victura kennedy 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!

This summer, you can carry forward President Kennedy's legacy with DOUBLE the impact!

Victura: the kennedy sailboat.

AMY MACDONALD:   Good afternoon. I'm Amy Macdonald, the Forum Producer at the Library, and I welcome all of you here on this May Sunday. First, let me acknowledge the underwriters of the Kennedy Library Forums: lead sponsor Bank of America, Raytheon, Boston Capital, the Lowell Institute, the Boston Foundation; and our media partners, the Boston Globe , Xfinity and WBUR.  

The photos and film clips of Kennedy family sailing Nantucket Sound are so familiar that Kennedys and sailing are almost synonymous in our minds. Of course, the family had many sailboats, but the Victura was their favorite, and it's almost a miracle that it has survived. Acquired by the family in 1932, it was struck by lightning in 1936, endured a hurricane in 1944, and barely escaped a harbor fire in 2003.  It is now safely ensconced at the John F. Kennedy Library Museum from May to November, and at the Crosby Yacht Yard during New England's long winters. 

At the conclusion of this Forum, our author, Jim Graham, would be happy to have a show-and-tell outside by the boat. Hopefully, we won't have that shower they're predicting. His book, Victura , is on sale in our Museum store and after our outside excursion, Jim will be happy to sign books. 

Bios of both Jim and our moderator, Bob Oakes, are in your program. We're so pleased to have Bob Oakes back on our stage. The last time he was here was in 2011, when he moderated a Kennedy Library Forum with Governor Deval Patrick.

Jim and Bob will have a conversation and show slides for about a half an hour, and then we'll take your audience questions.  Please join me in welcoming Jim Graham and Bob Oakes. [applause]

BOB OAKES:  Thank you. So why don't I start out by just saying, Amy, thank you very much. It's a privilege to be back here for this event. Especially – as I'm sure this is the case for most of you -- after all the wonderful days and hours that I spent here with my family as my kids were growing up.  And I say especially because one of the things about this book is I think it takes us so nicely inside the Kennedy family and lets readers experience something that was important to generations of the Kennedy family, and that's the joys, the laughs and the life lessons learned on the water sailing. So thank you.

I want to start by saying, James, it's kind of a treat being able to get to do this twice, because we did this the other day on the radio. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, it was great fun.

BOB OAKES:   I want to open where the book opens. Can I say that you really did catch me. You took my breath away, really, right from the start of the book on page one when, to illustrate your point about how sailing was so integral to the family, you tell us that the night before he died in Dallas, JFK in his hotel room in Houston doodled, drawing a little picture of a sailboat moving through the waves.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, it's really poignant, isn't it?  That all throughout his White House years and Oval Office meetings and elsewhere he would often draw those sketches of a sailboat with a gaff rig, which is the one that has the mast up, an extra boom, up high, which makes it a distinctive sailboat and much like the Victura.  I think that it's also so fascinating to think about him during the Cuban Missile Crisis and other moments drawing little doodles of that sailboat, as if he's trying to transport himself back to his origins or his beginnings. So I think it always came back to him.

BOB OAKES:   Take us back, if you might. What is it that drew the family to the sea and to sailing?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Well, they moved to Hyannis Port, moved into the house and later bought it in the late '20s and then began to acquire sailboats fairly quickly -- little sailboats. The first one or two were called Wianno Juniors, and then they bought a Wianno Senior, which became the Victura.

Joe and Rose Kennedy were not really big sailors. There's no record of them pursuing the sport themselves. But when the children began to sail together, I think that experience together, growing up together during the '20s and the '30s was really something that bound them together and they had so many fond memories that to this day they pass it down generation to generation. 

I think they always saw in the sea an escape, a way to be together, a way to be competitive and enjoy the thrills of competing against Boston Brahmin, who did not necessarily welcome them to their society. And then they loved it so much that though they were the first generation to sail the Wianno Senior sailboats, they passed that down generation to generation, brother and sister, uncle to nephew. So this day even the little children, little Kennedy tribe children out there, nine and ten years old, learning how to fold sails so they one day can sail Wianno Seniors as well. 

