victura sailboat

JFK and Victura

President John F. Kennedy’s beloved sailboat Victura (Latin for “about to conquer”) is a 25-foot Wianno Senior sloop purchased in 1932 as a 15th birthday gift from his parents. It is on the Victura that he taught his wife Jackie to sail and also where the Kennedy family enjoyed their love of sailing on Cape Cod.

John F. Kennedy was an avid sailor, having won many sailing events – including the Nantucket Sound Star Class Championship Cup in 1936, and the MacMillan Cup and East Coast Collegiate Championships in 1938 (with his brother Joe). He enjoyed many boats throughout his life, including a 92-foot wooden presidential yacht that served five presidents and the same yacht that he renamed the Honey Fitz after his maternal grandfather. However, it was the Victura that was JFK’s cherished boat and the very boat that he sketched on many of his documents in meetings during his presidency.

The Victura was struck by lightning in 1936 and rescued from ruin by John F. Kennedy as he dragged it onto a beach during a 1944 hurricane. The Victura also escaped ruin in December 2003 when a fire swept through Crosby Yacht Yard in Osterville, Massachusetts.

Boat LOA: 26 Feet Boat Width: 8 Feet Boat Weight: 3500 lb Boat Material: Wood Boat Builder: Crosby Yacht Yard in Osterville, MA Boat Launched: 1932 Look for a model of the Victura during your visit to the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum!

The Founding 14 – The Legacy of the Wianno Senior

In 1913, governed by Fritz P. Day, fourteen members of the Wianno Yacht Club, in Osterville, Massachusetts, commissioned the Crosby Yacht Yard to design and build a small fast yacht capable of sailing and racing in the choppy-shoal-ridden sailing grounds of Cape Cod’s South Shore.

Fourteen Wianno Seniors were built and delivered in the spring of 1914. Of the initial 14, three have survived and their specifications and whereabouts are as follows:

Wianno Senior Specifications: LOA: 25′ / 7.62m – LWL: 17.6′ / 5.36m – Beam: 8′ / 2.44m – Sail Area: 366 sq ft / 34 m2 – Draft Board Up: 5.5′ / 1.68m – Draft Board Down: 2.5′ / .76m – Displacement: 4,100 lbs / 1,860 kgs – Ballast: 1,200 lbs / 544 kgs – Designer: H. Manley Crosby – Builder: Crosby Yacht Building and Storage Co. (USA) – First Built: 1914 – Contract Cost: $600.00

Original 14:

1. “Fiddler” , 2. “Wendy” , 3. “Telemark” , 4. “A.P.H.” A.P. Halliday, 5. “Commy” , 6. “Snookums” , 7. “Patsy” , 8. “Sea Dog” , 9. “Marie” , 10. “Qui Vive” , 11. “Fantasy” James G. Hinkle, 12. “Whistle Wing” , 13. “Maxixe” , and 14. “Ethyl”

Existing 3:

Number 7 “Tirza” – Richard A & Mary Lotuff Feeney (Half Centerboard) Osterville Massachusetts. Number 10 “Sea Wings” – M. Christopher Mattoon & Ed Stockman (Half Centerboard) Dalton, Massachusetts. Number 11 “Fantasy” – is in the collections of Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut.

Two boat yards are still building Wianno Seniors. Crosby Yacht Yard, Inc. in Osterville, Massachusetts, and Shaw Yacht, Inc, in Thomaston, Maine. About 200 Wianno Seniors have been built. Hull numbers through 173 were wooden boats; subsequent boats are being built of fiberglass. Hull number 222 was launched in 2011 by Crosby Yacht. Several hull numbers were omitted in the sequence.

Hull Number 94:

In 1932 Hull number 94, was purchased by Joe and Rose Kennedy as a  present for their son Jack’s fifteenth birthday. The “Victura” would become the Kennedy Family’s favorite boat. With a draft of 2.5 feet, with the centerboard up, the Wiannos could easily sail over most shoats, but still had to be sailed with caution around Nantucket Sounds shallowest spot Horseshoe Shoals at 6″

With a graceful low shear the Wianno Seniors were very “wet” boats. Racing the Wianno meant never finishing a race in dry clothes. Former Iowa Sen. John Culver, Harvard classmate of Wianno sailor Ted Kennedy, so eloquently and humorously describes his first sail over to Nantucket on “Victura” ( discussion on Wianno experience starts two and a half minutes into the video)

Osterville Historical Museum’s executive director Jennifer Williams commented during the Wianno classes 100th anniversary. The Wiannos were commissioned by some of the pillars of industry that made Osterville their summer home. The boat “leveled the playing field for sailing” and “changed the face of racing” on Nantucket Sound.

Victura , the beloved sailboat that taught the Kennedy’s about life, family, leadership and winning.

James W. Graham’s new book — Victura: the Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea — offers new insights into the dynamics and magic of the Kennedy family and their intense relationship with sailing and the sea. Many families sail together, but the Kennedys’ relationship with Victura , the 25-foot sloop purchased in 1932 shortly after the family’s move to Hyannis Port, stands apart.

In Victura , James W. Graham charts the progress of America’s signature twentieth century family dynasty, in a narrative both stunningly original and deeply gripping. This true tale of one small sailboat is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the impressive story of the Kennedy’s.

