Roderick Stephens, Jr.
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Roderick Stephens, Jr.
Roderick Stephens, Jr. (August 7, 1909 – January 10, 1995) was one of America's best known and respected sailors. In 1933 he became Associate Designer, later promoted to President, of Sparkman & Stephens naval architecture and yacht design firm, a company founded in 1929 by his brother Olin Stephens and Drake Sparkman. Biography Born in New York City in 1909 Stephens and his family moved to Scarsdale, New York. He graduated Scarsdale High School and attended Cornell University. In 1928 Stephens left Cornell University to join the well-respected Henry Nevins boatyard in City Island, New York. He held an honorary Master of Arts postgraduate degree, awarded jointly to his brother Olin in 1958 by Brown University to "a rare team of designers of yachts, ships and amphibious vehicles." He was a member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, the New York Yacht Club, the American Yacht Club, a former Commodore of the Cruising Club of America and a winner of its Blue ...
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Sparkman & Stephens
Sparkman & Stephens is a naval architecture and yacht brokerage firm with offices in Newport, Rhode Island and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA. The firm performs design and engineering of new and existing vessels for pleasure, commercial, and military use. Sparkman & Stephens also acts as a yacht and ship brokerage. The firm offers similar design and engineering services for the performance optimization of existing yachts. Their designs have won most of the major international yacht races such as the America's Cup, for several decades, including a string of victories in the Fastnet and Sydney to Hobart as well as winning twice the Whitbread Round the World Race by '' Sayula II'' in 1974 and '' Flyer'' in 1978. S&S has a number of custom yacht design projects as well as being designers for boat builders such as Nautor's Swan, Grand Banks Yachts, and Morris Yachts. With more than 100 units built, the S&S design #1710 also known as Swan 36 became the most utilized design in the his ...
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United States Naval Academy
The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of the Navy. The Naval Academy is the second oldest of the five U.S. service academies and it educates midshipmen for service in the officer corps of the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. The campus is located on the former grounds of Fort Severn at the confluence of the Severn River and Chesapeake Bay in Anne Arundel County, east of Washington, D.C., and southeast of Baltimore. The entire campus, known colloquially as the Yard, is a National Historic Landmark and home to many historic sites, buildings, and monuments. It replaced Philadelphia Naval Asylum, in Philadelphia, that had served as the first United States Naval Academy from 1838 to 1845, when the Naval Academy formed in Annapolis. Candidates for admission generally must apply directly t ...
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Ranger (yacht)
''Ranger'' was a J-class racing yacht that successfully defended the 1937 America's Cup, defeating the British challenger ''Endeavour II'' 4-0 at Newport, Rhode Island. It was the last time J-class yachts would race for the America's Cup. Design Harold Stirling Vanderbilt funded construction of ''Ranger'', and she was launched on May 11, 1937. She was designed by Starling Burgess and Olin Stephens, and constructed by Bath Iron Works Bath Iron Works (BIW) is a major United States shipyard located on the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine, founded in 1884 as Bath Iron Works, Limited. Since 1995, Bath Iron Works has been a subsidiary of General Dynamics. It is the fifth-largest de .... Stephens would credit Burgess with actually designing ''Ranger'', but the radical departure from the heavy displacement sailing yachts was attributal to Stephens himself who had first used the design in ''Dorade'', winner of the 1931 Trans-Atlantic Race. Geerd Hendel, Burgess's chief draftsman, al ...
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Stormy Weather (yacht)
''Stormy Weather'' is a ocean-racing yawl that was designed by Olin Stephens when he was only twenty-five, and launched from the Henry B. Nevins yard in New York on 14 May 1934. She was named after the song of the same name, written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. Her first owner, Philip LeBoutillier, was President of the Best & Co. department store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Apocryphally, he first heard the song sung by Lena Horne, while he was dining at The Montauk Manor resort on Long Island in 1933, and promptly chose the name for his new boat. In 1935 she won both the Newport-Bergen Transatlantic race and the Fastnet race. She later won the Miami-Nassau race on five occasions, every year from 1937 to 1941, under the ownership of Bob Johnson until 1939, and thereafter of Bill Labrot. She has raced continuously to the present day, now competing in the Panerai Classic Yacht series in the Mediterranean. An evolution from his equally famous ''Dorade'' (1929), ''Stormy Wea ...
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Fastnet Race
The Fastnet Race is a biennial offshore yacht race organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club of the United Kingdom with the assistance of the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes and the City of Cherbourg in France. The race is named after the Fastnet Rock off southern Ireland, which the race course rounds. Along with Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race and the Newport-Bermuda Race, it is considered one of the classic big offshore races with each distance approximately . Testing both inshore and offshore skills, boat and crew preparation and speed potential. From its inception, the Fastnet Race has proven highly influential in the growth of offshore racing, and remains closely linked to advances in yacht design, sailing technique and safety equipment. The Fastnet Race has been sponsored by the Switzerland, Swiss watch manufacturing company Rolex since 2001. The Race prize is known as the Fastnet Challenge Cup. The race main focus is on monohull handicap racing which presently is conducted un ...
