THIRTIES-The New York Yacht Club "Thirties" 



One o£ the most famous one-design racing classes ever to round a mark, 

 the "New York Thirties" race no more as a class. But for many years during 

 the early part of this century the interest they created and the caliber of 

 men who raced them placed these handsome sloops in a class by themselves. 

 Large boats by present standards, they were once considered the smallest 

 boats which would qualify an owner to join a New York Yacht Club cruise. 

 Though only a few are still sailing, the story of the Thirties belongs in any 

 account of the sailboat classes of North America. 



On November 16, 1904, three members of the New York Yacht Club- 

 William Butler Duncan, Jr., Addison G. Hanan, and Newbury D. Lawton— 

 acting on behalf of a group of Club members, signed a contract with the 

 Herreshoff Manufacturing Company for the construction of a new one- 

 design racing class to be known as the New York Yacht Club Thirty-Foot 

 Class. For some years racing men in the Club had been considering the 

 idea of a "small" class which would not be restricted to the few who could 

 afford to build and maintain the large boats— some over 100 feet long— which 

 had dominated Club racing. The new class was to be 43^/2 feet in over-all 

 length and 30 feet on the waterline. 



Enthusiasm grew and by February 1905 eighteen boats had been ordered, 

 with a list of owners well known in the yachting, social, and financial worlds. 

 By the end of that year fifty-one races had been sailed by the Thirties, be- 

 ginning the active and hard-driving competition that was to last for about 

 thirty years. Efforts to develop wide interest in a class of New York Fifties, 

 and later Forties, met with limited success, but the Thirties continued to 

 maintain their popularity. It was not until 1935 that a new class of New 

 York Yacht Club "Thirty-Twos," designed by Sparkman and Stephens with 

 a modern rig, began to replace the gaff-rigged Thirties, which by that time 

 had become scattered. 



Why were the Thirties so successful? They were very narrow and un- 

 comfortable by modern standards for boats of that size. Their cockpits were 

 so small and their tillers so long that room was at a minimum. Their cabins 

 were small, lacking suitable accommodations and headroom. The answers, 

 as in many similar cases, lay in the class of men who sailed the Thirties and 

 because the time was ripe for such a boat.* 



At the time the Thirties were built a minimum 30-foot waterline length 

 was required for voting by the New York Yacht Club. The Thirties were 



* Facts for this section were obtained largely from "Class Will Tell," by Sam C. Slaughter, 

 Yachting, November 1939, and Sailing Craft, edited by Edwin J. Schoettle, The Macmillan 

 Company. 



RACING CLASSES I95 