References:

James W. Graham –  Website – Author of Victura: the Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea. – A communications and public affairs professional for a major-brand retailer, was a senior adviser to former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar and the Illinois House of Representatives. He races and cruises his sailboat Venturous out of Wilmette Harbor, north of Chicago.

Osterville Historical Museum – Executive Director Jennifer Williams

The Barnstable Patriot – Reporter Susan Vaughn

Photo Credit: Bob Schutz, July 30, 1961.

Photo/Video Credit: JFK Presidential Library and Museum

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Book Review: Victura: The Kennedys, A Sailboat, and the Sea

The lives of President John F. Kennedy and his storied family have been dissected, one would have thought, from every angle possible. But now comes the story of their enchantment with sailboats. As an avid sailor, this approach piqued my interest as none of the other myriad of tell-all stories of American’s “Camelot” had ever done. Author and Kennedy family friend James W. Graham focuses his tale on the Wianno Senior a 25-foot (7.6 m) gaff-rigged sloop that seems to be raced only on Nantucket Sound by four Cape Cod yacht clubs. JFK was, according to the tale, given a Senior at age 15 and it was named Victura, which means “about to live” or “about to conquer.”

The book starts out, as many Kennedy biographies do, with the last days of the doomed president. But it focuses on a doodle the president made on the stationary of the Rice Hotel in Houston, where he and his wife Jacqueline stayed the night before his assassination in Dallas. On a piece of paper found later by the cleaning staff was a little sketch of a sailboat.

The Kennedys love of sailing

It’s a novel way to approach the story of the Kennedy family, and I was anxious to see how the story of their love for the sea wound through the historic highs and lows of the Kennedy epic. We learn a number of things about the family and their relationship to the sea, mostly about their family compound at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. We’re reminded the Kennedys were ambitious, competitive and hated to lose at anything, especially sailing. This was something they learned from the patriarch of the family, Joseph P. Kennedy, who would chide his children, or just plain not talk to them, after a loss in a sailing race. We learned that, to the Kennedys, sailing was a ritual to prove their place in the family, and fight for a place in the pecking order. Sailboats were a place for courting and building an image as America’s first family of a new generation of politicians in the tumultuous middle of the last century.

Many of the iconic stories and images of the Kennedys concern boats and water. The most powerful, of course, is the story of JFK surviving the sinking of the PT109 in the South Pacific during World War II; another is the picture of JFK and Jacqueline on Victura during their courtship (pictured above, on the cover of the book). This tale is at its best when it sticks to the boats and the lives of the Kennedys when they return to Hyannis Port to sail together as a way to celebrate or mourn, which they did in spades.

The book drags a bit when it wanders too far from the sea, trying to weave in the major issues and crises of JFK’s presidency, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cold War, and other historical and political challenges faced by JFK and his brothers. It’s clear that returning to Hyannis Port to sail was one way the Kennedys decompressed from their extraordinary public lives. The sections on the presidency don’t add to what is already known, and make the real core of the story — a family’s love for the sea — seem small and, except to a sailor, slightly inconsequential in perspective.

This book confirms much of what we have come to know about the Kennedy family: they live lives not like the rest of us. But it also showed that they shared something core to most sailors: the knowledge that roiling tides, battering winds and the challenges of flapping sails and flying sheets are both a salve for despair and a powerful way to feel the joys of victory. Whether you are a sailor or fan of John F. Kennedy, you might enjoy the book Victura: The Kennedys, a Sailboat and the Sea by author James W. Graham.

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Victura: The Kennedys, A Sailboat, and the Sea

This is a guest post written by Spencer A. Sherman. Spencer last wrote about Houseboating on Lake Oroville .

3 thoughts on “Book Review: Victura: The Kennedys, A Sailboat, and the Sea”

Interesting details… hm, it seems to be a good book.

This past December we visited the JFK Memorial Museum in Dallas and in January we visited the LBJ Texas White House – two lives definitely connected. Fascinating stories, both of them. I think there is so much that is only known to insiders. Looks to be an interesting book about an infamous family.

@Patti I lived in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1983 and was keenly aware that the Kennedy family had a large presence in Boston. With tragedy and triumph, this family has made its mark on history in the United States.

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Victura: The Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea Hardcover – April 1, 2014

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Print length 265 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Foredge
• Publication date April 1, 2014
• Dimensions 6 x 1 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 1611684110
• ISBN-13 978-1611684117
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About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Foredge; Complete Numbers Starting with 1, 1st Ed edition (April 1, 2014)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 265 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1611684110
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1611684117
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.35 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 9 inches
• #1,638 in Sailing (Books)
• #11,186 in Political Leader Biographies
• #18,180 in United States Biographies

About the author

James w. graham.

James W. Graham worked for some of Illinois' highest-ranking elected officials, including former Governor Jim Edgar, and also has been a public affairs consultant to major corporations and industry associations. History and sailing are passionate interests that came together in the writing of Victura: the Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea.

He has sailed and raced small sailboats on Lake Michigan for 20 years, the last five on the 24-foot sloop Venturous.

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Author Discusses Kennedy Family's Tradition Of Sailing The Victura

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• Shannon Dooling

Ever since the opening of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in 1979, the Kennedy family sailboat Victura returns each May, remaining on display through the summer and fall.

The crew from Crosby Yacht Yard in Osterville, where the boat is stored each winter, erects the 25-foot wooden sloop on a stretch of grass facing the Boston Harbor, careful to set the boat on a tilt, as if it were sailing into the wind.

