In outer Los Angeles harbor, 13 crack skippers last week matched wits for one of the most coveted of yachting prizes: the Star Class world championship. Star boats (22-footers costing anywhere from $700 to $2,000) are not the most popular sailboats in the U.S.* But they are the most cosmopolitan—a one-design class that boasts fleets in 40 different countries.
Last week's regatta, the 20th in the history of the International Star Class Yacht Racing Association, had no European entries. Only foreign boat was the Cuban Kurush, owned by Havana's Dr. Carlos de Cardenas. Brightest of the Cuban fleet, Kurush proved no shining star in the Pacific. Neither did Manhattan Undertaker Frank E. Campbell's black Rascal, the flying ghost that had doomed all rival Stars on Long Island Sound this summer. Even Sailmaker Harry Nye Jr.'s Gale, from Lake Michigan, the boat that won this year's Bacardi Cup at Havana, took a lot of wake last week.
In four of the five races, a Californian finished first. Myron Lehman's Scout won the first, second and fifth races, would have sailed off with the championship had he not been disqualified in the fourth race when his sail touched a windward mark. Winner of the series—with a total point score of 58—was Wench, skippered by George Fleitz, a 25-year-old Los Angeles yacht broker.
At the victory ball, Champion Fleitz, like his 19 predecessors, received a big silver cup, the "Blue Ribbon of the Seven Seas." But this year's rendezvous seemed strange to many an oldtimer. Absent for the first time was the Stars' founder, patron saint and Commodore, George A.' ("Pop") Corry of Port Washington, L.I.
Pop Corry, now crowding 79, is the Grand Old Man of sailing. In his battered Little Dipper, one of the original 22 Stars that were built on Long Island 30 years ago, he competed in New York's Larchmont Regatta this summer (for the 43rd straight year), finished 24th in a field of 33. With a slick new sloop like Wench, the story might have been different. But the Commodore would no sooner part with his Little Dipper than the 480 trophies she won for him. In 1912, the year after the Stars were born, he won 20 firsts and five seconds in 26 races—a feat never since equaled by any Star skipper.
When sailing, Pop wears a stiff wing collar, smokes a pipe. "The pipe is my wind gauge," he says. "On a mild day, a change of wind may be barely perceptible but when the smoke changes on the old pipe, I can trim her in and save perhaps 50 feet. To get the benefit of every little breeze on a mild day, I smoke until my throat is sore."
Last week, while fellow sailors breezed around Los Angeles, Commodore Corry was at home—not because he was too feeble but because his wife was ailing. For a septuagenarian, Pop Corry is unusually spry, still walks four or five miles a day—just as he has for the past 50 years—selling petticoats to Manhattan stores. His spryness he attributes to his daily practice of standing on his head for five minutes before breakfast. "Keeps me limber," says he.