US One-Design Classic International 14 (Part 2)

Southern California becomes the center of the USOD class

Somewhere in the late 1940's the nexus of U.S One-Design International 14 fleet activity (the one-design now switched from the R.I.P. design to the Douglass and McLeod hot molded Uffa Fox Alarm hull shape) moved from the Rochester fleet to the Southern Californian fleet. And as one dynamic mover-and-shaker exited (the founder of the US International 14 class, George Ford of Rochester, retired from 14's and started another successful yachting career on the Great Lakes in a Sparkman and Stephens designed yawl), another one emerged, a Southern Californian, Dick Fenton, the Commodore of Balboa Yacht Club, Commodore of Southern California Yachting Association, and by 1948, president of the nascent U.S. International Fourteen Association.

Details of the rise of the Southern Californian USOD fleet are somewhat sketchy; it would be best to first go back and reread the excellent early Southern California history as put down by Peter Gales. It is at the 1948 "International Championship Regatta", hosted by George Ford and the Rochester Yacht Club, that the Southern Californians demonstrated how strong a one-design International 14 fleet they had organized in three short years. Six Californian 14 teams made the cross-country trip out east and they left with the majority of the prizes.

What do we know about the USOD from the  1948 "International Championship Regatta"?

1. A one-design rule had already been hammered out by 1948, as the regatta was split into two series; a three race series for the US One-Designs and a three race series for the "Open" International 14 (the Canadians were having none of this one-design; led by Charlie Bourke, they were happily developing new designs - also being hot molded). The USOD fleet met the requirements for the 'Open" rule (the English 14 development rule) and sailed  for the "Open" series trophies as well.
2. The one-design rule allowed lighter 14's than the open rule as some of the USOD's had to carry correctors to meet the 225 lb. hull weight minimum when racing in the "Open" rule.
3. In the light air to drifter series, the 1935 Alarm hull of the USOD would prove as fast as anything designed up to that point; five of the USOD's scoring better in the "Open" series than Charlie Bourke's 1944 'Conneda". (This was nothing out-of-the-ordinary as, much later, a re-rigged USOD would win a light air regatta in the 1970's against the latest Kirbys and Proctors.)
4. Obviously Douglass and McLeod was selling the USOD, either as a hull or a complete 14, to anyone who wanted to front the money. Since the USOD was the only 14 game in town for the United States in the late 1940's, the Douglass and McLeod USOD filtered into the East Coast - besides the fleet in Rochester there was a small fleet in Essex Ct -,  though the majority of boats were going west to the burgeoning fleet in Southern California. The East Coast, like the Canadians, would never buy into the one-design rule, but (and this is where the confusion comes from) the Douglass and McLeod Alarm hulls would always be referred to as the U.S. One Design (USOD), or One-Design for short, even though, on the East Coast, they would never be raced as a one-design.

Below is the somewhat famous photo of the kingpin of the early Southern Californian USOD fleet, Dick Fenton, in his Douglass and McLeod number 116 (note the caret symbol under the 14 insignia - designating this 14 as a one-design), sailing with a reef in the main.

(To be continued.)