In his new book, "Victura: The Kennedys, A Sailboat, And The Sea," author James Graham dives into the Kennedy family's relationship with sailing, and the role this handcrafted sailboat plays in their legacy.

"You know, I look at [the Victura] and I see brothers and sisters and cousins having fun together, learning to sail together, passing that heritage down from one to the next, and I just see a family," Graham told WBUR.

Here are highlights from Graham's interview with Morning Edition host Bob Oakes:

On the Kennedy family sailing heritage

One aspect of the story I tell is the fostering and development of the Kennedy brand and it really started as early as the mid-1930s, when Joe Kennedy was just emerging as a political figure and invited news media to come and photograph his children on sailboats. Even the 1934 Boston Globe had a photo of Jack and Bobby on the bow of the Victura. And of course, that famous photo in 1953 on the cover of LIFE magazine with a young Sen. Jack Kennedy and his fiance, Jacqueline. That boat is so inextricably tied to the family image.

On John F. Kennedy's relationship with sailing

There are numerous little doodles that he drew of sailboats and sailboats that look just like the Victura. Even the evening before he died in Texas he left a doodle of a sailboat in his hotel room.

That image, it's a touching aspect of the life of John F. Kennedy that even in these trying times, like the Cuban missile crisis, you'd see doodles of a sailboat as though he were trying to mentally transport himself away from the trouble of the day, back to the joys of sailing and the sea.

On the love of sail races

Coming in second was never good enough. And there is kind of a constant theme throughout their lives, stories of coming from behind. And that really, I think, was a life lesson for them. They learned from sailing that you could be several lengths behind in a race and still catch up and win a race. Certainly in politics, that's a valuable lesson to learn early.

On Ted Kennedy's love of the Victura

He loved sailing it from his own childhood. There's a story of his older brother Joe Junior sailing with him when Ted was very young. Joe was frustrated with Teddy's lack of knowledge of sailing and picked him up and threw him in the water. And then Joe Junior jumped in after him and retrieved him. But despite that early experience, he loved the sport.

After John and Robert Kennedy died, Ted certainly must have felt that sailing the Victura and other boats was a great way to reconnect with his nephews and nieces who were then fatherless. I think Ted, too, particularly after his brother Robert was assassinated, easy to imagine how shocking that moment must have been, and to just collect his thoughts he would go off and sail at night by himself. And I think that even when you're the president or you're a senator, like Ted Kennedy was, and tragic incidences occur, that going out to sea helps put it all back into perspective.

• More Photos: The Kennedys' Love Affair With The Sea And The Sailboat 'Victura'
• WBUR Series: November 1963: Remembering JFK

Bob Oakes Senior Correspondent Bob Oakes was a senior correspondent in the WBUR newsroom, a role he took on in 2021 after nearly three decades hosting WBUR's Morning Edition.

Shannon Dooling Investigative Reporter Shannon Dooling was an investigative reporter at WBUR, focused on stories about immigration and criminal justice.

More from WBUR

Victura, The Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea

An Interview with The Immigrant Magazine & Author, James W. Graham

The author, left, aboard Glide with Ethel,, Ted Jr., Max, Sheila, Kiki and Chris Kennedy, and a family friend. Photo by crewman. August 6, 2012.

Victura, the beloved sailboat that taught the Kennedys about life, family, leadership and winning


The Immigrant Experience , Book Review

James W. Graham’s new book —  Victura: the Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea  — offers new insights into the dynamics and magic of the Kennedy family and their intense relationship with sailing and the sea. Many families sail together, but the Kennedys’ relationship with  Victura , the 25-foot sloop purchased in 1932 shortly after the family’s move to Hyannis Port, stands apart.

In an interview with The Immigrant Magazine, Author, James W. Graham shares his amazing relationship with the Kennedys and explores how their lives were not always centered on politics alone but equally how a simple family tradition of sailing would pave the way for a rich family heritage spanning generations.

The Daily Boston Globe’s caption: “Bob advises his brother John how to bend the jib of the Victura.” Photo courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Library, July 1934.

• Who is James W. Graham and what is your immigrant heritage?

Professionally I help people, politicians, businesses and others communicate more effectively and form closer, friendlier relationships. In short it is public relations, but I hope it is more than that. I’m dedicated full-time now to a major-brand retailer and health care provider, and it is a wonderful company. In my down time I cruise around near-shore on Lake Michigan on our family sailboat Venturous out of Wilmette Harbor, north of Chicago.

My great-grandfather on my father’s side came over from Ireland in a 19th Century year unknown. My great-great-grandparents on my mother’s side came over from England in 1836. During the 19th Century, my parent’s forbearers all eventually settled in Joliet, Illinois, the city of my baby-boomer birth. An exception to this narrative is my grandmother on my mother’s side who came to America from England in the 1600s, so unless you are a Native American, her story doesn’t contribute much to the more modern story of America as a nation of immigrants.

• Do you have an immigrant culture and how do you think your heritage shapes the way you perceive and relate with immigrants today?

Robert F. Kennedy steers Victura with plenty of helpers. No youngster was turned away, no matter the boat’s crew capacity. AP Photo/Bob Schutz, July 30, 1961.

I grew up always thinking of myself as having Irish roots, though that was wrong since it pays no homage to my mother’s English heritage. I attended Catholic schools from kindergarten to grade 12 and my classmates all were a wonderful mix of Irish, Italian, Polish and other European origins.

