(Sea Scout posting flyer, circa 1980’s, transcript)
CIRCE AA02– A GRAND TRADITION
“CIRCE was brand new and without question the finest yacht on Puget Sound. On this, my first ocean race aboard a true offshore racer, I was amazed to feel how light she was on the helm, and how easily she responded to the slightest touch. Canvas sails, wooden spars and few winches by today’s standards made for hard work for the crew. But when Circe heeled to the mounting westerly and shouldered her magnificent way through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, you knew you were aboard a true, sea-going thoroughbred”
Crew Member, Circe’s first Swiftsure Race, 1932
The Circe, the queen of sailing yachts from the golden era of Seattle and West Coast ocean racing, a veteran of the 1930’s, 40s and early 50s when the great, elegantly crafted wooden boats and the skilled derring-do of seat-of-the-pants skippers offered unprecedented challenges to a generation of adventurers.
Named for a sorceress of Greek mythology who was cured of turning careless men into swine by Ulysses and his “magic herb”, the Circe was rescued from a scrap auction in 1972 by Stanton Keck, an Annapolis graduate and former U.S. Air Force Thunderbird pilot who crewed aboard the Circe in the mid sixties and who has faithfully restored her in a labor of love and nostalgia.
The Circe’s new odyssey has been cheered on by the Puget Sound yachting fraternity who remember with awe the thrills and sleek beauty of this proud old flagship of Puget Sound yachting’s glory days of offshore regattas, Swiftsures and Trans Pacific races to Hawaii and its World War II service with the Coast Guard.
Incredibly, the Circe was designed by Ben Seaborn, a Broadway High School prodigy and youngest member of a boating and boat-building dynasty. Its construction at the Lake Union Dry Docks was supervised by Ray Cooke, a legendary yachtsman and Ben’s stepfather for whom the Circe was the fulfillment of a dream of a craft designed for ocean racing. Launched in 1932, the 63-foot Circe would replace his 42-foot schooner, the Claribel, winner of the first Swiftsure in 1930. The Circe’s 85-foot mast would be shortened to 68 feet. Its teak decking was salvaged from a Spanish-American war battleship in which it strengthened the hull against torpedo attacks.