The Search Is On

[HerreshoffHistory]

"87-Foot Sailboat Bought by David Morrissey of Chicago.
SHEBOYGAN, Wis., May 13 [1961] --- The eighty-seven-foot racing yawl Sabre was sold today by the Plastics Engineering Company of Sheboygan.
Ralph Brotz, the president of the firm, said the purchaser was David Morrissey, 36 years old, of Chicago. Morrissey will re-rig the vessel for an extended voyage to South America. Sabre, built in Rhode Island in 1929, is the largest sailing craft on the Great Lakes." (Source: Anon. "Yawl Sabre Is Sold." New York Times, May 14, 1961, p. S16.)

"The yawl Sabre, sold last April by the Brotz family of Sheboygan, Wis., to David Archibald Morrissey of 1645 S. California av., will be sailed to New Orleans via the New York barge canal on Sunday. This route will take the yawl thru the straits of Mackinac and Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario.
The yawl, well known winner of the race to Mackinac island for many years before burdened with a heavy time handicap, cannot be sailed down the Mississippi because it draws more than 12 feet of water. The Sabre is 87 feet over-all and has a 100 foot mast. It takes a crew of 18 to sail the yawl.
The Sabre will be on view today at the Wrigley building dock where it will be refurbished before making the trip to New Orleans." (Source: Anon. "Yawl Sabre Will Sail To New Orleans." Chicago Daily Tribune, October 21, 1961, p. B2.)

[Adam]

There is a David A. Morrissey of Cook, lll., (born 1925) who died in Harris, Texas (still with a civil residence of Illinois) in 1995. Can't prove it is him, but he's the only one I see....Can't see enough of the records to note if there is a Wife or Children (don't have full access to the Census).

[Steve]

If he was born in 1925, he would have been 36 in 1961.  Sadly, this could be our guy.  Herreshoff History provided me with a long-shot contact for someone who may be his son ... I am going to try running that one down.

[Adam]

Oh please do let me know!! I havent heard back from the folks as Columbia YC yet - so there may be something there as well.

[Michael D. Storey]

I learned to sail on Mitena on Lake Ontario in the 50's.  She had had a good racing career in Rochester, against smaller competition, under the hand of a talented  yachtsman named Van Voorhis.
Any news about her current whereabouts?

Reagrds

Michael D. Storey

[Steve]

Welcome to the Forum, Michael.

I assume you mean MITENA, the 12-Meter designed by LFH?  Our latest information is that she is still in the Great Lakes, owned by Jim Henley of Dearborn, MI.  I understand she has been given a complete overhaul and is in the water.  See the Registry entry for her: http://www.herreshoffregistry.org/get_detail.php?hull=1275.

Do you know any more of her?  Was Van Voorhis an owner?

[Michael D. Storey]

MITENA US 10, when I knew her, was owned by John & June Van Voorhis of Rochester, New York.  Too deep for the Rochester Yacht Club basin off of the Genesee River, she would have to plow her way out regularly.  I was a kid, he showed me how to sail.  73 feet, a tiller, canoe stern, who could ask for more?  Very fine photos of her do exist in the hands of what I understand is the first owners upon delivery, also a steamy shot of a guy at the tiller and two women relaxing on that velour seating, looking just everso.

Judge Van Voorhis left a nice R, # 57, Shadow, which it is my understanding he owned with two brothers when he bought US 10.  I reckon the early 50's.  I did almost no racing in those days (I was 10), but later, in the twilight of wooden racers on Lake Ontario, she was held in high regard by sailors from Rochester, Toronto, Sodus Bay, etc.  I never heard anyone describe her as slow, as I have seen here.

Very understandably, something of her calibre would most likely not find a new home close to home.  I had been told that she went west, out on the Lakes, but until your very kind post, I never knew where.  I am most pleased to hear that she is well, 50 years later.

[Steve]

Thanks for the information, Michael.