At a very young age of about five one of my best friends was a neighbor who did not attend my Catholic School. His name was Jeffrey Nichols and I remembered having a tortured conversation with him in which I held that Santa Claus was real and he argued otherwise. Years later it occurred to me he must have been Jewish.

• What prompted you to write this book?

I visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum some 20 years ago and saw the sailboat  Victura  displayed, as it still is today from May to November, on the lawn outside. I loved that boat and wished I could have one like it.

In 2009, Ted Kennedy died and I happened to take the time to listen to several of the eulogies given, from President Obama on down to old friends and relatives. I was struck that no fewer than four of the eulogists chose to capture the essence of the man by telling of their personal experiences sailing with him on the  Victura . I realized then there was a story to be told about a simple, small sailboat that meant something deep and meaningful to an entire epic family over multiple generations.

As I looked further, I was delighted to find a rich story that offered a unique lens on one of America’s greatest families, one never previously focused in quite my way. It started with their challenges as Irish Catholics in Boston, where they struggled to gain social acceptance, and continued to today where acceptance is more than established and sailing boats just like  Victura  is still a passionate interest.

Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt steadied himself on Victura’s bow to capture 8-year-old Ted (forward) and, from left, Jean, Rose, Joe, Bobby, Patricia and Euncice. Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images, 1940.

•  What was the Kennedy fascination with sailing and how did this tie into their family dynamic?

The family bought a house on the south shore of Cape Cod in the mid-1920s and the children of Joe and Rose Kennedy quickly took to sailing because so many families did at that time and place. Competitiveness was in their DNA and taught by their parents. There was no coming in second in their father’s view, and they adored their father. That shared experience of the sons and daughters of Joe and Rose, all that time spent together racing or just cruising, formed bonds that were never severed.

In 1963, when the three brothers were President, Attorney General and U. S. Senator, three of their sisters decided that what their brothers really wanted for Christmas was paintings of themselves and their wives sailing the  Victura . They commissioned an artist to make three such paintings. That’s how much that little boat meant.

• Why the title,  Victura ?

John F. Kennedy at age 15 was given the opportunity to name the boat. Latin was not his best subject in school, where he studied it. But he chose an excellent name because  Victura  means, in Latin, “about to conquer.” What a great name for a racing boat.

• The history of the Kennedy sailing repertoire goes as far back as their migration to the USA from Ireland. Do you think this makes them relatable to the average migrant experience?

Victura  was a boat made for “one-design” racing, where competitors all sail the same boat with the same shape, specifications and sails. One-design racing started in Ireland about 50 years before the Kennedys acquired  Victura . Ireland being an island, a love of sailing and the sea is something surely handed down from generations before.

Chris Kennedy, a son of Robert and Ethel, was sailing once with his children and he leaned next to one of them and pointed to a lighthouse. He said if you draw a line from here to that lighthouse, then continue that line in the same direction, you’ll get to Ireland. What immigrant family does not seek to create connections like that?

• This book dwells on an aspect of the lifestyle of one of the most politically prominent and beloved families in American history that many are not familiar with, do you think this adds anything or influences in any way the legacy of the Kennedys?

I hope this story of the Kennedys and their shared experiences by the sea and as sailors helps us understand better how they became such a strong family. The children of Joe and Rose collectively accomplished amazing things, and not just the boys. Think how Eunice successfully dedicated her life to redefining how we think about and embrace in society people with disabilities. She claimed she was the best sailor of all the boys and girls of that generation. So somehow the seaside and sailing lifestyle must have helped yield something magical and exceptional.

• What is your relationship with the Kennedy family and have they read the book? What has been the reception?

After I started the book I asked Chris Kennedy if I could interview him. He not only agreed and shared wonderful stories, he introduced me to members of his family and invited me to sail on a boat just like  Victura  out at Hyannis Port. I had a wonderful opportunity to also sail on another boat with other members of the family, including his extraordinary mother Ethel.

I don’t know about every member of the Kennedy family, but Chris read it and recently came to one of my book-signings, where he and I spoke about the book before a small audience. He was most complimentary and I’m deeply appreciative of that.

• Sailing seemed to be a spark of the competitive yet generous spirit that they shared as a family. Where does sailing rank with the new generation of Kennedys today?

I vividly remember showing up at a Kennedy household at Hyannis Port and seeing first-hand how the great-grandchildren of Joe and Rose Kennedy are being introduced to sailing and taking to it with enthusiasm. I saw a Kennedy girl of about 10 learning how to properly fold a sail. I met another one of about 18 or 19 who had recently skippered a Wianno-Senior-class sailboat like  Victura  all the way to Nantucket, an island you can’t even see from Hyannis Port, 35 miles away.

An important message of my book is the role of shared experiences like sailing in the strengthening of families.

• In sailing with them what was your perception of them as a family and what this meant to them?

They sail together every day if they can, during their times at Hyannis Port. It is so much a part of their shared experience and a thing they know nurtures their relationships and strengthens their family. They clearly love their time together and the opportunity to converse without interruption about things. I think I saw one member of the family walk forward to take a call on his cellphone but no one else did.

They love passing on skills as sailors to siblings and children. They know it is one thing that keeps them “grounded,” if you can use that word about a boat.

