Two weeks ago my friend Dan Gregorie send me an email, as it turns out Otter was not only a well balanced sailboat but a little piece of history. I found it interested and worth sharing...

Old Days

Old Days

Today

Juan,

I have been doing historical research on Otter/ aka Tenovus. As it turns out there were at least 13 of the Seven Seas yawls built in 1930/31 in Squantum and they were quite a splash in the sailing community. I have some of the records of the designer as well as newspaper articles form the Boston Herald and Post---one of which describes Joe Kennedy Sr. coming to Boston from NYC where he was running RKO studios and ordering one of the new boats off the drawing board. It also turns out that father of one of my neighbors here in the summer, Rusty Bourne (who is also a yacht historian and wrote the definitive book of Sparkman and Stevens) also bought one of the new yawls. Rusty was a tiny boy at the time and has little memory of it but had a picture of the boat under sail. I took my photos of Otter plus the Bourne Boat (called Widgeon) to the JFK Library last week and met with the chief archivist. When he saw the photos he said "you have solved a mystery. We have photos *(actually movie frames) of JFK and Joe Jr. on a wooden yawl On September 4, 1931 and have not been able to identify the boat". It is clearly Otter. The Kennedy's did not keep the boat very long because Joe Sr. was appointed Ambassador to Great Britain at the end of 1932. Thought you might enjoy these pictures.

Warmest regards,

Dan