Luxe Beat Magazine April 2014 | Page 80

Robert F. Kennedy steers Victura with plenty of helpers. No youngster was turned away, no matter the boat's crew capacity. AP Photo/Bob Schutz, July 30, 1961. the ones most influenced by and enamored with sailing still doing the same eighty years after they first went for a were Jack; his older brother, Joe; and their younger sail on Victura. siblings, Ted, Eunice, and Robert. When they were young, sailing was a topic of ongoing earnest When Robert’s young wife, Ethel, joined the family, she discussion, s ometimes led by their father. perfectly blended in, not least because she brought her own love of sailing. Jacque- line, enamored less with the They would constantly ask one another, What made us races and more with sailing’s beauty, wrote poetry about lose a race? What gear needed replacing? At what and drew pictures of sailboats years before she met Jack. cost? What sailing instructors should we hire? What Whatever the lofty position a Kennedy held, helicopters, kind of sails? How do we launch the spinnaker faster? airplanes, and motorcades all eventually pointed back to Who can we get to crew? How fast the wind and how Hyannis Port in time for sailing races. high the waves? Once together at sea the Kennedys riveted their attention As they grew older and moved into independent lives, on the race or, if just cruising, spent hours in conversation they always came back to sailing, coordinating return while watching sunsets; worrying over storm clouds; taking trips to their seaside Cape Cod home, sometimes drenching waves over the gunwale; shivering, almost arranging their lives around regattas, making time for a hypothermic; holding soggy sandwiches pulled from the sail every day. Their children and grandchildren were cooler. 88 MARCH 2014 •LUXE BEAT MAGAZINE