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Monday Lunch: Bill Baillargeon on Local Yacht Designer Ben Seaborn

  • 18 Nov 2019
  • 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
  • CYC Shilshole

Image of fork and knife with the words Monday LunchCYC's Monday Lunch is a luncheon gathering of sailors and others interested in sailing. Once or twice a month we have guest speakers who talk about their racing or cruising experiences, or other topics of interest to the group.  All are welcome.  Lunch is $15.

11:30 Social
12:00 Lunch
12:30 Program

If you do not regularly attend Monday Lunch, please RSVP to Suzette Connolly at altairseattle@yahoo.com.

This week: Bill Baillargeon will join us to talk about local Seattle yacht designer Ben Seaborn and the many beautiful, innovative boats he designed including Circe and the Thunderbird plus early racing with CYC Seattle.  Bill sailed and campaigned the Seaborn designed 32 foot sloop Mistral and won Swiftsure Overall with her in 1966 and 1968.

The photo above is of Charlie Frisbee’s Ben Seaborn designed Alotola standing into Kingston Harbor and points north on the 1950 Protection Island Race. Which, incidentally, Alotola won. Charlie is the figure seated in the weather aft corner of the cockpit. The helmsman is Jack Bowben, sailor extraordinaire and Charlie’s son-in-law. The great looking guy tailing the jib sheet on the winch is Bill Baillargeon

Some History

When Seattle’s Corinthian Yacht Club was founded in 1946, few if any sailboats were made of synthetic materials and wooden boats that comprised the fleets were products of their designer’s eye and artistic judgment. Those of us who grew up sailing immediately before and after World War II were the last beneficiaries of the age-old skills with which dedicated amateurs could participate in building and rigging a boat from the keel up, starting in one’s own basement or perhaps in a neighbor’s garage. And of course, they were the boatyards staffed by artisan shipwrights who, in Norm Blanchard’s words, lived “knee-deep in shavings,” and who always were available to offer suggestions.

The Corinthian Yacht Club’s founders understood this when they conceived an “all-sailing” yachting club by giving special attention to the smaller one-design classes including Stars and Flatties along with Six Meters. Their agenda extended beyond merely setting sails and catching a breeze to first-hand skills in wood-working, design, rigging and sails, and even metallurgy that produced winches and other useful things. Foremost among those “pioneers” was Charlie Frisbie who became Corinthian’s first Commodore in 1947. There was, literally, nothing associated with a boat in which Charlie was not accomplished, and he spent a good deal of time mentoring younger sailors in those seldom-remembered arts.

In those same years, a number of very competent yacht designers became well known in Puget Sound sailing circles. Foremost was Ben Seaborn whose first boat was the large cutter Circe, he designed while he was in high school for his stepfather. Circe launched Ben’s career in style by finishing in the top three boats in the 1936 Trans Pac Race; she was the “scratch” boat of the Puget Sound racing for years and is still in commission today. Before the War, Ben also created a number of graceful and swift designs, among them the Neoga II, Kate (originally Nootka), and Mistral (originally Romp II). Soon after the War he created the ubiquitous “Thunderbirds” and Blanchard’s 40-foot “Swiftsure” class. His Sea Fever and Helene, sister-ships, demonstrated Ben’s evolving under-body designs reflecting the narrow wings and trim tabs of modern airplane dynamics. Around the same time he designed the competitive “Seafair” class that attracted some very talented sailors. One prominent Corinthian Yacht Club member not only constructed his own Thunderbird but in 1965 sailed it to the Pacific Northwest Championship. Ben did not live to see the launching of his last design, the handsome 80-foot yawl, Tatoosh, constructed at Vic Franck’s yard under the supervision of Sparkman and Stevens.

Ben passed away in 1961 but it was not until July 1989 his daughter Pat committed his ashes to the waters of Puget Sound from the deck of Mistral, on the fiftieth anniversary of her launching.

Ben’s professional life span defied a golden age of Pacific Northwest yachting, not only for his designs but for the activity it stimulated among sailing competitions for vessels large and small. It is well to take the present occasion to remember Ben Seaborn, Charlie Frisbie and the many others who have made such memorable contributions to our sailing heritage.

Corinthian Yacht Club of Seattle
7755 Seaview Ave NW 
Seattle WA 98117
(206) 789-1919 

office@cycseattle.org 



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