George Harding Cuthbertson
He was the second son of Elma Charlotte (née Ferguson), and Allan Edward Cuthbertson, who was general manager and later president of Harding Carpets, which operated a factory in Brantford.
In the shadow of post-war economic gloom, outings seemed to be restricted to Saturdays on the part of the men of the household, with a few women joining in.
The circle of potential clients and associates was relatively small, and Cuthbertson made many key connections as the Royal Canadian Yacht Club's official measurer, a post he assumed at 17.
The job put him in touch with many individuals important to his future, and lent him first-hand experience with the shapes and dimensions of the Great Lakes' faster yachts.
[5] In 1951, he formed a registered partnership with Peter Davidson, a young man also active in sailing at the RCYC, for the purpose of producing products in an experimental new material called fibreglass.
The series was to be sailed, as in the previous outing, in 8-Metres, and Royal Canadian Yacht Club member Norm Walsh hired Cuthbertson to secure a proven 8-Metre and draw up its alterations.
After losing the opening race of the match series, Walsh's Venture II, with Cuthbertson and Davidson aboard, won three straight to bring the Canada's Cup to its native land for the first time since 1903.
[6] Inishfree was George Cuthbertson's first design of consequence and she was built in Meaford, Ontario by Cliff Richardson Boat Works.
Inishfree was launched in August, 1958 and sailed from Georgian Bay to Toronto in time to score her first win – the Edward Prince of Wales Cup.
One, named Carousel was ordered as a bare hull by a boyhood friend of Cuthbertson's from sailing days in Port Credit, who had since become Peter Davidson's brother-in-law.
[8]Among the more notable Cuthbertson & Cassian products from the early 1960s were Vanadis, a 34-footer built of steel in Germany for Payson Mayhew of Chicago in 1960, Galatia for Tony Ronza, Sr., Laura for Doug Hood, Courtesan for John Young of Shelter Island, NY, Inferno I for Jim McHugh, La Mouette and Thermopylae for Gordon Fisher, and the little motorsailor Pipe Dream for Sonny Slemin.
[1] When Payson Mayhew's Vanadis attended the 1961 Southern Ocean Racing Conference (SORC), Cuthbertson was part of her crew.
His appearance may have heen the first modern day participation by a Canadian in the circuit, and the experience introduced him to many people who would be influential in the development of C&C.
[6] The 38-foot La Mouette was a wooden design built at Metro Marine in Bronte for Gord Fisher of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, which led to a semi-production series.
Erich Bruckmann, who would later be one of the founding partners of C&C Yachts, had been shop supervisor at Metro Marine when La Mouette was built.
[6] Cuthbertson & Cassian's first commission for a fibreglass design came from Hinterhoeller Limited, a rapidly growing firm in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.
Red Jacket is considered to be the first sailboat engineered with a cored hull (other earlier boats had balsacored decks, and powerboat builders were using it in transoms and superstructures).
[6] In 1970, Murray Burt wrote for Maclean's: There are series of offshore-racing events in Long Island Sound, there's the celebrated Bermuda race, there are campaigns off British Columbia, there's the transpacific from Los Angeles to Honolulu, and there are at least a dozen other important offshore conferences.
But, each year, the first one to grab the attention of the industry, and of the fans with the sort of scratch actually to buy one of these craft, is the Southern Ocean Racing Conference.
This is where all the previous months’ drawing-board sweating over prismatic coefficients, wetted surfaces, ratios of sail plans, and overlap, either pays off or flops in a horrible way.
C&C's custom shop, Bruckmann Manufacturing of Oakville, Ontario, built the three Canadian defenders, one of which, Manitou, beat the Sparkman and Stephens-designed Niagara.
Last September, in the very pricey competition for the ancient Canada's Cup, Manitou knocked out the American yacht Niagara in three consecutive races.
Both yachts had been designed specifically for the Canada's Cup series and, in view of the competition, Cuthbertson and Cassian might be forgiven if Manitou's unequivocal triumph gave them a few sweet moments of gloating.
[2] The C&C designs that came off Cuthbertson's drawing board in the early 70s for production building at the Niagara-on-the-Lake plant of George Hinterhoeller are legendary and include the C&C 25, 27, 30, 35, and 39.
The Custom Shop under Erich Bruckmann built such Cuthbertson & Cassian designed classics as the Redline 41, C&C 43, C&C 50, and the remarkable C&C 61.
[1] The custom yachts that came off Cuthbertson's board in this time period further consolidated Cuthbertson's and C&C's reputation on the race course under the CCA rule, and included the 53’ Inferno II for Jim McHugh, the 54’ Bonaventure V for Bernie Herman, True North for the 1969 Canada's Cup, and Mirage and Merrythought for the unsuccessful 1971 defence of Canada's Cup, both of which would go on to achieve great offshore racing success under Gerry Moog and Jack King.
[1] After the introduction of the IOR Rule in the early 1970s, the sailing world changed dramatically with the rise of a whole new cohort of young designers.
This, combined with the increased demands of running what was becoming a large multi-national public company answerable to a Board of Directors, led Cuthbertson to hand the design responsibilities to Robert Ball in 1973.
[1][14] The Marine Museum of the Great Lakes has in its archives the early original C&C design and construction drawings, a retirement donation by Cuthbertson of his papers.
Socery had amassed a trophy case of victories in 1971 for owner James Baldwin of Locust Valley, N.Y., and Cuthbertson felt the fame of this design has been largely overlooked in Canada because none of the 61s ever sailed in "local" waters.
