas River comet leader, will repre-
sent the Capital and, according to
dopesters who have followed the
racing agriculturist rise in the class
In the last two summers, he rates
an excellent chance to bring the title
here.
Daniels Sail New Boat.
Clarke and Cushing Daniel of
Washington will represent the new
ly formed West River comet fleet
in their new streamlined boat
Robert E. Lee, which fast is gaining
reputation for lively going in light
air. Clarke is the skipper and Cush-
ing the sheet tender.
Seven summers ago little sloop,
then variously known as the crab
class and Junior star boat, made
its appearance on the Tired Avon
River off Oxford. Its designer, C..
Lowndes johnson of Easton. Md.
had been asked by Mrs. Maria
Wheeler of Canterbury Manor, near
Oxford, to fashion a 16-footer for
her son. Drawing on his experience
in the star class and his familiarity
with the chine-bottomed skipjacks
of Chesapeake Bay, johnson pro-
duced the comet.
The rest is we'll known. How plans
published in Yachting Magazine
brought deluge of responses for
blueprints. How group of Phila-
delphia and Washington small boat
enthusiasts organized the first fleets
and set up a sound class organi-
zation with strict rules making the
boat a one-design. How fleets have
spread in the last five years as far
West as Vancouver, British Colum-
bia, and South to Puerto Rico, which
this week will be represented by an
entry.
Back to Birthplace.
So, with the staging of the fifth
national title series, it's only right
that the comet returns to it's birth
place.
White and his Frolic will be pitted
against op-flighters in a class that
has gained the reputation of having
some of the best sailing talent in
America, including the 1888 cham
pion. white-haired Edward K. Mer-
rill of Riverton, N. j. Rumors are
that Merrill plans to retire at the
end Of this regatta from the class in
which he has won innumerable
events in the last three years.
Far from being a class for adults,
the boat has attracted an increasing
number of youngsters, many of
whom will be out next week. For
instance. there are Barclay Trippe.
representing the Talbot County
fleet on the Shore; young Sally Will
cox of Richmond County Yacht
Club, Staten Island, NY: Doug
McNitt of Raritan Yacht Club,
Raritan, N. j.; all of them under 18.
The first boat to arrive at Oxford
last week was the comet Puerto Rico
II, entry of young Luis Antonio
Santaella. Fleet champion of San
Juan, Santaella. will represent Club
Nautico de San Juan. His crew,
Ralph christensen, is scheduled to
arrive in Washington tomorrow by
plane from the West Indian island
After competing at Oxford, the duet,
with group of prominent island
yachtsmen, will come here for the
sailing races of the Presidents Cup
Regatta.
Speer Heads Committee.
Flfldl pans LOT Ine ndtlOndl races
were nearing completion this week.
The local Regatta Committee is
headed by youthful Jim Speer, who,
when the preliminaries are over, will
go aboard his comet for a try at the
title, which he came within two
boats of coping last year.
Herbert l.. Stone, editor of Yacht
Ing and chairman of the Race Com
mittee, will be assisted by Washing
tonians Paul Tomalin, commodore
of the Potomac River Sailing Asso-
citation, and L. Corrin Strong. pres
ident of the Chesapeake Bay Yacht
Racing Association, and other we'll
known figures in yachting Tired
Avon Yacht Club, regatta headquar-
ters, and Chesapeake Bay Yacht
Club are co-sponsors of the event.
Racing, heat day, begins at
pm. out in the broad Choptank
River, the first one-design racing
feet to compete in bay waters since
the star class held its internationals
off Gibson Island in 1890