They acquired a half a dozen Wianno Senior sailboats over the years since that first boat, the Victura, and keep passing it on. 

BOB OAKES:   The patriarch of the family, Joe Kennedy, Sr., was not much of a sailor, as I understand it. But he watched, intently; he watched the kids sail and scolded them when they screwed up in a race.

JAMES GRAHAM:   He did. John F. Kennedy was once asked about the competitiveness for which the Kennedys were so famous and he said, "Well, much too much is made of that. We aren't really that competitive, although our dad sure did ride our butts about the sailboat races." He used something a little bit more barnyard than that, but, yes, they certainly did love it. They enjoyed the competition. There was never any sense from the kids that they resented their father for the pressure that he put on them for being competitive. It was always really important that they come in first. There may be 12 boats in a race, but if you came in second that wasn't good enough. They had to analyze exactly why they didn't win it and that was true of all of them. 

BOB OAKES:   He preached that winning was really everything.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yes. I mean, well, a little caveat: he would say that once you've tried enough, you've tried everything you can possibly try and still not fallen short, that's okay. But if he saw your effort wanting, that's when you'd be in trouble.

BOB OAKES:   You write at one point that the Kennedys were privileged and ambitious, imbued with both a sense of entitlement and a strong work ethic. How did sailing fit in to that?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Well, they certainly worked very, very hard at it. I mean, they sailed every day. Of course, they loved sailing so it wasn't like it was work. But the parents certainly instilled a work ethic in the children and some of the children worked harder than others. Joe Kennedy, Jr., was a very good student. But it's often said that John F. Kennedy himself was not quite as enthusiastic a student, or as disciplined a student on every subject as some of his siblings were. As I understand it, John F. Kennedy tended to focus on the subjects that really interested him, not necessarily the ones that he needed to study to get good grades.

BOB OAKES:   Since you led us into Joe, Jr., let me ask a few questions. We talked about how Joe, Sr., loved the competition and loved preaching winning to the kids. Certainly, that was the case when it came to sailing races, which bred into many of them, including Joe, Jr. a degree of fearlessness. And Joe, Jr. of course, in World War II was a bomber pilot, killed in England while flying essentially a very dangerous mission and a secret mission that he volunteered for. Tell us that story.

JAMES GRAHAM:   It's an interesting story. John F. Kennedy's famous PT109 incident happened before Joe, Jr. died, and there has been speculation that perhaps Joe, Jr. was feeling a bit of competitive pressure from his younger brother, who had become a war hero, while Joe, Jr. was still flying missions out of Great Britain.  But that said, it has to be said that Joe, Jr. was, without question, a great war hero because he volunteered for a very dangerous mission, experimental aircraft that was packed with explosives, volunteered to fly it. Of course, the mission failed and it exploded in midair.

BOB OAKES:   Looking for V-bomb launch sites, right?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Exactly right. One of the interesting things about that is how so much of this story of the Victura all comes back home again. And after Joe, Jr. died … The news was brought to the main house at Hyannis Port via the two Catholic priests who came and knocked on the door and broke the news to the family – and there were many tears shed, of course, but after a while– they had planned on going sailing that afternoon after they had this news of Joe, Jr. and they said, "Joe would want us to sail." So they went out and sailed together. John F. Kennedy was with them at the time, because he had come back from the war already.

BOB OAKES:   Kind of makes you think that if that sense of competition and that sense of fearlessness wasn't woven into the character of the kids through sailing, then maybe he might not have volunteered for that mission. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   That certainly could be. And I agree the fearlessness was something that was a thread throughout many of the kids. I think so many times they would just jump in and out of sailboats. They were in the water, back in the boat, in the water again. There's a certain fearlessness to that. 

Robert F. Kennedy was famous for being really just a fearless guy. I mean, he just took all kinds of chances. After the death of the President, he was climbing Mt. Kennedy in Canada and was just a remarkable fellow.

