SIGHTINGS westerly builds for the nyyc
continued on outside column of next sightings page Page 62 •
Latitude 38
• February, 2018
small boats parted both towing painters we had bent on. Before we recovered it we had nearly killed ourselves with exhaustion, and we certainly had strained the sloop in every part from keelson to truck. And to cap it all, coming into our home port, beating up the narrowest part of the San Antonio Estuary, we had a shave of inches from collision with a big ship in tow of a tug. I have sailed the ocean in far larger craft a year at a time, in which period occurred no such chapter of moving incident. After all, the mishaps are almost the best part of small-boat sailing. Looking
Westerly Marine founders and co-owners Steve Lee, left, and Lynn Bowser, stand in front of the very first IC37. C. SHELTON
The East Coast may be deep in a frigid winter right now, but at the New York Yacht Club, there are dreams of summer racing to come. The NYYC is anticipating its second decade of the Rolex NYYC Invitational Cup in 2019, which will sport a new class of boats made just for them by Westerly Marine in Santa Ana, California. The IC37, drawn by Mark Mills of Mills Design in Ireland, was chosen from 18 entries submitted by top naval architects worldwide. Mills grew up on Marina Blvd. in San Francisco, and, in a strange bit of trivia, watched the St. Francis Yacht Club burn down in front of him years ago. His family moved to Ireland in 1980, but Mills came back for school, raced summers aboard Olson 30s on the Bay, and interned for Tom Wylie. After school, he took a year off to sail his Moore 24 out of Brickyard Cove. Mills' IC37 has a flush deck, open cockpit and a square top, reflecting Grand Prix inshore racing parameters. The design emphasis is on series production for maximum affordability. "It's definitely a planing downwind design," said Mills on the Mills Design website. "We tried to find a displacement that produces outcome, but still provides a boat you can build within the cost envelope and doesn't leave you lacking stability going upwind. It will be an exciting boat to sail." The project is a big deal for Westerly, the last SoCal boat builder standing from the plastic boat heyday of the 1960s and '70s. A declining interest in sailing, escalating costs of owning a boat, and the maddeningly solid construction of the Plastic Classics have put the majority of SoCal boat builders out of work. But Westerly has found their niche and are going strong. Westerly Marine was founded in 1970 by co-owners Lynn Bowser and Steve Lee, who became friends as teens scrounging around boatyards for information and parts to build their first boats. Little did they know that they would go on to manufacture high-performance sailboats, including America's Cup Class monohulls, offshore catamarans and TP52s. For the Rolex Invitational Cup, the NYYC race committee wanted both the competition flagship boat (the IC37) and the race rules to be as economical and inclusive as possible. With the exception of the captain, all crew members are to be "Corinthian" (or amateurs), with women sailors required on each vessel. The NYYC has a distinguished history dating back to 1844 (to say nothing about a certain 132-year America's Cup winning streak). Their clubhouse, a six-story BeauxArts-style building built for them in 1900 by their commodore, John Pierpont Morgan, is on 44th Street in Manhattan. They also keep an on-the-water club in Newport, RI, where the Rolex NYYC Invitational Cup will be hosted. Despite the grandeur, the NYYC is focused on the health and active continuation of the sport they love. Westerly's own distinguished history started on historic Placentia Street in Irvine — the hub of SoCal boatbuilding at the peak of the fiberglass frenzy. Westerly was eventually pushed out along with other builders by encroaching residential construction, but found a new home in an industrial section of Santa Ana. The street view of Westerly Marine's boatyard is unassuming, with no indication of the production going on inside. Each huge room contains one step of the process, with meticulous care put into maintaining excellent air quality and low dust. Westerly uses a pre-preg, or pre-resin-impregnated fiberglass that is laid on by hand and then oven-cured. Several ovens that range in size from a small tester oven to one large enough to hold an entire boat hull dominate the space. Westerly's staff of 35, most of whom have been with the company in excess of 10 years, will be working on the IC37s. Bowser anticipates a production speed of two boats per month. Twenty will be sent to the NYYC by spring 2019, and 10 more will be made for West Coast waters. Orders for the IC37 will be available to private owners and other clubs starting in late 2018. In a statement from the NYYC website, Sailing Committee Chair Paul M. Zabetakis offered the "hope that the