I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13
I visited your web site and read some the stories of some of the "long term" Owners of Morgans, both your custom and production designs.
Here, for Morgan Yacht Club viewers, is the story of how my family bought and has owned for nearly forty years “Bufflehead” our 1968,
Morgan 30.
I come from a family where the salt water has coursed quite freely through the veins for many generations on both sides. As a young boy, the youngest of five kids, our family vessel was a 24’wooden sloop named “Jabberwock,” She was a member of a six boat fleet designed and built for a transatlantic race some time in the thirties. My memory is although not designed by Starling Burgess; all were built at his yard in Marblehead. I know nothing of the race or if it ever happened. All the six were named for characters from “Alice in Wonderland.” The “March Hare” also called Marblehead home for many years. She had a rounded flush deck more suited to oceangoing than “Jabberwock’s” statelier trunk cabin. “Jabberwock” was a good boat, sturdy, handsome, slow and small. The whole family loved her. “Jab” ate seven, sailed five and slept two, on ample, damp, salon berths.
February 15th,
The day after Saint Valentine's, day marks the sixth year since our "Sweet Sally" Morgan passed on leaving her family, husband her puppy "Sable" and a host of lifelong friends and especially so many Morgan folks with whom she had been in contact over the years;
Sally came to St. Petersburg from her home town of Fairhope, Alabama around 1962.
She joined the St. Pete Thistle class fleet skippering her own boat. Soon her organizational talents and strengths were discovered and she was conscripted into the thankless task of fleet secretary keeping fleet activities hopping.
Later, around the time the Morgan Yacht Corporation was getting under way, she sought a job with Morgan, about the time we moved into the first Morgan factory, literally taking my partner Bruce Bidwell and me "to raise", as that old saying goes. What a difference she made - Bruce and I, and all of the early team, had our heads under water most of the time but her long hours and dedicated efforts helped, in a crucial way, to get all of it done.
Our earliest Owners were all like family to Sally as were all who called or stopped in as time went on.
Today so many of Morgan owners who knew her always mention her warm and engaging ways to me. Of course all of us who knew her, especially those who worked with her while we were building the company, as do so many Morgan Owners who were greeted by her warm southern accent when calling on some point or another remember her laughter.
Sally was the originator and the first editor of "In The Wind" Morgan Yacht's original newsletter. Years later after we had all retired from the company and Sally had married Charley Morgan, she remained the perennial contact and interface between Charley, Bruce and the host of Owners.
It was then that Sally conceived and inaugurated publishing the The Morgan Chantyman for the purpose of helping keep all Morgan Owners around the world stay in touch with each other and with me, Bruce and others of our original band, - who were still around.
The Chantyman was an immediate success and loved by all. Publishing on a regular basis was quite a task for Sally as she then had her own Yacht Brokerage business to run. As the World Wide Web emerged as the best method for newsletter communication Sally felt it was time to discontinue publishing The Chantyman as a hard copy periodical and planned to introduce it again over the Internet; as it happened she contracted lung cancer and lost her life to it.
So in honor of Sally Morgan's long devotion to Morgan Yacht Corp., Morgan Owners and Morgan Aficionados everywhere; a small cadre of Morgan enthusiasts offer once again, via the World Wide Web, The Morgan Chantyman.- Charley Morgan, ed.
It was a collaborative effort between Charley Morgan and Charlie Hunt that the two dreamer, shipmate, sailing buddies conjured up and built their design of BRISOTE, ... the 32', plywood, "mix & match", yawl that won her way into history and offshore racing during 1957, ... winning silver in the famous ocean race from St. Petersburg, Fl to the finish line at El MORO Castle at Havana, Cuba. BRISOTE'S winning ways effectively launched the yacht designing careers of the two young men and, ... the eventual founding of The MORGAN YACHT Corporation.
Here, BRISOTE is shown stretching her legs on her very first
sail as she streaks, just in time, to the start of the 1957 race
to Cuba finishing at the fabled, El Moro Light at the entrance to Havana's Harbor.
Follow this link to Morgan Custom Classics for more on BRISOTE,
Watch the CHANTYMAN for a feature story about BRISOTE the impudent little yawl that set events leading to Charley Morgan's
design of PAPER TIGER and founding Morgan Yacht Corporation.
The first Morgan "production" model was the M-34 being launched in late August, 1965. RUTHLESS, won her first race on Labor Day that year with company founders Bruce Bidwell and Charley Morgan in charge. RUTHLESS went on to win many offshore races establishing the Morgan Yacht line as winning cruiser racers of the day.