BOB OAKES:   The Victura: Jack named the boat the Victura. What does it mean and why do you think he picked it?

JAMES GRAHAM:   I mentioned earlier that he was a good student in some subjects and not so good in others. One of his weaker subjects was Latin. That said, he picked a wonderful Latin word to name the sailboat. Victura means about to conquer. It also means to live. But John F. Kennedy himself said that he meant to use the word in its other meaning, which is about to conquer. I've always thought it was just a perfect name for a sailboat, especially a racing boat. 

BOB OAKES:   Why the Wianno Seniors? There's a picture of it up there. Why the Wianno Seniors? They could have basically had any smaller-sized sailboat that they wanted. Why this model?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Families of the South Shore and Cape Cod asked the Crosby Yacht Yard to design the Wianno Senior sailboat for that particular sailing area, Nantucket Sound. This year happens to be the 100 th anniversary of the construction of the first Wianno Senior. It was built specifically for the environment of Nantucket Sound. It has a shallow keel so that with all those shallows and shoals you would run aground less often, although locals are filled with stories of running boats aground. So that's a distinctive feature of the boat.

It also has a gaff rig, which causes the sail area to be a bit more horizontal than vertical, like a traditional Marconi triangular rig. So that when it leans over in the wind, the wind will wash over it a little bit better. So the boat was built specifically for Nantucket Sound, for the families, so that they could race against one another. 

BOB OAKES:   And hard, not impossible, but hard to tip over.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Very hard to tip over. There is a story of Ethel managing somehow to tip one over. She ran it aground again. The boats are very hard to tip over when they're in the water. But if they're on land or the keel is stuck in the sandy bottom and the wind catches it in a way, you can tip it over. She managed to do that on one occasion with some visiting friends from Ireland, some of whom did not know how to swim so they were holding on to coolers and things of that sort to stay afloat.

BOB OAKES:   And she thought the whole episode was great fun. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Oh, yeah, the entire time, she made everybody feel very comfortable and, "Yeah, we tipped the boat over, but no big deal, we'll all be fine." And they were fine, of course. There were plenty of other boats around to come help. 

But every day was an adventure. I kept hearing that again and again as I talked to members of the family. They sailed every day, and every day was a new adventure. You never knew what was going to happen on a sailing voyage.

BOB OAKES:   We should point out, as you did earlier, that although quite a lot of sailing centered around this one boat – we have it here in front of us on the screen, in addition to it being up there – the family owned quite a few boats. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   They did. They owned a couple of Wianno Juniors, which were smaller versions of this boat. They bought one early on that they called the Ten of Us when they were a family of ten. Joe and Rose had at that time eight children. A few years went by and Ted was born, and somewhat unexpectedly, I gather, because it was several years between the birth of Jean, the next youngest, and then Ted. So they had one boat called Ten of Us, so the next boat they called One More. [laughter]

BOB OAKES:   Jack in World War II: Jack was picked for PT boat training, at least partly, or maybe largely, because of his sailing experience. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, the folks who recruited sailors and skippers for the PT crews actually came to New England and the sailing communities.  They were looking for Ivy League and other collegiate racers. And Jack and Joe, in particular, were topnotch collegiate sailors, so they were good candidates for PT boat work. They were looking for people who were familiar with and comfortable on smaller boats, rather than the big destroyers and the like. There was a PT boat on display, I believe, in Edgartown that Jack Kennedy got to see before he actually was recruited. So the rest is history. A lot of the training happened in Nantucket Sound and that vicinity.

BOB OAKES:   You point out in the book that PT boat duty was not all glamorous, that a lot of it was constantly just trying to keep the ship, the PT boat ready to sail and in addition to that, fighting off the notion that where they were based, in the Solomon Islands, they were out of the mainstream of the war.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, there were all these great battles going on -- Guadalcanal and all the others -- and they were on patrol duty. So they weren't necessarily participating in the major battles. They were out there reconnaissance and chasing after Japanese boats as they came and went, so there was a little bit of resentment that they weren't in the middle of things, but they certainly saw plenty of action when you consider the sinking of PT109.

