Once they became parents they used sailing to connect with their children…
Older Kennedys taught younger ones. They grounded
once sprung a leak and started sinking beneath Ted’s
their boat on sandbars, at least once crashing into a
aging and none-too-small size, as the senator resignedly
buoy. They thought nothing of jumping into the water if
watched boats in the race pass him by until he could get
necessary to lighten the load and speed the boat. They
a tow. After they gave Victura to a museum, they bought
yelled when mistakes were made, punched one another
a new Wianno Senior, called it Victura too and sail it to
even, laughed about it afterward. The stronger the Cape
this day.
winds, the whiter the whitecaps, the better. They took
friends out who became lifelong pals after passing tests
Now, when a Kennedy dies and his or her loved ones
of seaworthiness or camaraderie.
stand to speak words of consolation, they often turn to
the imagery of sailing and to their stories of Victura. At
Once they became parents they used sailing to connect
Ted’s death in 2009, four eulogists told stories of being
with their children, including nephews and nieces whose
fathers were lost. They learned seamanship and survival
with him on Victura. Less than two years later, when
skills, which they swear saved Jack’s life in World War II.
Ted’s daughter, Kara, died of cancer at age fifty-one, her
Sailing, they said, gave their lives perspective and helped
brother Patrick said, “Dad now has his first mate, his
them explore how to cope with the complexity that
crew with him, as they set sail,” and quoted Eugene
comes with being a Kennedy—the privileges, the
O’Neill, “I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and
attention, and the “buzz saws of life.” They sailed at night
flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became
too, quietly taking in the infinite stars, distance, space,
moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky!”
and horizon and said it gave them insights into life’s
mysteries. “Sailing, for me, has always been a metaphor
Jack did not know his stay at the Rice Hotel was his last
for life,” wrote Ted in his memoir, True Compass, written
day on earth, but his thoughts went back to the Cape
eighty years after the family first summered in Hyannis
and the sea that night because that is where Kennedy
Port.
minds always drift. All through his life Jack was sick with
one illness or another, but sailing freed him, filled his
The family had many sailboats, but the favorite was
lungs, tanned his skin when it was ashen or yellow,
Victura. They kept it the longest and sailed it most, over
separated him from worries ashore, and gave him
almost fifty years. It was wooden and modest in size,
seclusion with family and friends.
twenty-five feet in length, spare of accommodation, and
gaff rigged, a sail configuration thought quaint today even
Robert, a less accomplished sailor who married young
though folks still say the shorter mast height prevents a
and had less time for racing, still loved taking his children
knockdown in a gale. About two hundred one-design
out on the water. Before he died at forty-two, after
Wianno Seniors identical to Victura have been built for
fathering eleven children, he bought a “sister boat” to
families like the Kennedys who summer or live on Cape
Victura and called it Resolute. For years following
Cod’s South Shore. Thus they fairly compete on boats of
Robert’s death, when the weather was warm enough,
equal specifications in races around Nantucket Sound.
and even when it was not, his surviving family sailed
Resolute almost every day. Brothers, sisters, and
That Victura survived so long, a small boat in such big
nephews of Jack bought Wianno Seniors, so Victura and
seas, is surprising itself. Acquired in 1932, struck by
Resolute begat Headstart, another Victura, and
lightning in 1936, dragged onto the beach by war-injured
Ptarmigan. These begat Santa Maria and Dingle.
Jack during a hurricane in 1944, and nearly lost in a 2003
harbor fire that took twenty other sailboats like it, Victura
Ted, perhaps the most dedicated—some might say
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MARCH 2014 •LUXE BEAT MAGAZINE