Dorade

Dorade made it onto the April issue cover of Caribbean Compass, along with a compelling book review for Return to Blue Water by Executive Editor Tad Richards:

“Pam Rorke Levy gives us not just one absorbing narrative but two. Alternating chapters tell us the history of the dream that became Dorade, and the two young men who dreamed it in 1929 and made it a reality in 1930 as the stock market and then the country’s economy went crashing around them…The story of two young men with a dream is compelling, but it pales next to the book’s main story, of two middle aged people meeting in the wake of foundered dreams.
[…]
Much of the story of a mismatched/perfectly matched couple and their quixotic love affair with a boat thought long past its prime was played out in the Caribbean, and Dorade’s reemergence into the racing world limelight after a dormant half-century came at the 2012 Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta, the first test of their lovingly restored classic.
[…]
Dorade’s story is a miracle on blue water, and Levy’s book is a witness to history. Not to mention an improbable and engrossing love story.”

Follow the link below to read the full review!

https://caribbeancompass.com/coming-to-terms-in-sailing-and-in-life/

Another top sailor makes an appearance in Return to Blue Water. Read on for an excerpt introducing us to Greg Stewart, a regular crew on Dorade (shown steering, sitting on top of a primary winch).

Greg: “One of my favorite sections is [in Chapter 16] where Pam is describing the preparations for her and Matt’s first sail onboard DORADE after purchasing her in the fall of 2010 when they were talking with Joe Loughborough about who should come along…”


“Greg Stewart was on the top of Joe’s list. A naval architect from Southern California who had worked on Dorade under the previous owner, Greg was pushing 50, old enough to have known and worked with Olin Stephens, but looked younger, with a round face and sweet smile that always came with a bashful tilt of his head. He wore a sweat stained polo shirt with the Dorade logo on it, untucked and a little too short, khaki sailing shorts – the pockets bulging with tape measure, phone, wallet, notebook and pen – and worn flip flops; it was a uniform, we learned, that would almost never vary, no matter the weather or the occasion. He had worked with many first-time boat owners like Matt and me, many of them wealthy people – mostly men – who assumed their success in life would translate to success on the water. His manner was well practiced; patient, reassuring, unflappable.” (p67)


Greg: “...It is interesting to read this passage 15 years after Pam’s initial impressions of me. The impressions of Mike Toppa and Brad Read in this same section were equally interesting and accurate to read.”

Return to Blue Water is available at the Sailing Museum in Newport, RI. Head to the link below if you wish to purchase online instead!

https://bluewaterweb.com/product/return-to-blue-water/

When Pam Levy’s Return to Blue Water was published, we asked for reaction from Mike Toppa and Brad Read, two champion sailors who often raced Dorade with former owner Edgar Cato (steering in the 2006 Newport Classic Yacht Regatta) and even Olin Stephens (far left) on occasion. As described by Pam, they also helped introduce Matt and Pam to their new boat in 2010:

“The book is great. Besides telling the story about the latest chapter in one of sailing’s iconic and successful yachts and chronicling racing in the world’s toughest ocean races, it’s also a touching love story with Matt, Pam and Dorade as the central characters. Return to Blue Water has it all!” - Mike Toppa

“I was very pleasantly surprised how beautiful the book is. I’ve seen a lot of these types of books, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that was put together with such care. And you could see Pam in every aspect of the book.” - Brad Read

Return to Blue Water is still available at the Sailing Museum in Newport, RI. Head to the link below if you wish to purchase online instead!

https://bluewaterweb.com/product/return-to-blue-water/

Part II of Dorade’s 2012 Newport Bermuda...when the satellite connection was lost and seasickness put much of the crew in their bunks, as excerpted from Return to Blue Water:

“That night after dinner the tracker finally began showing the race in real time. Dorade seemed to be holding a steady course, her speed consistently a knot or two faster... By the following day at noon, twenty-four hours into the race, she was well in front of her class...

“On the third day... I woke up and checked my tracker... What I saw didn’t make any sense. The rest of the fleet was still barreling straight down the rhumb line to Bermuda, but overnight Dorade had made a sharp detour to the east...still going faster than most of the other boats in her class, but on a course that would add 50 or more miles to the trip... Either Jessica was chasing a good patch of current or wind farther down the course, making this a brilliant move, or Dorade was losing...in spectacular form.

“‘Has anyone heard from them?’ I texted the other wives. No one had, which meant the satellite gear had to be down, and along with it, the navigational equipment.

“As Dorade approached Bermuda that evening, the other wives and I boarded a fishing boat and motored out to the finish line... Shortly after one o’clock, two lights emerged out of the murky darkness....we could see two boats gliding across the glassy water...Dorade was fighting for position even as she approached the finish, just as she had with Olin and Rod in 1930...