BOB OAKES:   August 1943: 109 is run over by a Japanese destroyer during a pitchblack night while on patrol in the straits off the Solomon Islands. And thanks to his time on the water and in the water, too, as you pointed out, swimming, Kennedy leads several long swims by the surviving crew members and swims, in addition to that, miles out at night to try and flag down what he hoped would be passing PT boats, although none did pass.  You write that Ted Kennedy, years later, said he was convinced that Jack's sailing experience saved his life and the lives of his crew members.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Ted specifically said the Victura -- that experience that Jack had sailing the Victura -- as one of the reasons he survived World War II. I think it has to be said that his skills as a swimmer had a lot to do with surviving that incident. But of course, you become a great swimmer when you spend so much time in the water sailing. So it all goes together.  But I do believe that we might not have had a President Kennedy had we not had a sailor named Jack Kennedy.

BOB OAKES:   Certainly, one of the things you point out very well in the book is that he was just not afraid of the water and even though he was injured and even though at that point he realized he lost a couple of crew members, he was not afraid to get into the water knowing that he would spend hours floating in the strait. He was not afraid to go out at night to swim and see if he could find a way to find a boat to get a rescue.

JAMES GRAHAM:   It was an amazing feat. The boat, the PT109, was split in half by a destroyer that just came out of nowhere and sliced the boat in half. He had to reassemble his crew. Two, unfortunately, died on impact but the rest of the crew climbed aboard the floating wreckage of the boat. And he managed to lead them ashore by … The rest of the crew, most of the crew, grabbed a piece of wood or something and paddled to shore. He grabbed a  badly injured sailor, who couldn't swim he was so badly injured, and took the strap from the guy's life preserver and put it in his teeth and towed him ashore.  And after that, after hours and hours of swimming that way -- I think it was the next day as night fell -- he swam again way out in the middle of the channel with a lantern, waiting for a PT boat to go by and ready to shine the light at it. Because there are all kinds of Japanese boats going back and forth on their patrols as well. 

What an awful experience, because they're stranded on an island. The rest of the Americans, all the allies think they're dead; they saw the explosion. They can't put SOS in coconuts on the beach of the island because there's Japanese everywhere, so they have to hide in the bush, which is exactly what you don't want to do if you want your fellow seamen to find you. So somehow, miraculously, they got out. 

BOB OAKES:   And the coconut that he wrote on and gave to the natives was in the Oval Office. It was on his desk at the Oval Office, later in the Oval Office of course, which you point out was decorated largely in a seafaring theme.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, when the President took over the Oval Office, he transformed it into this shrine to American seafaring. So he had that coconut on his desk from the PT109 incident. He had two cannons as bookends that were modeled on cannons from the USS Constitution. There were paintings of historic war battles, naval battles, models of ships. Of course, one of the things is when you find out that the President loves to sail, everyone who wants to give a gift to the President gives him more sailing paraphernalia. So the French, for example, gave him a ship that went on display in the Oval Office. 

BOB OAKES:   If you close your eyes and you think about the Kennedy family, what is it you picture most? When I'm running through that catalogue of pictures in my head, I think that I mostly see them on the boats in the water. I think that the majority of the photos in my head probably have Jack and Jackie and Bobby, and Teddy later, on the water, the wind whipping through their hair. I think this is a good time to show us a few historical slides. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   The one thing I wanted to point out about the Victura, there are so many things about it – the importance of what it contributed to the bonds of the family, and their survival during the war, and all of those things -- but also it was so important to the building of the Kennedy brand and the image that we have today of the Kennedys. It started as early as 1934 when Joe Kennedy, Sr. was appointed chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Boston Globe came out to do a photo spread on the family and took this picture of John F. Kennedy and Robert when Robert was, I think, eight and Jack about17 years old. And they're standing on the bow of the Victura. We know that because in the photo caption the Globe identified the boat.