President Kennedy had a plaque on his oval office desk that said, “Oh God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.” For all of them, sailing puts so much of life into proper perspective.

The book might appear to be about a little sailboat, but it is really a book about family, and I hope it helps us all better understand how we might make our own families stronger. I hope it changes our perception of the Kennedys by making us understand better how they became such a strong family, still to this day supporting one another through triumph and tragedy, historic achievement and personal shortcoming. They are a close family with all the challenges any family faces. We can all benefit from finding shared experience – whether it is sailing or fly fishing or checkers – to bind ourselves to one another. We as families should all find our own  Victura.

Victura  is available in hardcover and as an ebook from all major booksellers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc.   Also, your local independent bookseller will be happy to order the book if they do not have it in stock.

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Victura: beloved sailboat taught JFK about life, family, leadership and winning

James W. Graham’s new book — Victura: the Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea –offers new insights into the dynamics and magic of the Kennedy family and their intense relationship with sailing and the sea. Many families sail together, but the foot sloop purchased in 1932 shortly s move to Hyannis Port, stands apart.

Throughout their brief lives, Joe Jr., Jack and Bobby spent long hours on Victura, competing in countless races every summer. They were joined by their younger brother Teddy when he grew old enough. Joe Jr. and Jack ranked among the best collegiate sailors in New England, driven by their father Joseph P. Kennedy who insisted that winning was essential. Among their sisters, Eunice emerged as a gifted sailor and fierce competitor, the equal of any of her brothers.

Tracking their story beginning in 1932 when Jack was 15 and continuing today in an identical family boat of the same name, readers will learn to admire the Kennedys for what Victura taught them about life, family, leadership, determination, winning, and dealing with tragedies.

Celebrating the sailboat’s deep influence on Jack, Bobby, Ethel, Ted, Eunice and other Kennedys, it offers a new way of experiencing their intimate sibling relationships and growth as an extended family. Kennedys credit young Jack’s sailing with helping him survive the sinking of his PT boat in the Pacific. Life magazine photos of Jack and Jackie on Victura’s bow helped define the winning Kennedy brand in the 1950s. Jack doodled sketches of Victura in Oval Office meetings, and his love of seafaring probably played a role in his decision to put a man on the moon, an enterprise he referred to as “space-faring.”

When the Kennedy siblings married, sailing connected them with their children and nephews and nieces. Sailing was an everyday event, even in dangerous weather and in the darkness of night.  The sport influenced how they celebrated and observed happy events, managed grief, and grew close to one another.

Ted loved Victura as much as any of them. In the years following the untimely deaths of his three older brothers, Ted sailed with his children and the children of his lost brothers as crew. He also sailed past the shoals of personal shortcomings and an ebbing career to become known as the “Lion of the Senate,” helping fulfill patriarch Joe Sr.’s desire that his children pursue careers in public service rather than in business.

Rich with colorful and intimate anecdotes, the book features author interviews with family members, including children of Ted, Robert and Ethel Kennedy.  Victura is a story of redemption, strong family bonds, character, sport, tragedy, the power of metaphor and the influence of a little boat on the lives of great men and women.

In Victura, James W. Graham charts the progress of America’s signature twentieth century family dynasty, in a narrative both stunningly original and deeply gripping. This true tale of one small sailboat is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the impressive story of the Kennedys. For the Silo, Jim and Lynda O’Connor, and Paul Krupin.

Victura The Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea James W. Graham

ForeEdge, an imprint of the University Press of New England $29.95 cloth 978-1-61168-411-7 $22.99 ebook 978-1-61168-599-2 Official publication date: April 1, 2014 280 pp., 28 illus., 6 x 9″

For more information visit

About the Author

James W. Graham, a communications and public affairs professional for a major-brand retailer, was a senior adviser to former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar and the Illinois House of Representatives. He races and cruises his sailboat Venturous out of Wilmette Harbor, north of Chicago.

What People Are Saying

“This wonderfully-written book takes a well-worn subject — the Kennedys — and gives it as fresh a gust as the sailors on the sturdy, little Victura themselves must have felt a thousand times off the Nantucket shore. In going to sea on board the Victura, Joe, Jack, Bobby and Teddy Kennedy entered their metaphor of quest, braced themselves for the unknown, and left their country, in the end, with an imperishable poignancy in its heart.”

— Richard D. Mahoney, author, Sons and Brothers

“The Kennedys saw the world and nature as a magical place, full of mystery and adventure. They especially enjoyed challenges and the freedom of activities like sailing, skiing, river running, climbing and just being outside. Two thirds of the surface of planet earth is liquid: the sea is vital to life — a huge source of both pleasure and fear — and a great teacher. Victura, a small wooden sailboat, became the center of adventure, companionship and love for this remarkable family. Author Graham knows the sea, sailing and the Kennedys. Sail on Victura, to new horizons.”

— Jim Whittaker, first American to summit Mt. Everest, former CEO of REI, author of Life on the Edge: Memoirs of Everest and Beyond.

“Victura is more than Graham recounting the sailing experiences of the Kennedys. In this well-researched but warmly written book, Graham sometimes goes several pages describing an election, or a Kennedy family intrigue, and then gracefully brings the story back to the sea, showing how, in best and worst of times, the family pulled together around sailing.”

