A Look Back
Rhodes 19 At War
As a teenager I worked for a boat rental in Newport Beach, CA. around 1965-1967. At the time we had various boats, mostly O’Day’s. Day Sailors, Osprey’s and, my favorite, keel Rhodes 19s. I spent many, many hours sailing the 19s, mostly single-handed, and the windier the better. On days we deemed too windy to rent boats to the public I would jump in a boat and sail for hours, or until the wind quit!
I joined the Navy in the Spring of 1967 and spent the year and a half after training on a Navy LST, mostly in service in or near Vietnam. After that assignment I was transfered to a unit in Coronado that operated small boats for the SEAL team.
http://www.intertrader.net/ptf.htm
I was transferred to our unit in Danang, Vietnam for a six month tour. Upon arrival I noticed various recreational boats available for our use. Specifically, two ski boats and a rather poorly kept Lightning sailboat. The Lightning would have needed a lot of effort to make sailable and I never took the time to make the boat usable.
One day an officer told me to tow the Lightning to the Army base that was in charge of all the recreational materials in use there. No great loss, I took the Lightning in tow and made my way the short distance to the Army base. I tied the Lightning up and was about to leave when they stopped me. They directed me to take our “new” boat back to my base.
I was astounded when they brought out a brand new (all the rigging was still in the original packaging material!) O’Day Rhodes 19! Well, if you have to be in a war zone you might as well have cool toys! I towed the 19 back to our base with visions in my mind of me spending lots of free time sailing in the harbor at Danang. And that’s exactly what I did.
At that time I was the only person in our unit who knew how to sail. It was pretty much ‘my’ boat, and everyone knew it. Being the generous type I offered to teach anyone interested how to sail. Only a few officers took me up on my offer. http://www.intertrader.net/ptfboatsupportunitone.htm I later returned to Danang for another six month tour and the 19 was still there, looking as if it hadn’t been used since I had left. A little cleaning and tuning and it was good as new.
As a teenager I worked for a boat rental in Newport Beach, CA. around 1965-1967. At the time we had various boats, mostly O’Day’s. Day Sailors, Osprey’s and, my favorite, keel Rhodes 19s. I spent many, many hours sailing the 19s, mostly single-handed, and the windier the better. On days we deemed too windy to rent boats to the public I would jump in a boat and sail for hours, or until the wind quit!
I joined the Navy in the Spring of 1967 and spent the year and a half after training on a Navy LST, mostly in service in or near Vietnam. After that assignment I was transfered to a unit in Coronado that operated small boats for the SEAL team.
http://www.intertrader.net/ptf.htm
I was transferred to our unit in Danang, Vietnam for a six month tour. Upon arrival I noticed various recreational boats available for our use. Specifically, two ski boats and a rather poorly kept Lightning sailboat. The Lightning would have needed a lot of effort to make sailable and I never took the time to make the boat usable.
One day an officer told me to tow the Lightning to the Army base that was in charge of all the recreational materials in use there. No great loss, I took the Lightning in tow and made my way the short distance to the Army base. I tied the Lightning up and was about to leave when they stopped me. They directed me to take our “new” boat back to my base.
I was astounded when they brought out a brand new (all the rigging was still in the original packaging material!) O’Day Rhodes 19! Well, if you have to be in a war zone you might as well have cool toys! I towed the 19 back to our base with visions in my mind of me spending lots of free time sailing in the harbor at Danang. And that’s exactly what I did.
At that time I was the only person in our unit who knew how to sail. It was pretty much ‘my’ boat, and everyone knew it. Being the generous type I offered to teach anyone interested how to sail. Only a few officers took me up on my offer. http://www.intertrader.net/ptfboatsupportunitone.htm
As a teenager I worked for a boat rental in Newport Beach, CA. around 1965-1967. At the time we had various boats, mostly O’Day’s. Day Sailors, Osprey’s and, my favorite, keel Rhodes 19s. I spent many, many hours sailing the 19s, mostly single-handed, and the windier the better. On days we deemed too windy to rent boats to the public I would jump in a boat and sail for hours, or until the wind quit!
I joined the Navy in the Spring of 1967 and spent the year and a half after training on a Navy LST, mostly in service in or near Vietnam. After that assignment I was transfered to a unit in Coronado that operated small boats for the SEAL team.
http://www.intertrader.net/ptf.htm
I was transferred to our unit in Danang, Vietnam for a six month tour. Upon arrival I noticed various recreational boats available for our use. Specifically, two ski boats and a rather poorly kept Lightning sailboat. The Lightning would have needed a lot of effort to make sailable and I never took the time to make the boat usable.
One day an officer told me to tow the Lightning to the Army base that was in charge of all the recreational materials in use there. No great loss, I took the Lightning in tow and made my way the short distance to the Army base. I tied the Lightning up and was about to leave when they stopped me. They directed me to take our “new” boat back to my base.
I was astounded when they brought out a brand new (all the rigging was still in the original packaging material!) O’Day Rhodes 19! Well, if you have to be in a war zone you might as well have cool toys! I towed the 19 back to our base with visions in my mind of me spending lots of free time sailing in the harbor at Danang. And that’s exactly what I did.
At that time I was the only person in our unit who knew how to sail. It was pretty much ‘my’ boat, and everyone knew it. Being the generous type I offered to teach anyone interested how to sail. Only a few officers took me up on my offer.
http://www.intertrader.net/ptfboatsupportunitone.htm
I later returned to Danang for another six month tour and the 19 was still there, looking as if it hadn’t been used since I had left. A little cleaning and tuning and it was good as new.
So, if some day you are contacted by a Viet vet saying they thought they saw a Rhodes sailing in Danang harbor, they probably did!
I later returned to Danang for another six month tour and the 19 was still there, looking as if it hadn’t been used since I had left. A little cleaning and tuning and it was good as new.
So, if some day you are contacted by a Viet vet saying they thought they saw a Rhodes sailing in Danang harbor, they probably did!
So, if some day you are contacted by a Viet vet saying they thought they saw a Rhodes sailing in Danang harbor, they probably did!
–Contributed by Alan Sandoval
Historical Marketing
Here are some scans of an old (1940’s) Brochure found in the Edgartown Yacht Club’s files. This might be a nice addition to your history section of the Web site. The Fiberglass molds for the boat were supposedly taken from one of these cold molded hulls. I think there were about 30 of the cold molded boats made before Marscot (Mark Scott of Palmer Scott) started making fiberglass versions. I’m still trying to find out how many of those Marscot boats were made before O’Day took over. There are several here on Martha’s Vineyard, some occasionally show up to race.
Yours, Roger Becker, Fleet Captain, Edgartown.
