Day: August 26, 2020

Mystic Seaport Museum will present its 2020 America and the Sea Award to Tom Whidden, one of the most applauded sailors of all time, member of both the America’s Cup Hall of Fame and the National Sailing Hall of Fame, and president and CEO of North Technology Group, parent company of North Sails. The prestigious award recognizes those individuals and organizations whose extraordinary achievements in the world of maritime exploration, competition, scholarship, and design best exemplify the American character.

In announcing the honor, Mystic Seaport Museum President Steve White said, “Tom is a perfect fit for this award. Not only does he have a distinguished record as a competitive sailor, but he has also served as an important ambassador for the sport and the maritime community. For young sailors across the country and beyond, he has been a positive role model and mentor.”

Whidden will be honored for his remarkable accomplishments in competitive sailing and his leadership in the design and manufacturing of technologically advanced sails at North Sails.

“I have spent my life racing sailboats and making products that make those boats perform their best. For me to be recognized by the most prominent maritime museum in the United States, for doing what I love most, is a dream come true,” said Whidden.

Whidden’s career soared in 1979 when he joined Dennis Conner for what would become a total of eight America’s Cup campaigns, racing as tactician in five series races and winning three times: 1980, 1987 (regaining the cup after Australia’s 1983 victory), and 1988. He has won the Newport-Bermuda Race five times, and had repeated wins on the European racing circuit.

Amid his racing success, Whidden joined North Sails in 1987, building it into the largest sailmaking company in the world, and later becoming CEO and co-owner of North Technology Group. He led North Sails and North Technology Group through decades of evolution from manufacturing paneled sails in a vast network of sail lofts to the current centrally managed, technologically driven, manufacturing system.

In 2004, Whidden was elected to the America’s Cup Hall of Fame “for his brilliance as a tactical advisor, his soundness as a crew organizer, and his mastery of winning in difficult boats under the most demanding conditions.” Most recently, he was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame in 2017.

Mystic Seaport Museum will recognize Whidden’s exceptional career on and off the water by awarding him the America and the Sea Award on Friday, October 23, 2020. The award presentation, special toast to the honoree, auction, paddle raise, and special celebrity appearances will be livestreamed from the Museum beginning at 6:15 p.m. EST.

This affair is the premier fundraising event for Mystic Seaport Museum. Past recipients of the America and the Sea Award include: American businesswoman and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt; America’s Cup sailor and trailblazer Dawn Riley; philanthropist and environmentalist David Rockefeller Jr.; celebrated sailors and co-founders of J/Boats, Rod and Bob Johnstone; New York Times best-selling and National Book Award-winning author Nathaniel Philbrick; maritime industrialist Charles A. Robertson; yachtsman and author Gary Jobson; WoodenBoat Publications founder Jon Wilson; former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman; oceanographer and explorer Sylvia Earle; sailor, collector, philanthropist William I. Koch; industry leader in marine transportation and logistics services Thomas B. Crowley, Jr.; Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian David McCullough; and the most successful and admired yacht designer of the 20th century Olin J. Stephens, II.

For invitations, please email advancement@mysticseaport.org/.

The recently shared photograph of the hippocampus showing the new carousel piece that is currently exhibited in the Thompson Exhibition Building was accompanied by a 16^th century woodcut of a hippocampus. It appeared in Conrad Gessner’s 1560 Nomenclator Aquatilium Animantium (Nomenclature of Aquatic Animals), one of a number of zoological works written by the Swiss naturalist before his untimely death from the plague in 1565 at the age of 49.

Conrad Gessner was an extraordinary student, teacher, physician, bibliographer, philosopher and scientist who collected information from observation, from earlier sources and from colleagues around Europe. In addition to his many other talents, Gessner was a linguist fluent in Greek, Latin and Hebrew, teaching Greek at the University of Lausanne before getting his medical degree in Basel in his further search for scientific and natural truth. Conrad Gessner was a truly gifted scholar and compiler of information.

Because he copied illustrations from many sources, such as the earlier artist Albrecht Durer, many of his woodcut illustrations in his publications are very accurate, and yet others others are quite whimsical as they are images of fictional and fantastic beasts taken from less reliable sources. Below are just a couple of his woodcuts from his bestiary including a sperm whale gone rogue and one of a number of mermen that populated his oceans. The sea turtle is a bit more accurate to real life than the others (as far as we know!).

Gessner’s book is part of the Rare Book collection in the G.W. Blunt White Library at Mystic Seaport Museum.