— Rich Evans, book review, SAILING magazine, March 2014

One response to “Victura: beloved sailboat taught JFK about life, family, leadership and winning”

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Victura: The Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea

Posted by James Williams | Book Reviews , Dogwatch , Reviews

With these words at a dinner for the America’s Cup crews in September 1962, President John F. Kennedy spoke, I believe, for all sailors. It is well known that he and his brothers were sailors, but the impact of this sport on the lives of the Kennedys has not really been explored before this fine book by James W. Graham. For readers who have read full-length biographies of Jack or of his brothers Bobby and Ted, much of the broad story of the Kennedy family will be familiar. But here the role that sailing played in their lives steps forward, front and center.

This is a wise book as well as a great read. As Graham observes early on, “Sailors learn more from mistakes and close calls than from successes.” The Kennedy brothers plainly benefited from this truth, and that process began early in their lives. The brothers were fortunate to live in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod, and Jack and his older brother, Joe Jr., bought the family’s first sailboat, Rose Elisabeth, in 1927. Their youthful days were filled with sailing, first mastering the 16-foot Wianno Junior. In 1932, the family bought a 25-foot Wianno Senior (built then and still by the Crosby Yacht Yard in Osterville, Massachusetts), which they named Victura (“about to conquer” in Latin) and which they raced regularly in one-design class regattas. The next boat to master was a Star, and Joe and Jack each acquired Stars during the 1930s. Bobby also sailed Stars in the 1950s, but the Wianno Senior remained their favorite sailboat.

Graham spends three chapters tracing Kennedys through World War II, the 1950s, and JFK’s presidency. Here sailing takes a back seat to the broader story of the Kennedys, but the sport’s importance to the family is never lost. Jack particularly embraced sailing and the sea into his psyche, and as with many of us who sail, he was drawn strongly to images of sailing and the sea in literature and art. They became for him, and also similarly for his younger brother Ted, expressions of himself. Jack brought sailing and seafaring imagery in to his political speeches and, like Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who once served as Secretary of the Navy), Jack brought a seafaring décor to the oval office.

For the Kennedys, sailing was the family sport (despite the focus of media on their family football scrimmages), which regardless of gender all could participate in equally. Eunice, Jack’s younger sister, was a very good sailor, and Ethel, Bobby’s wife, was an excellent sailor and particularly turned to sailing following Bobby’s death. Jack’s nephew, Patrick, perhaps summed it up best that the sea, both arbitrary and constant, “is evolving, and yet it is also predictive, the tides come in and out. What a great metaphor for life.”

Victura is a lovely book. You’ll learn a bit about the history of sailing as well as a lot about one of America’s first families. This is a book for sailors and for admirers of the Kennedys.

Victura: The Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea by James W. Graham (Foreedge, Imprint of the University Press of New England, 2014, 265 pages, 28 illustrations)

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• Ted Kennedy (foreground) was known for his sailing prowess.
• Courtesy James Graham

Sailing Was Faithful Companion to Kennedy Family

• Meg Robbins
• Thursday, July 3, 2014 - 12:41pm

Sailing was not James Graham’s first love. In fact, he didn’t fall in love with the activity until he was an adult and moved to Wilmette, Ill., on the lake front of Chicago. There, he started out at the beach for small boats. But now he cruises into the harbor where the larger boats sail, with his 24-foot Rainbow Class sailboat the Venturous. From the water, he can see the Chicago skyline in the distance. He tries to get out at least once a week.

Around the same time Mr. Graham first realized his love for sailing, he took a trip to Boston and visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. There, he laid eyes on a special ship. It was a 25-foot one-design sailboat called the Victura, a boat given to John F. Kennedy by his father in 1932 for his 15th birthday.

That boat has now become the central component of Mr. Graham’s first book, The Victura: The Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea. Published in April, the story chronicles the Kennedy family’s deep connection to the Victura and the lessons that sailing taught many members of the Kennedy family about how to stay grounded and resilient in the midst of great responsibilities.

Mr. Graham will be visiting Bunch of Grapes Bookstore on Wednesday, July 9, at 7 p.m. to speak about his book.

It was the death of Ted Kennedy in 2009 that inspired Mr. Graham to tell the story. Mr. Graham has had a career of over 30 years in communications and public affairs, but had been looking to take on a book-length project for some time. He was just waiting to find the right topic.

When Ted Kennedy died, Mr. Graham noticed that all of the people who eulogized Mr. Kennedy spoke about their own experiences of sailing with him on the Victura. He found this unusual, given Mr. Kennedy’s remarkable professional career.

“Here’s a man that had been in the U.S. Senate for 47 years, one of the longest serving U.S. senators in history and one with a career filled with accomplishments, and yet people who knew him best felt that they could really capture his essence by telling stories about sailing with him on the Victura,” said Mr. Graham.

“That told me that there was a story there beyond what most people knew and as I looked into it, I found that to be true,” he added.

In writing about the Kennedy family, Mr. Graham faced the challenge of finding something fresh about a family that has been written about many times before. But Mr. Graham knew his perspective would be a unique one, and his book has indeed received much praise from critics for its originality.

“Anyone who takes a look at the book I’ve created will see some new and different things that they have never read before,” said Mr. Graham. “This story of the relationship of a family over multiple generations to a single kind of sailboat and a single activity together is something that has not been told before.”

As Mr. Graham researched the Victura and the Kennedy’s relationship with sailing, he learned just how much the boat meant to the Kennedy’s lives.

