Save famous boat from breaker’s yard

The very esteemed Warwick ‘Commodore’ Tompkins is now 92 years young, and has spent his life racing, delivering, designing, rigging, and cruising boats of all kinds. He checks in here with a cry for help:

When it comes to the early-day outstanding IOR yachts, I draw your attention to a 31-footer by Tom Wylie, which was campaigned with spectacular success for one season, fifty years ago in 1974. Thereafter she was sold, and has enjoyed a number of other owners.

Wylie drew this masthead sloop which was constructed in Alameda, CA. However, the owner got cold feet and withdrew from the project while the boat was still incomplete, prompting Wylie to arrange a loan and buy the boat.

He, his associate/partner Dave Wahle, and friends finished the yacht in time to enter the Danforth series in Northern California, and the Whitney Series in Southern California. It seemed that, with one exception toward the end of each series, both race schedules could be met, “only” requiring that the boat be sailed between venues during the intervening week-days.

Thus, the boat, named Moonshadow, would race offshore in the Gulf of the Farallones, then sail from San Francisco to Los Angeles, arriving in time to provision and shift to racing sails. After each Whitney Series event, the process was reversed.

I believe there were seven, (7) events in the Whitney series, and a similar number in the Danforth Series, all in the ocean.

At the end of the season, a decision had to be made, as to which series the boat would contest: Moonshadow was winning both series. They elected to race up north, in the “Home-Series”. The result was that Moonshadow won the Danforth Series and placed a mere second in the Whitney, having to count a Did Not Start in the latter.

I have not retained scoresheets of those series, but Moonshadow and crew dominated each one.

Sadly, these exploits and their implications have not been recognized or noted except by a very few individuals. Wylie Design Group has not capitalized on these accomplishments as they might have done: No advertising budget, but also a desire to move on and ahead, having made a point.

I think it is worth noting that the Moonshadow design was early in Wylie’s career, and that it equals accomplishments such as Olin Stephens and Dick Carter with their very splashy exploits.

Recently, I asked Tom to what he attributed such success. He answered that he had succeeded in fitting the boat to the rule, and that the boat had excellent steering qualities, upwind and down; (meaning that the boat when steered well and skillfully would respond to every wind and wave-shift, and carry sail when some were losing control.) Clearly the boat was campaigned by really good personnel.

But presently, Moonshadow is lying in a Village Marina berth in Alameda, CA. She is in near derelict condition. Her current owner says he has paid his last month’s rent, and if he cannot find a “taker”, (that would be someone with energy and resources to restore the boat!), the boat will go to the breaker’s yard.

What this is, is a small boat with a dazzling record of which almost no-one is aware. In order to restore the boat a relative pittance (compared to many other restorations, say for instance: Santana, or Bolero), history might be preserved, and someone would have at their disposal a very good and well-behaved daysailer.

I think it all begins with a survey… call Moonshadow owner Brian Field: (650) 218 8426.