Atlantic City Press Article
June 2001
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SPY II Crew
Gary Stewart,Roy Wilkins,
Jane Wilkins,Maggie Groff, Richard
Yetman, Gale Yetman
Gary Stewart
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On The Water: These
Cats can flat-out run
- July 15, 2001 -
By G. PATRICK PAWLING
They're just sailboats. Sailboats come and go.
And so it was with a tiny and obscure class of
wood boat called the A-Cat. Back in the 1970s
they were tired, on their way out, leaking,
peeling and ready for the shelf. Then
something went wrong. They lived.
How they came back is the story of why some
people fall in love with sailboats as much as
they fall in love with sailing. And there is a
difference.
Owning a boat, as opposed to just jumping in
and using one, can be expensive and
exasperating. And when you're talking about
wood, that can be a whole different category
of pain. But an A-Cat? People talk about A-
Cats the way older folks talk about Benny
Goodman, the way surfers talk about a
hurricane swell, the way Baby Boomers talk
about the Good Old Days when they actually
made money in the NASDAQ. A-Cats dig in,
somehow. How else to explain the fact that
there are nine of them now?
Roy Wilkins owns part of one. He's the women's
soccer coach at Richard Stockton College of
New Jersey and a special-ed teacher in Toms
River. There's something about him that
suggests John Madden, but less hyper.
Wilkins took me out on his new A-Cat the other
day. Spy II, she's called. The original Spy,
built in 1924, which Wilkins also owned, has
been donated to the Toms River Seaport
Society, where she will be kept on land for
display and thus will never again be at risk
for sinking, which probably would have
happened many times over late in her life
except for a real strong pump working the
bilge.
Some people look at a wood boat and say,
'Gorgeous. Like a piece of fine furniture.'
Spy II isn't like that. As her builder said,
she's more like a living thing, curvy and
sexy, but athletic as an Olympian. Spy II is
born to run, which only makes sense because A-
Cats are found only in New Jersey.
Listen to Gary Stewart, one of Spy II's owners:
"It sounds corny, but when I first looked at
these things I thought they were the most
beautiful things I had ever seen. And I said,
"Some day I'm going to own an A-Cat." They're
gorgeous. To sail one of these boats is an
honor."
It all goes back to July 4, 1922, when a
Philadelphia judge raced a new kind of boat
for the first time. Her name was Mary Ann,
named after the judge's wife. She had been
built for one purpose: To win the Barnegat Bay
Challenge Cup, which remains the oldest
yachting trophy in the United States, going
back to 1871.
Mary Ann was a catboat and more , she had the
characteristic forward mast, with a single
triangular sail, a tiller and a retractable
centerboard for the shallow bay, but unlike
the workmanlike catboat she was made only to
go fast. Her sail was huge.
The first time she raced she smoked 'em. In
fact she won every race that year, dominating
so completely that the catboat fleet had to be
broken up into two classes. The older boats
went into the "B" class and Mary Ann ( and the
other boats being built like her) went into
the "A" fleet. Thus was born the A-Cat, a most
perfect boat for Barnegat Bay: Shallow draft,
fast, easy to handle, beamy and just plain fun.
With the exception of World War II, the boats
raced continually — weekends, nights,
whatever. But by the 1970s they were tired.
Wilkins bought the original Spy in 1978, when
there were only four on the planet. Thus he
helped keep the tradition alive. But it wasn'’
t a huge sacrifice. He was having a blast.
But all the remaining A-Cats, including his,
were on life support. Then in 1980, one of the
A-Cat angels made a decision. Nelson
Hartranft, who had owned four of the boats,
ordered a new one built. It rolled out of the
boatyard in ’82, and was the first new A-Cat
since 1925. Wasp, she's called. That was the
spark. Soon the fire was out of control. Four
other boats were restored between 1980 and
1988. Now there are nine, and that's a fairly
big thing, considering they cost about
$200,000 each. They're wood, don't forget, and
building them requires expensive craftsmanship
and materials, right down to the Sitka spruce
that goes into the 49-foot masts and 28-foot
booms.
For Wilkins, the new Spy started with
something everybody wants: a phone call from a
nice man . His name is Peter Kellogg. He made
his money during the bull market, and he had
raced A-Cats when he was in his 20s. Kellogg
had an interest in keeping the A-Cat tradition
alive. The call lasted maybe three minutes.
When it was over Wilkins had an offer: If you
form a syndicate, Kellogg said, I'll help you
build a new Spy. So Wilkins started making his
own phone calls, which all contained this
phrase: "It's going to cost you some money"
Build her they did. She's 28 feet, standard
for an A-Cat, and seductive. There's no other
way to describe her. Wilkins likes to use her
to introduce people to sailing. That is, he
likes to bring people out who haven't raced
and watch their eyes get THIS BIG.
"I took out a friend who was a pro soccer
player for 20 years, and he came back saying,
"I've never seen anything so intense in my
life! I would rather be in the goal
shorthanded than race with Wilkins." It was SO
INTENSE", Wilkins said.
But that's what love is like. It hits hard and
leaves you breathless.
"This is the coolest thing I've ever been
involved with," said Stewart. "Hey, it's only
money."