“I think that what made it special over time was the shared experience that they had sailing it,” said Mr. Graham. “And I think that really contributed to the bonds between brother and sister, father and son and daughter, uncle, nephew and niece. They found that this experience of sailing together really strengthened them as a family.”

The Kennedys passed the Victura down from one generation to the next. If it was not the original Victura herself, then it was her name or her style of ship. After the Victura was donated to the JFK Presidential Museum and Library, the Kennedys bought another boat and also named it Victura. For years, Robert and Ethel Kennedy sailed a boat identical to the Victura so they could compete equally against her. The great-grandchildren of the “famous generation” of Kennedys now also sail a boat identical to the Victura.

While researching his book, Mr. Graham had the opportunity to speak with several members of the Kennedy family. Chris Kennedy, who lives near Mr. Graham in the Chicago area, took Mr. Graham out for a sail with his mother Ethel, cousin Ted Jr. and brother Max, along with other members of the family. On this trip, Mr. Graham was able to capture some of the most valuable stories for his text.

In the stories he heard, two themes in particular stood out to Mr. Graham. The first was the Victura’s role as a grounding force and a way to put life in perspective for the Kennedy family.

“They used [their shared experience of sailing together] as a means of staying together as a family and getting away from it all and growing closer.”

The other theme Mr. Graham noticed and describes in his book is the “idea of members of the family coming from behind to win and never giving up.”

“I think that’s one thing that they learned from that experience of racing against one another is that even when a race looks lost, don’t give up because you still have a chance,” said Mr. Graham.

James Graham will discuss The Victura: The Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea at Bunch of Grapes Bookstore, 44 Main street, Vineyard Haven, on Wednesday, July 9, at 7 p.m.

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James W. Graham discussed his book, Victura: The Kennedys, A Sailboat, and the Sea , with Bob Oakes , host of WBUR's Morning Edition . Audience Q&A took place outside next to the Victura , which is on display at the Kennedy Library from May through November.

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Victura: the Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea

Posted by luxebeat | Apr 20, 2014 | Auto, Yachts & Aircraft , Books , Featured , History , Literature , Travel |

by James W. Graham

Book Excerpt: Chapter 1

Metaphor for Life

The day before he died President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, arrived at the Rice Hotel in Houston, Texas, taking a room freshly remodeled for their short stay. They had three and a half hours to rest and dine together before heading out for two evening appearances and the day’s end. Jack, sitting in a rocking chair, wearing just his shorts, worked on a speech and doodled on a sheet of hotel notepaper.

Later, their public obligations satisfied, they retired to another hotel closer to the next day’s events. Jacqueline saw Jack, in his pajamas, kneel by his bed to say a prayer. She told a friend a few weeks later, “It was just like a little childish mannerism, I suppose, like brushing your teeth or some- thing. But I thought that was so sweet. It used to amuse me so, standing there.” She compared his religious rituals to “superstition.” She wasn’t sure he was a true believer, “but if it was that way, he wanted to have that on his side.”

The next morning, with the president and first lady in Dallas for their motorcade’s nightmarish turn past the book depository, the Rice Hotel housecleaning staff found the doodle the president had left in his room. It was a simple pencil drawing of a little sailboat, beating through the waves.

The summer before the 1960 election. From Victura, AP Photo, August 7, 1960.

Jack Kennedy often drew such sailboats during White House meetings or while on the phone. Sometimes, he put a gaff rig on the mast, like the one on the Victura . Somewhere in their minds, throughout their lives, Jack and his brothers and sisters were always at sea. Sailing influenced how they thought, how they competed, the content of public speeches, how as a family they celebrated happy events or managed grief, how they grew close to one another.

Of the nine children of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, the ones most influenced by and enamored with sailing were Jack; his older brother, Joe; and their younger siblings, Ted, Eunice, and Robert. When they were young, sailing was a topic of ongoing earnest discussion, sometimes led by their father.

Robert F. Kennedy steers Victura with plenty of helpers. No youngster was turned away, no matter the boat’s crew capacity. From Victura, AP Photo/Bob Schutz, July 30, 1961.

They would constantly ask one another, What made us lose a race? What gear needed replacing? At what cost? What sailing instructors should we hire? What kind of sails? How do we launch the spinnaker faster? Who can we get to crew? How fast the wind and how high the waves?

As they grew older and moved into independent lives, they always came back to sailing, coordinating return trips to their seaside Cape Cod home, sometimes arranging their lives around regattas, making time for a sail every day. Their children and grandchildren were still doing the same eighty years after they first went for a sail on Victura .

When Robert’s young wife, Ethel, joined the family, she perfectly blended in, not least because she brought her own love of sailing. Jacque- line, enamored less with the races and more with sailing’s beauty, wrote poetry about and drew pictures of sailboats years before she met Jack. Whatever the lofty position a Kennedy held, helicopters, airplanes, and motorcades all eventually pointed back to Hyannis Port in time for sailing races.

Ethel and children have a mishap on Resolute. From Victura, photo by Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection/WireImage/Getty Images, August, 1971.

Once together at sea the Kennedys riveted their attention on the race or, if just cruising, spent hours in conversation while watching sunsets; worrying over storm clouds; taking drenching waves over the gunwale; shivering, almost hypothermic; holding soggy sandwiches pulled from the cooler.

