the 12 Metres. And onboard Harold Van- derbilt’s Vim he absorbed lessons from a meticulous deck boss named Rod Stephens. Back at Yale, Anderson served as rear-
commodore of YCYC in his junior and senior years. Along with a stimulating bal- ance of academics, sailing and adult bever- ages, he also joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). He learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor directly from Eleanor Roosevelt, who mentioned it to her Yale audience after giving a speech there on 7 December 1941.
Bazookas, law school and fibreglass One year later, thanks to a compressed academic schedule that replaced summer vacation with schooling, Anderson gradu- ated and headed out to Oklahoma for artillery training. He helped train Army recruits to use a new handheld rocket launcher, the bazooka, before heading to France to fight under General Patton. Discharged intact in 1946, he was com-
mended for bravery under enemy fire. In The Strenuous Life he advocates a manda- tory national service for all American 18-year-olds, because today’s ‘youngsters aren’t tough enough’. The war was followed by a few years at
Columbia Law School, alma mater of his father and grandfather before him. He also joined the Adirondack-Florida School board and helped them to reopen in 1947. In his spare time he built a Thistle from
a class kit. And he became friends with Eric Olsen; a few years later the two men would start Gull Reinforced Plastics, to manufacture industrial parts using a revo- lutionary new material: fibreglass.
Rules broken and made In 1949 Harry went to Cowes for the British-American Cup, a team racing event that started at Seawanhaka Corinthian a year before he was born (and still runs today). Racing 6 Metres down the last two legs of that year’s final race kicked off decades of work developing the racing rules. ‘We had a four-crew team against four
British boats,’ Harry explains, ‘and here we are, tied, going into the last race. ‘It’s a broad reach down the Solent;
then around a buoy, and a dead run to the finish at the Royal Yacht Squadron. We had a winning combination, but one of the British boats luffed up two American boats to let another British boat through. ‘Bus Mosbacher had already gone around
the mark and he saw this; he comes back on the previous course, luffs the British boats up, lets the Americans through, and then goes straight to the finish!’ His twinkling eyes widen at the memory. ‘Over cocktails there was a great discus-
sion on how the rules applied. If you go back to a previous course and you lose your luffing rights, what is your proper course, to the buoy or the finish? It went on and on. So we came back and formed a committee here in this country and drafted
54 SEAHORSE
Well into his tenth decade Harry Anderson holds court at the Newport Reading Room – one of the young (1854) upstarts that keep an old club like the NYYC (1844) on its toes
the match racing-team racing rules, to cover situations that don’t come up in fleet racing.’ Now we all take those appendices (and their call books) for granted. This leads to another British-American
Cup story. ‘One year, very hot summer at Cowes, we were neck and neck with a boat coming to the finish under spinnaker. We’d stripped to the waist, but the British won’t finish a boat if you don’t have a shirt on. And everyone was putting on their T- shirts.’ He pauses to chuckle. ‘Just before the finish I said, ‘Let go of the spinnaker sheet!’ And of course the sail went flying out ahead of the boat and we finished first. That introduced the phrase “finish with your equipment in its normal position”.’ ‘So first you broke all the rules and then
you wrote them,’ I tease. ‘Well, there weren’t that many rules back then!’
Back to college Harry never married but he’s got several adopted sons. When I ask what he is most proud of, he doesn’t hesitate: ‘All the work in the collegiate setting. Bringing thou- sands of young people into competitive sailing.’ In the 1960s he helped YCYC establish a permanent home by persuading an old friend to donate a small but pricey piece of Long Island Sound shoreline.
A complete list of Anderson’s official roles would take up space better used by other witty replies to my bumbling questions, but here are a few key highlights: IYRU (now ISAF) President; NYYC Commodore, and longtime member of the America’s Cup Selection Committee; US Sailing Executive Director and Chair of the Appeals Committee (for 25 years); Seawanhaka Commodore; American Sail Training Association (now Tall Ships America) Chair. In 1979 US Sailing awarded him their highest honour: the Nathanael G Herreshoff Trophy. He was also a judge and Chairman of the Intercollegiate Yacht Racing Association (now ICSA).
Thirty years later he helped guide the transition from club to varsity sport; a decade after that he was involved in the replacement of the ageing boathouse. And it’s not just his own alma mater
that’s benefited from Harry’s support and wisdom. In the 1950s he was instrumental in bringing the Intercollegiate Yacht Rac- ing Union (now ICSA) into compliance with NAYRU (now US Sailing). In the 1960s he helped found a civilian advisory committee at the US Naval Academy and also came up with the idea (over cocktails, of course) for a foundation that would enable boat donations – now an important revenue source for Navy Sailing. Then there’s the University of Rhode
Island… where the sailing team’s national ranking is consistently higher than the school’s academic one! Harry’s interest in that programme was originally sparked by one of those adopted ‘sons’, Jamie Hilton ’83. Around that same time Harry man- aged what in The Strenuous Life he calls a ‘double whammy’: he purchased Yale a new fleet of 420s and then bought their old fleet for URI, putting his dollars to work for both groups. Even now Harry’s influence extends well
beyond writing cheques; he’s the ultimate facilitator. When I mention a friend who’d graduated from URI in 2018 Harry nods at the name. ‘Well if you’re talking to her we’re about to make a major move. I’ve just been on the phone today…’ and he dives into a detailed description of the current URI sailing facility’s limitations (too pro- tected, and shoaling up more every year) before listing both the advantages and challenges of a promising new location. ‘I think it would be a good move,’ he
declares. ‘Right now we’re at a disadvan- tage if we send a team to a regatta in open water.’ Though this plan is not yet definite, Harry says that ‘we are in a good position. I’m in touch with the president of URI, and we keep him posted. He’s very high on sailing, so that’s a big advantage. Half of this stuff is politics, you know!’ (It was only later that I realised he’d also been
DAN NERNEY
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