At the Association Annual Dinner in January 2024, Rolph "Towney" Townshend offered this toast to celebrate the beginning of the Associations's 60th Anniversary year.
We are here to celebrate the 60th birthday of the Chesapeake Bay Alberg 30 Association! 60 YEARS! Who would have ever believed that this day would occur? I was there when it all began. I was born and raised in Chestertown and in our childhood we sailed and raced Hampton One Design boats — 18 feet long with a jib and main. The boats were built of wood in Hampton, Virginia. We had many of them in Chestertown and many more in Annapolis, St. Michaels, and all around the bay.
Jack Martin, a native of Annapolis, also raced Hamptons, and won many of the races. Another big winner was Sonny Smith. the two of them were national champions. Since I raced Hamptons, I got to know those two plus many more Hampton sailors. Hamptons were the largest one design class in Annapolis.
When I graduated from Washington College in 1951, I was fortunate to see an ad in the papar for engineers at a new, just starting, plant in Baltimore — Westinghouse, formed to design and build radar systems. I applied, was interviewed and hired as an engineer, even though I had no engineering degree. My degree is in physics. So my wife and I moved to Annapolis and I began work at Westinghouse at the BWI Airport. We brought our Hampton with us and I raced there with the Annapolis fleet and got to know Jack Martin and his wife Nina as best friends. Soon after that the two families delivered our first children and our wives could not crew on the Hamptons — they stayed home to care for the children. Jack and I raced our Hamptons with other crew members.
In the early 1960s our children were getting to be teenagers and Jack and I talked often about getting a larger boat that could hold our families in the races and cruises. It was in the summer of 1964 that an Alberg 30 was delivered to the Arnie Gay Yacht Yard in Annapolis. Jack saw the boat on a trailer and called me at work asking if I could join him about 5:30 to check out the boat. I met him there and we spent about an hour going over the A30. It was just what we needed; so we went into Arnie's office and met with him and his sales manager. We talked about a half hour and ended our conversation signing a contract for 10 A30s! $100,000! We didn't have enough money to buy 1 A30, but we bought 10!
Well, it took us just 12 days to sell the 8 extra boats that we had bought. All of the racers in Annapolis were eager to help us start a new one-design fleet. We took over the AYC dock and filled it with A30S. It was about that time that the AYC Wednesday Night Races began and the A30s were a big part of the first race. Jack was Commodore of AYC at that point; so we got lots of advertisements for owning A30s. It was amazing to see it all grow so fast. we were contacted by a group of A30 owners in Washington, DC and they joined our fleet. We had our bylaws created by an A30 owner who was a lawyer and we elected officers. Jack was the first Commodore and I was his Secretary. I was responsible for spreading the word that we had a rapidly growing 30 foot fleet of fibreglass racing/cruising yachts in Annapolis selling for $10,000. It wasn't long before we had 35 or more A30s on the starting lines. It was an amazing and wonderful time!
Meanwhile, I decided to try to get the $10k cost of my A30 eased by renting the boat at the times when there were no races or cruises. I put a little ad in the new york times and was soon flooded with people who wanted to rent the boat. Long story short, it took just 3 years to cover the $10k and by the time I stopped the renting I had made just over $30K! Wow! The A30 was also a good investment!
So that is how it all began. Here we are 60 years later — the club is still functioning well and we are still enjoying the boats. Other, more modern classes have taken over the largest classes, but the A30s, that started it all, are still out there and active, though now in a limited number compared to the beginning.
A toast to the A30 class and its 60 year birthday!!
Happy 60th birthday to the A30 class in Annapolis. Keep your boats in good shape, keep them in Annapolis and the A30 club will go on and on into the future!!!