Older Kennedys taught younger ones. They grounded their boat on sandbars, at least once crashing into a buoy. They thought nothing of jumping into the water if necessary to lighten the load and speed the boat. They yelled when mistakes were made, punched one another even, laughed about it afterward.

The stronger the Cape winds, the whiter the whitecaps, the better. They took friends out who became lifelong pals after passing tests of seaworthiness or camaraderie.

Once they became parents they used sailing to connect with their children, including nephews and nieces whose fathers were lost. They learned seamanship and survival skills, which they swear saved Jack’s life in World War II. Sailing, they said, gave their lives perspective and helped them explore how to cope with the complexity that comes with being a Kennedy—the privileges, the attention, and the “buzz saws of life.” They sailed at night too, quietly taking in the infinite stars, distance, space, and horizon and said it gave them insights into life’s mysteries. “Sailing, for me, has always been a metaphor for life,” wrote Ted in his memoir, True Compass, written eighty years after the family first summered in Hyannis Port.

The family had many sailboats, but the favorite was Victura . They kept it the longest and sailed it most, over almost fifty years. It was wooden and modest in size, twenty-five feet in length, spare of accommodation, and gaff rigged, a sail configuration thought quaint today even though folks still say the shorter mast height prevents a knockdown in a gale. About two hundred one-design Wianno Seniors identical to Victura have been built for families like the Kennedys who summer or live on Cape Cod’s South Shore. Thus they fairly compete on boats of equal specifications in races around Nantucket Sound.

That Victura survived so long, a small boat in such big seas, is surprising itself. Acquired in 1932, struck  by lightning in 1936, dragged onto the beach by war-injured Jack during a hurricane in 1944, and nearly lost in a 2003 harbor fire that took twenty other sailboats like it, Victura once sprung a leak and started sinking beneath Ted’s aging and none-too-small size, as the senator resignedly watched boats in the race pass him by until he could get a tow. After they gave Victura to a museum, they bought a new Wianno Senior, called it Victura too and sail it to this day.

Now, when a Kennedy dies and his or her loved ones stand to speak words of consolation, they often turn to the imagery of sailing and to their stories of Victura . At Ted’s death in 2009, four eulogists told stories of being with him on Victura . Less than two years later, when Ted’s daughter, Kara, died of cancer at age fifty-one, her brother Patrick said, “Dad now has his first mate, his crew with him, as they set sail,” and quoted Eugene O’Neill, “I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky!”

Jack did not know his stay at the Rice Hotel was his last day on earth, but his thoughts went back to the Cape and the sea that night because that is where Kennedy minds always drift. All through his life Jack was sick with one illness or another, but sailing freed him, filled his lungs, tanned his skin when it was ashen or yellow, separated him from worries ashore, and gave him seclusion with family and friends.

Robert, a less accomplished sailor who married young and had less time for racing, still loved taking his children out on the water. Before he died at forty-two, after fathering eleven children, he bought a “sister boat” to Victura and called it Resolute . For years following Robert’s death, when the weather was warm enough, and even when it was not, his surviving family sailed Resolute almost every day. Brothers, sisters, and nephews of Jack bought Wianno Seniors, so Victura and Resolute begat Headstart , another Victura , and Ptarmigan . These begat Santa Maria and Dingle .

Ted, perhaps the most dedicated—some might say obsessive—sailor, lived a long life of ups and downs, the opposite of the short lives of Jack and Robert. They rose together on a steady and uninterrupted path to the White House, but Ted lived almost as long as the other two combined, beaten down by tragedies, some fated, some self-inflicted. Sailing reminded Ted to keep plowing onward, no matter the wind or current or competition. The younger Kennedys picked up on that.

The daughters of Joe and Rose Kennedy had less family pressure to achieve political success, for theirs was an era of male primogeniture, but Eunice grew up to be as forceful and effective a leader of social change in America as her brothers. Perhaps not so coincidentally she was also among the most accomplished sailors.

Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt steadied himself on Victura’s bow to capture eight-year-old Ted forward andfrom left, Jean, Rose, Joe, Bobby, Patricia and Eunice. From Victura, photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images, 1940.

Over the years the images of the Kennedys at sea defined the family brand and gave birth to the Kennedy myth. Kennedys under sail were the picture of adventurousness, wholesomeness, vigor, and family. They commanded the elements and the political world. Jack Kennedy’s navy experience in World War II became an epic tale of seafaring heroism, retold throughout his political career. A 1953 Life cover photo of Jack and Jacqueline on the bow of Victura , along with their larger storyline, presented them as beautiful, privileged, sophisticated, glamorous, and destined for something great. Media forms like television were fast evolving and multiplying, their effects just being understood, and Jack and Jackie were well cast for the new era.

As Robert and Ted grew older and entered the picture as politicians themselves, they had children who took to the sea as had their parents. The image of the Kennedys at sea became affixed in public consciousness for the rest of the twentieth century and into the next.

The story of Victura , more than the tale of a small sailboat, is a story of a steeled family and uncommon upbringing in a particular time and place, under specific circumstances, some created with deliberateness by parents who had the means, some shaped by world events and accidents of fate. All of these combined to deeply influence the lives of a few extraordinary people who, more than most, helped define America in the second half of the twentieth century. From these circumstances grew the Kennedys and all they became. Always integral to it all was a simple, small sailboat. Victura .

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To read the Luxe Beat Magazine version of this article click on the title VICTURA THE KENNEDYS, A SAILBOARD AND THE SEA .

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