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Dorade (yacht)
''Dorade'' is a yacht designed in 1929 by Olin Stephens of Sparkman & Stephens and built 1929–1930 by the Minneford Yacht Yard in City Island, New York. With Stephens as skipper, ''Dorade'' went on to place 2nd in the Bermuda Race later that year. The crew for its first race received the All-Amateur Crew Prize. However, it would be a year later, that ''Dorade'' made its name by winning the 1931 Transatlantic Race. She completed a race that takes an estimated 3–4 weeks in just 17 days, earning her crew a parade upon the boat's return and a reception for Olin Stephens hosted by the mayor of New York. While in England that summer, ''Dorade'' also won the Fastnet Race. In 1932, Stephens handed the boat to his brother, Rod Stephens. Led by Rod, ''Dorade'' sailed to victory in the 1932 Bermuda Race. From Bermuda, ''Dorade'' sailed back to Norway, down to Cowes, England, and finally back to America after winning the Fastnet Race. The victory in the 1932 Fastnet Race was of substan ...
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National Sailing Hall Of Fame
The National Sailing Hall of Fame is a nonprofit educational organization that promotes sailing and racing by recognizing individuals who have contributed to the sport, highlighting sailing's contribution to the American culture; and demonstrating its value as a hands-on tool for teaching math and science. The organization was established in 2005. Museum The National Sailing Hall of Fame was originally housed in the Captain Burtis House, located on the City Dock in Annapolis, Maryland. Visitors to the site could participate in on-the-water experiences and learn about sailing history, art and lore. On 1 May 2019, it was announced that the National Sailing Hall of Fame would move from Annapolis to Newport, Rhode Island. In 2019, the National Sailing Hall of Fame purchased the Armory Building in Newport, an historic building with connections to the America's Cup race. The space is being developed into exhibit space, in collaboration with the Herreshoff Museum and the America's Cup ...
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Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trust instrumentality and is not formally a part of any of the three branches of the federal government. The institution is named after its founding donor, British scientist James Smithson. It was originally organized as the United States National Museum, but that name ceased to exist administratively in 1967. Called "the nation's attic" for its eclectic holdings of 154 million items, the institution's 19 museums, 21 libraries, nine research centers, and zoo include historical and architectural landmarks, mostly located in the District of Columbia. Additional facilities are located in Maryland, New York, and Virginia. More than 200 institutions and museums in 45 states,States without Smithsonian ...
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Smithsonian (magazine)
''Smithsonian'' is the official journal published by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The first issue was published in 1970. History The history of ''Smithsonian'' began when Edward K. Thompson, the retired editor of ''Life (magazine), Life'' magazine, was asked by the then-Secretary of the Smithsonian, S. Dillon Ripley, to produce a magazine "about things in which the Smithsonian [Institution] is interested, might be interested or ought to be interested." Thompson would later recall that his philosophy for the new magazine was that it "would stir curiosity in already receptive minds. It would deal with history as it is relevant to the present. It would present art, since true art is never dated, in the richest possible reproduction. It would peer into the future via coverage of social progress and of science and technology. Technical matters would be digested and made intelligible by skilled writers who would stimulate readers to reach upward while not turning the ...
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DUKW
The DUKW (colloquially known as Duck) is a six-wheel-drive amphibious modification of the -ton CCKW trucks used by the U.S. military during World War II and the Korean War. Designed by a partnership under military auspices of Sparkman & Stephens and General Motors Corporation (GMC), the DUKW was used for the transportation of goods and troops over land and water. Excelling at approaching and crossing beaches in amphibious warfare attacks, it was intended only to last long enough to meet the demands of combat. Surviving DUKWs have since found popularity as tourist craft in marine environments. Etymology The name DUKW comes from General Motors Corporation model nomenclature: * D, 1942 production series * U, Utility * K, front wheel drive * W, tandem rear axles, both driven Decades later, the designation was explained erroneously by writers such as Donald Clarke, who wrote in 1978 that it was an initialism for "Duplex Universal Karrier, Wheeled". The U.S. Navy-Marine Corps a ...
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ...
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Presidential Medal Of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors." The award is not limited to U.S. citizens and, while it is a civilian award, it can also be awarded to military personnel and worn on the uniform. It was established in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy, superseding the Medal of Freedom that was established by President Harry S. Truman in 1945 to honor civilian service during World War II. There are no specific criteria for receiving the award with distinction; simply specifies that the award should come in two degrees, and hence any decision to award the higher degree is entirely at the discretion of the president. In 2017, President Bar ...
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