“We watched in silence as the two boats inched their way to the finish line, cheering when Dorade held off the other boat to cross first.

“We waited a few minutes before motoring up to Dorade. The mood on the deck was subdued. The crew seemed shell-shocked...

“While the boat itself performed well...the satellite-dependent weather and navigation systems only worked intermittently... While the rest of the fleet had real-time weather information and access to GPS throughout the race, along with the tracker showing the current positions of the other boats in the fleet, Dorade’s crew had no real-time information at all and only their pre-race weather forecasts... They were unaware that their initial course strategy was now less than optimal...

“Dorade’s crew knew they were going fast, with an average speed close to 9 knots, much faster than they had hoped. They hadn’t seen any other boats for more than a day and assumed they were out in front of the fleet.

“They ended up fourth in class.

“When she heard the news, Jessica collapsed on the deck and wept.”

📸 Billy Black Photo & John Burnham

https://bluewaterweb.com/product/return-to-blue-water/

Earlier in December, with Dorade’s commitment to enter the Bermuda Race again, we looked back at previous races. Here’s a second 1930 Race excerpt from the new book, Return to Blue Water (Note, the photos are from Newport Bermuda 2012):

“As the little white boat hardened up on the approach to the finish, Olin spotted other boats ahead. From this point on the entire crew focused only on one objective: catching up to the boat directly ahead and passing her.

“Olin took the helm and stayed there, while Rod took charge of sail trim, calling wind puffs every few seconds, hour after hour. Sails went up and stayed up, even when the boat felt overpowered. Adrenaline became the crew’s only fuel, as everyone including the cook became human ballast, positioning themselves along the windward rail to keep the boat from heeling over too deeply.

“Olin’s focus was absolute, and Dorade followed his lead. Their target was a series of pinpricks barely visible on the horizon that slowly became recognizable, first as white sails and masts, then vessels with gleaming hulls, transoms etched with the names of boats Olin had long admired, and finally the faces of astonished crew as the little white yawl blew by them.

“One after another, Dorade passed her larger competitors – twelve in all in the final hours of the race – finishing ten seconds ahead of the leader. On corrected time she would finish in third place overall, second in Class B, and she took the trophy for best all-amateur crew. In the crew’s post-race debrief, everyone agreed that but for Olin’s navigational error, Dorade would have won overall.

“Olin and Rod couldn’t hide their disappointment. They knew Dorade was capable of better, and so were they.”

Come back tomorrow to see how Dorade’s crew navigated a similar challenge in the 2012 race. And if you haven’t ordered your copy yet, the link is below to purchase Return to Blue Water for many more stories.

https://bluewaterweb.com/product/return-to-blue-water/

Did you know that Dorade’s crew ‘navigated’ similar problems in the 2012 Bermuda race??

“Eighty-two years after Rod and Olin raced to Bermuda aboard Dorade, the 2012 Newport Bermuda Race was scheduled to be our first ocean race, starting in Newport on June 27 and heading 635 miles across the Atlantic to the island of Bermuda.

“Dorade would join a fleet of more than a hundred boats, most built in the last twenty years. She would be the oldest boat in the race. […]

“Thinking back to Olin and Rod’s experience on their first Bermuda Race, when a navigational error cost them the overall win, Matt invested heavily in expensive new navigational equipment, hiding it behind wooden panels in the navigator’s station. And he hired an experienced navigator[, Jessica Sweeney,] to fill one of the two precious spots for professional sailors. […]

“The morning of the race Matt and I arrived on the dock early to find Jessica already at the nav station. The boat was scheduled to leave the dock at 9:30, and the electronic systems still weren’t working. While we celebrated at the yacht club the night before, Jessica had gone to the 24-hour copy shop and printed out a hard copy of the boat’s routing based on the current weather forecast as a backup to the electronics. She knew the forecast would change during the coming days, but there was a chance that she would not be able to access new weather data during the race. She called our electronics contractor, Jim, but only got his voicemail. [...]

“Just as Dorade was casting off that morning, Jim finally arrived. [...] At ten minutes to Dorade’s start, Jim was still down below with Jessica while the rest of the crew stood on deck, nervously checking their watches. [...] A minute later, Jim emerged from below and we pulled up to Dorade [in the tender], grazing her white hull with the inflatable’s rubber bumper just long enough for Jim to hurdle across the gap between the two boats.” [...]

“‘Is the nav gear working?’ I asked Jim. […]

“‘Maybe.’ He flinched when he saw my look. ‘Probably.’”

As we gear up for the 2026 Bermuda Race, we can’t help but look back at her 1930 and 2012 races, and how closely those two journeys mirrored each other. Read on for an excerpt from Return to Blue Water and the 1930 race:

“The 1930 Bermuda Race was scheduled to start on June 22 in New London, Connecticut. Olin and Rod sailed with their father and a handful of college buddies […] All but two crew members aboard Dorade were first-time ocean racers. The average age was 22.

