Wianno senior
Encyclopedia
The Wianno Senior is a 25 feet (7.6 m) gaff rig
ged sloop
. The boat is raced on Nantucket Sound
by four Cape Cod yacht clubs: Bass River Yacht Club, Hyannis Yacht Club, Hyannis Port Yacht Club, and Wianno Yacht Club.
The boat was designed in 1913-14 in the village of Osterville, Cape Cod
, Massachusetts
, for a group of sailors from the Wianno Yacht Club. They requested Horace Manley Crosby to design a sailboat for racing on Nantucket Sound. Manley Crosby was a member of the Crosby family, noted for building the famous Crosby catboat
s. Fourteen boats were delivered and raced that summer. Those fourteen boats were #1 "Fiddler", #2 "Wendy", #3 "Telemark", #4 "A.P.H.", #5 "Commy", #6 "Snookums", #7 "Patsy", #8 "Sea Dog", #9 "Marie", #10 "Qui Vive", #11 "Fantasy", #12 "Whistle Wing", #13 "Maxixe", and #14 "Ethyl". All but three of these original boats have been lost. #7 now known as "Tirza" is in the collections of the Museum of yachting in Newport, RI, #10 now known as "Shangri-La" is currently being restored in Dalton, MA, and #11 "Fantasy" is in the collections of Mystic Seaport Museum in Mysitc, CT. All the other original boats have been lost due to deterioration, fires, or hurricanes. See the book, The Senior, privately published in 1989 for the boat's 75th anniversary, for more information of the history of the class. That history was adapted from the article "Warriors of Wianno". The book also contains several articles and photos by Wianno Senior owners and sailors.
At about the same time, Wooden Boat magazine published two articles on the Wianno Senior as part of the boat's 75th anniversary. The first, "The Wianno Senior", describes the boat's history and construction and includes several photos. Page 66 shows a photo of, perhaps, the most famous Wianno Senior sailor, President Jack Kennedy. His boat, Victura, hull no. 94, is now on display at the Kennedy Presidential Library in Dorchester, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston.
The second article in that issue of Wooden Boat is by Jack Fallon. That article provides a short tutorial, Tuning Up with Jack Fallon, on how to sail a Wianno Senior. Jack won the Scudder Cup, the annual class championship, a record nine times between 1949, when the Cup was established, and 1976.
More recently, Pearl River Productions has published a DVD providing a video history of the Wianno Senior class. That DVD provides updates to the class history beyond the 75th anniversary and discusses the recovery of the class from the devastating boat yard fire on December 10, 2003, in which 21 Seniors were destroyed, 18 of them the classic wooden Seniors.
Two boat yards are still building Wianno Seniors. Crosby Yacht Yard, Inc. in Osterville, Massachusetts, and Shaw Yacht, Inc, in Thomaston, Maine
.
About two hundred 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.
Gaff rig
Gaff rig is a sailing rig in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar called the gaff...
ged sloop
Sloop
A sloop is a sail boat with a fore-and-aft rig and a single mast farther forward than the mast of a cutter....
. The boat is raced on Nantucket Sound
Nantucket Sound
Nantucket Sound is a roughly triangular area of the Atlantic Ocean offshore from the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is long and wide, and is enclosed by Cape Cod on the north, Nantucket on the south, and Martha's Vineyard on the west. Between Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard it is connected to the...
by four Cape Cod yacht clubs: Bass River Yacht Club, Hyannis Yacht Club, Hyannis Port Yacht Club, and Wianno Yacht Club.
The boat was designed in 1913-14 in the village of Osterville, Cape Cod
Cape Cod
Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, for a group of sailors from the Wianno Yacht Club. They requested Horace Manley Crosby to design a sailboat for racing on Nantucket Sound. Manley Crosby was a member of the Crosby family, noted for building the famous Crosby catboat
Catboat
A catboat , or a cat-rigged sailboat, is a sailing vessel characterized by a single mast carried well forward ....
s. Fourteen boats were delivered and raced that summer. Those fourteen boats were #1 "Fiddler", #2 "Wendy", #3 "Telemark", #4 "A.P.H.", #5 "Commy", #6 "Snookums", #7 "Patsy", #8 "Sea Dog", #9 "Marie", #10 "Qui Vive", #11 "Fantasy", #12 "Whistle Wing", #13 "Maxixe", and #14 "Ethyl". All but three of these original boats have been lost. #7 now known as "Tirza" is in the collections of the Museum of yachting in Newport, RI, #10 now known as "Shangri-La" is currently being restored in Dalton, MA, and #11 "Fantasy" is in the collections of Mystic Seaport Museum in Mysitc, CT. All the other original boats have been lost due to deterioration, fires, or hurricanes. See the book, The Senior, privately published in 1989 for the boat's 75th anniversary, for more information of the history of the class. That history was adapted from the article "Warriors of Wianno". The book also contains several articles and photos by Wianno Senior owners and sailors.
At about the same time, Wooden Boat magazine published two articles on the Wianno Senior as part of the boat's 75th anniversary. The first, "The Wianno Senior", describes the boat's history and construction and includes several photos. Page 66 shows a photo of, perhaps, the most famous Wianno Senior sailor, President Jack Kennedy. His boat, Victura, hull no. 94, is now on display at the Kennedy Presidential Library in Dorchester, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston.
The second article in that issue of Wooden Boat is by Jack Fallon. That article provides a short tutorial, Tuning Up with Jack Fallon, on how to sail a Wianno Senior. Jack won the Scudder Cup, the annual class championship, a record nine times between 1949, when the Cup was established, and 1976.
More recently, Pearl River Productions has published a DVD providing a video history of the Wianno Senior class. That DVD provides updates to the class history beyond the 75th anniversary and discusses the recovery of the class from the devastating boat yard fire on December 10, 2003, in which 21 Seniors were destroyed, 18 of them the classic wooden Seniors.
Two boat yards are still building Wianno Seniors. Crosby Yacht Yard, Inc. in Osterville, Massachusetts, and Shaw Yacht, Inc, in Thomaston, Maine
Thomaston, Maine
Thomaston, Maine is a town on the coast of Maine the United States. The name may also refer to:*Thomaston , Maine, a census-designated place comprising the center of the town*South Thomaston, Maine, an adjacent town...
.
About two hundred 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.