Eight Bells: Roger Vaughan

Roger Vaughan, a prolific author of books and articles covering a wide range of topics and personalities, passed away August 25,2025 at his home in Easton, Maryland. The cause of death was complications following surgery and kidney failure. He was 88 years old.

Vaughan was a gifted writer who excelled at capturing the inner drive successful people have in business, the arts, and sports. He had a disarming ability to connect with his subjects and was honest about their lives, both positive and negative.

Vaughan was the co-writer with Kimball Livingston of the motion picture, “Wind” that debuted in 1992. The film, based around the America’s Cup, featured actors, Matthew Modine, Jennifer Grey, Cliff Robertson,and Jack Thompson.

Over his extensive career, Vaughan published 22 books starting with Ted Turner’s failed America’s Cup effort in 1974, “The Grand Gesture.” Turner came back and won the next America’s Cup in 1977, and Vaughan wrote a sequel detailing Turner’s victory.

Two years later, Vaughan was a member of the crew of a maxi yacht, “Kialoa,” in the infamous Fastnet Race that claimed fifteen lives and is considered “the roughest ocean race on record.” He wrote about the harrowing account of the vicious race in “Fastnet: One Man’s Voyage.”

Following an article he wrote for Life Magazine on concert conductor Seiji Ozawa, he wrote a biography of another famous conductor, Herbert von Karajan.

Over the next 40 years, Vaughan wrote about baseball technique with baseball hall of fame player Tony Gwynn, NASCAR racing, women’s golf, an Olympic sailing coach, professional hockey with Barry Melrose, the technology behind Larry Ellison’s America’s Cup victory in 2010, medical pioneer Hilary Koprowski, and several personalities including yachtsman Harry Anderson, yachtswoman Patsy Kennedy Bolling, and James Gordon Bennet, Jr., publisher of the New York Herald, who became the youngest commodore of the New York Yacht Club at the age of 29.

The list of personalities that Vaughan wrote about for magazines included Walter Cronkite, Roy Disney, Malcom Forbes, HRH Princess Margaret, Lee Marvin, Mstislav Rostropovich, Billy Graham, Andy Warhol, Robert Crandall, Joe Vittorio, Anne Sophia Mutter, and Irving Johnson.

His articles appeared in National Geographic, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, the Tidewater Times, Cruising World, Sailing World, Yachting, and The Yacht (Vaughan was the founding editor).

Roger was born in Athol, Massachusetts on July 9, 1937. His father was a medical doctor during the days of house calls. As a youngster, he learned to play the piano and aspired to spend time at sea.

Vaughan graduated from the Choate School and went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from Brown University. He competed on Brown’s sailing team with Ted Turner. In the summer months, he worked as a mate aboard the iconic 72-foot yacht “Ticonderoga”, a 1936 L. Francis Herreshoff design.

During his time on the wooden ketch, he developed considerable seamanship and sailing skills. Later in life he wrote, “My attraction to the sea and music came from within.”

After graduating from Brown, Vaughan served in the United Stated Army before spending 10 years working at the Saturday Evening Post and Life magazines covering singer Bob Dylan’s European Tour, the Beatles, and the Woodstock and Monterrey rock and roll concerts. Life published a special issue of the magazine on the Woodstock Art and Music Festival in August 1969.

In 1990 at the age of 52, he joined the crew of a Russian entry “Fazisi” in the Whitbread Round the World Race on a 6,255-mile leg from Auckland, New Zealand to Punte del Este, Urugay. His gripping account told readers about the perils of sailing in the Southern Ocean and rounding Cape Horn, the windiest place on Earth.

Following the Whitbread Race, Vaughan wrote scripts for ESPN television shows on sailing, the Extreme Games, and many documentaries.

Roger married Kathryn Kip Requardt in 1980. He had two earlier marriages that ended in divorce. He is survived by a son from his first marriage who is also named Roger.

In the past few years, Vaughan quietly wrote his own memoir, a 300-page narrative that is unpublished, titled, “Flashing Lights in the Rearview Mirror.” His philosophy was, “If it is boring to write, it will be boring to read.”

Roger is survived by his wife, Kippy Requardt, his stepdaughter Leigh Todd and her daughter Hannah Marie Blackwood, all of Easton; and his son Roger E. Vaughan, Jr., as well as Andrea and Sinead Vaughan, his granddaughters, of Providence, Rhode Island.

A celebration of his life will be planned for later this year. In lieu of flowers, the family
suggests a donation to Saving Future Feral Cats at www.savingfutureferalcats.org.

July 9, 1937 – August 25, 2025

– Gary Jobson