On our Sunday sailby up Richmond Inner Harbor, it was sad to hear from Kim that the big blue yawl ESCAPADE, for many years in storage at KKMI, would soon be chainsawed.
ESCAPADE, 75 years old this year, was a 72'6" yawl designed by Phil Rhodes and deemed "Queen of the Great Lakes" in her heyday before coming to the West Coast. At that time (1937), 73' was the max LOA allowed by CCA, and ESCAPADE, with a foretriangle base of 32', was truly a "maxi."
http://www.syescapade.com/
Her blue hull was so very pretty, and when ESCAPADE was matched up against the black hulled BARUNA and the blue hulled ORIENT, I'm sure even God stopped to watch.
These three beauties were entered in the 1955 TransPac. As a 10 year old spectator, my eyes were glued to the fleet from aboard our L-36. At the Transpac start, ESCAPADE short tacked up the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Near Portuguese Bend she came to an abrupt stop when her big bronze centerboard found an uncharted rock and was unhinged. (ESCAPADE drew 14 feet with the board down.)
To the crew's credit, they cut ESCAPADE's centerboard free and continued the race. We motored to the West End of Catalina to watch them come around. The 72 foot BARUNA was all business, her jet black S&S hull marching upwind in the fresh afternoon Westerly. ORIENT was a mile behind on port tack when a williwaw came down the Catalina hills just west of Arrow Point. With an audible crack, her varnished mast came down.
Without a centerboard for balance, ESCAPADE suffered in that TransPac, eventually stripping her steering gear. Even so, she finished only a hour behind BARUNA.
As a kid, these were impressionable times. It is fun to replay in mind's eye as if it was yesterday. Long live ESCAPADE.