The “Lucie”, a 6-metre sloop named for Lucie Bedford Cunningham.
Lucie is the last six meter designed by Clinton Crane in 1930, and arguably his best. Lucie was built to the International 6 Metre Rule: Second Metre Rule. She was built in Nevin’s Yard on City Island in New York in 1931, for the noted sportsman Briggs Cunningham, and named after his first wife, Lucie Bedford Cunningham Warren. Lucie was named to three successive British-American Cup teams, her last in 1936. She is the only Crane design to stay in major competition after WWII. In addition to campaigning Lucie, Briggs Cunningham also won both the Prince Edward VII Gold Cup, the so-called “Bermuda Gold Cup”, and the Scandinavian Gold Cup in 1937 with US 72 Lulu. Among his many other feats, Mr Cunningham also won the America’s Cup in 1958 on the 12 meter Columbia.
She often beat newer designs on the Great Lakes in the 50’s, such as US 81 Goose and US 87 MaybeVII, while named ‘Stork’. An interesting anecdote about her comes from Barbara Castle Poole von Schilcher: “The ‘Stork’ was originally the ‘Lucie’, but the first year my grandfather (Wilmot Vail ‘Rooney’ Castle) had her, 1940, all of the guys who crewed in the forward cockpit became fathers, so he renamed her ‘Stork’ … I was the first of those forward cockpit babies.”
Read the full article with imagery at http://www.briggscunningham.com/home/cunningham-sailing/
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