“Olin assigned himself the role of navigator, taking sightings of the sun twice each day with a handheld sextant his father had given him. The sextant was far and away the most sophisticated and delicate instrument on board, featuring a miniature telescope mounted on a precisely graduated arc, all machined by hand in polished brass. When not in use it was stored down below in a velvet-lined box, safely out of harm’s way. Without the sextant the boys would have been hard pressed to find Bermuda – a speck in the ocean they might easily sail by otherwise.

“But as they crossed the Gulf Stream, the 70-mile-wide river of wind and current bisecting the Atlantic that is every sailor’s nightmare, Olin found it more and more difficult to take his twice-daily sightings. The deck of Dorade pitched and rolled constantly, making it almost impossible for him to get an accurate fix on the sun through the sextant’s tiny sighting scope. He had done this race before on Malabar IX, a much larger boat, and he was surprised to see Dorade’s narrow deck constantly awash, one caprail or the other buried deep beneath the waves […].

“As Dorade made its way through the turbulent waters of the Gulf Stream, the sky clouded over, and Olin struggled to find the stars and sun overhead through the dense overcast and wondered how accurate his sightings would be as a result.

“It was only after four days at sea, in the final quarter of the race, that the skies cleared and Olin realized how far off course they were – on a heading many miles to the west of Bermuda.”

Just hit the shelves at Bluewater Books & Charts — Return to Blue Water by Pam Rorke Levy! 📘✨ This incredible new memoir tells the inspiring story of the legendary yacht Dorade, her historic ocean-racing legacy, and the modern restoration campaign that brought her back to glory. From racing triumphs across the Transatlantic, Newport-Bermuda, Fastnet & Transpacific courses to the personal journey of passion, partnership, and courage behind it all, this book is a must-read for sailors and maritime lovers alike.

Available now in store or online through the link in our bio! ⚓️🌊

We’re excited to announce that Dorade has been entered into the next Newport Bermuda Race, her sixth time competing in this race since she first made the attempt in 1930. Follow the link below for the full article:

“The 2026 Newport Bermuda Race fleet is shaping up to be a veritable who’s who of the sailing world! One of the most recent entries is the 1929 Sparkman & Stephens yawl, the 52-foot Dorade. From coast to coast the yacht is known as a stunning embodiment of classic design and a fierce competitor in ocean races.”

https://bermudarace.com/sailing-through-history-dorade-joins-2026-bermuda-race-fleet/

Keep an eye out this week for a retelling of the 1930 and 2012 Bermuda Races Dorade entered, excerpted from Pam Rorke Levy’s memoir Return to Blue Water. You can purchase your own copy at the Sailing Museum in Newport, RI or by following the link below.

https://bluewaterweb.com/product/return-to-blue-water/

Pam and Matt stayed true to Olin’s ethos of choosing the highest quality materials during their 2010 refit. For example, the blocks and winches were special-ordered to look the part while constructed with modern bearings and gears on the inside:

“’I want it to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing,’ Matt said. ‘Take advantage of the latest materials, the best new technology.’

“‘But have the boat look just the way it did in 1930?’ I finished his thought.

“‘Right.’

“Matt’s strategy would mean installing the most advanced electronic navigational instruments but hiding them behind wooden panels. Replacing the boat’s heavy wooden spinnaker poles with lightweight composite versions faux painted to look like wood. Using composite sails that looked like cotton. All of which required the highest level of expertise and twice as much time and money as simply restoring the boat to its original condition. And that work had to be managed remotely from San Francisco, where we both had full-time jobs.”

It may have taken more time and money than they originally anticipated, but the care and attention that Pam and Matt gave Dorade is the reason why she is still seaworthy—and competitive—today. See more of her in Return to Blue Water, which you can find through the link below.

https://bluewaterweb.com/product/return-to-blue-water/

Pam and Matt shared the same desire as Olin and Rod for Dorade to have the highest quality deck hardware and most up to date technology. How they achieved that was different! Today let’s take a peek at the brothers’ approach during the initial build.

“The boys searched yachting magazines for the latest in onboard technology. Instead of the block and tackle still in use on many sailboats, they equipped Dorade with the newest deck-mounted winches, which would help them raise and lower sails more quickly and more safely than their competitors. The deck hardware and rigging was custom made out of cast bronze, lighter than steel and less prone to failure. They carried not one but two compasses, one lit by a single battery-powered light, and a taffrail log – a spinning meter they would tow off the transom to track their distance traveled.”

Check out tomorrow’s post to see Dorade’s modern-day refit and Matt and Pam’s approach to new hardware. (And in the meantime, purchase your copy of Return to Blue Water from the link below.)

https://bluewaterweb.com/product/return-to-blue-water/