designed one of the most popular one-design racing classes in American 

 yachting history. 



When in 1932 he was asked to design a small centerboard boat for Mrs. 

 Elhott Wheeler of Easton, Maryland, his own home town, he had no idea 

 that he was about to start something important. Mrs. Wheeler wanted a 

 boat for her sons which would be inexpensive to build, easy to handle, and 

 a good enough sailer to compete in the handicap races then being held at 

 Oxford, Maryland. Having crewed for his brother in winning the World's 

 Championship of the Star Class at New Orleans in 1929, and admiring the 

 Star lines, Johnson designed a boat somewhat similar to a Star, but smaller 

 and with a centerboard instead of a keel. * 



Ralph Wiley built the first Comet and, as I remember it, told me that it 

 cost him about $120 and he made $10 on the deal. Later he built another 

 for Jonathan S. Wilford of Oxford. The boats were first known as Crabs. 

 When Yachting pubfished the plans in its design section in March 1932, 

 requests for copies of the plans began coming in from various parts of the 

 country. The first real breakthrough came when Dr. John Eiman of Phila- 

 delphia, Pennsylvania, and Stone Harbor, New Jersey, saw the boats sailing 

 at Oxford while he was on a cruise. He liked what he saw. At Stone Harbor 

 they had a variety of small-sailboat racing on a handicap basis to the 

 satisfaction of nobody. Deciding to get an inexpensive one-design class in 

 those depression days of 1933, Dr. Eiman and Dr. Wilbur H. Haines went 

 to the New York Motor Boat Show and began looking around. There, in the 

 Yachting booth they saw a model of the "Star Junior," as it had come to be 

 called. Eiman remembered having seen the boats sailing at Oxford and he 

 and Dr. Haines decided that this was it, so far as Stone Harbor was con- 

 cerned. 



Things began to move fast. Realizing from the experience of the Star class 

 the desirability of having a strong class organization, the growing group of 

 owners held a meeting in February 1933 at the Yachting office, adopted 

 prefiminary rules, changed the name again— this time from Star Junior to 

 Comet— elected Dr. Eiman President, and the Comets were on their way. 

 By 1935 there were twenty-one at Stone Harbor. Since then the Comet 

 growth has been steady and widespread. There are now over thirty-six 

 hundred registered owners in the eastern United States and as far west as 

 Michigan, Colorado, and the Pacific Coast; also in Canada. The first national 

 championships were held at the Raritan Yacht Club, Perth Amboy, New 

 Jersey. 



* Historical material from "A 20th Birthday" by Charles E. Lueke, Jr., Yachting, February 1952. 

 50 THE SAILBOAT CLASSES OF NORTH AMERICA 



