Walet & Co.

NEW ORLEANS
The Southern Yacht Club on Lake Pontchartrain has been famous since 1849 for its hospitality and interest in yacht racing. Last week the club had the atmosphere of Mardi Gras, with a banquet, cocktail party, dance or crab broil going on every night. For 24 sailors, 8 skippers and their 16 crew members, however, it was also a deadly serious time. They were there to sail in the North American Yacht Racing Union's third annual North American Sailing Championship for the Clifford D. Mallory Trophy. The winner is recognized as the top sailor of the United States and Canada.

FEW WERE CHOSEN

The eight skippers were the survivors of countless elimination races throughout the nation. Thousands of sailors, many of them with national reputations and including Cornelius ("Corny") Shields, 1952 North American Sailing Champion, had been defeated along the way.

Of the eight skippers who sailed in the 1953 finals only one had been able to survive the eliminations this year. He was Eugene Walet III, the pride of New Orleans, who had startled the yachting world last year by winning the Mallory Trophy at the age of 18. He had done it the hard way, too, in the foreign waters of Long Island Sound and in keel boats, with which he was unfamiliar. Racing now on his own Lake Pontchartrain and in the Lightning Class boats which he has sailed for years, Gene Walet obviously was the man—or boy—to beat.

A good look at the talent arrayed against him might well have discouraged even a veteran champion. Best known of the contenders were Karl Smither of Buffalo and Henry (Hank) J. Cawthra of Detroit, both of whom have Lightning Class International Championships to their credit. Another big threat was William S. Cox of Darien, Conn., 1930 National Junior Sailing Champion and four-time winner of the International One Design Class Championship on Long Island Sound. None of the other four was more of a dark horse than Walet had been the previous year.

When the series started on September 8 Bill Cox, with whom I had the pleasure of crewing along with Walter Crump Jr., got off to a flying start by taking the first race, passing Walet in the last hundred yards. By the halfway mark of the eight races, however, it was evident that young Gene was in a fair way to run away with the series. In light and variable conditions he showed shrewd judgment and amazing consistency by adding two firsts and a second to his opening second spot. This gave him a lead over Cox of 8� points and over Cawthra of 11.

Then Cawthra tightened matters. He won the next two races to come within 7 points of the leader and move 3� ahead of Cox. With only two races to go, however, Gene Walet would have had to blow sky high to have lost. And that's something he hasn't been known to do. Sailing conservatively, staying out of trouble and keeping a weather eye on his two chief rivals, he placed fifth and sixth—good enough to hold a 5-point lead at the end over Cox who took a first and a fifth to nose out Cawthra by one point for the runner-up position.

In accepting the handsome Mallory Trophy, Gene paid tribute to his crew, Gilbert (Gibby) Friedrichs Jr. and Allen (Pudgy) McClure Jr. The three of them have sailed together for years, and a smoother working team has seldom been seen.

"As all sailors know," Gene said, "I couldn't have made it without a top crew and Gibby and Pudgy are the best there are."

THE BEST MAN