Flash forward about six years to 1940. I always show this photo and ask people if they can identify Ted Kennedy in this photo. [laughter] 1940, Joe Kennedy is now the US Ambassador to Great Britain, and LIFE magazine sends a photographer out to take a picture of the family. This time they send out Alfred Eisenstaedt, who's such a famous photographer.  When I first saw this photo I thought, John F. Kennedy is not in this photo; I wonder if he's taking the photo. But then I thought, boy, it's an awfully welltaken photo; the contrast and everything is so well done. That's because it was Alfred Eisenstaedt taking the photo and John F. Kennedy wasn't on the boat. Eisenstaedt -- famous for taking that photo at the end of World War II of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square. 

Of course, a few more years go by. Right after that last photo was taken, John F. Kennedy went to war and became famous as a war hero. The whole story of PT109 reported in the New York Times and there was one article written about it, interesting thing about the tale of PT109 and how it became the story that made him a war hero.

John F. Kennedy had dated a woman named Inga Arvad, who was a Danish journalist, beautiful woman. He came back from the Solomon Islands and met up with Inga Arvad, who was a journalist, and despite the fact they had dated previously, she wrote a wonderful article about his war adventures abroad PT109 and the whole adventure that he had. 

Then John F. Kennedy went to New York and met up and had dinner with another former girlfriend, who now was married to John Hersey, who was a famous journalist in his own right and became famous for the book Hiroshima and some other works. Hersey wrote the story of PT109 for the New Yorker , and Joe Kennedy had it reprinted for future campaigns. Then 1953, John F. Kennedy is a young, newly elected US Senator and his fiancée Jacqueline Bouvier and he go for a sail on the Victura, again with LIFE magazine. 

BOB OAKES:   You write about this photo in the book: If ever there was a single moment when the Kennedy brand as defined, it was when this picture was taken, July 20, 1953.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, you think they're just newly together, this couple. John F. Kennedy's just newly elected to the US Senate, and they show them on the cover of LIFE magazine, which was much more influential in terms of its share of media audiences than magazines are today. So it did so much to establish them.  Then, go forward a few more years, the 1960 Presidential campaign, and there's John F. Kennedy in Sports Illustrated . This was taken in the summer of '60, shortly after he was nominated to be President by the Democratic Party. 

BOB OAKES:   I spent some time looking in the book at this photo. What I really like about it is I think it captures the confidence with which he sails. I mean, look at the left foot. It's just sitting there – I don't know my boat terminology -- but it's just sitting there, casually, braced on that centerpiece of wood. And the right foot, I just looked at it and I casually braced on that center of wood.  I thought, “How many times over his life did that right foot sit in exactly that spot, bracing him up as the boat heeled over?”

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, it begins to be clear why he enjoyed doodling. He clearly loves what he's doing. You can understand why he's drawing little pictures of it when he's in the Oval Office.

But the sailboat and its contribution to the image of the Kennedys was a two-edged sword. This photo was taken in 1962 and on this very day this photo was taken, the sailboat, he ran it aground in the presence of a number of newspaper reporters. The next day he boarded Air Force One and opened the newspapers, and there was a headline in, I believe, the New York Times and a couple of other national newspapers. Headline UPI -- so it would have been distributed nationally -- the headline line:  "President Runs Sailboat Aground." He was furious because this had been so much a part of the image that President Kennedy had cultivated and all the Kennedys had cultivated over the years.  So he was furious and he summons his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, and demands that he go down to the press corps, who were also in another section of Air Force One, and demand a retraction of the story, "Can't Be True." [laughter] And by the way, you can't have this image of the President all over the newspapers.  So supposedly the reporter reached into his briefcase, pulled out a photograph of the President and his crew waistdeep in water, trying to push the sailboat off the shoals. And this photo had not been published so Pierre Salinger walked back and nothing more was said of the matter. 

BOB OAKES:   On the subject of photos though, a side note: In '62, the President was spending some summer days on the Cape as President, sailing and swimming on an island called Egg Island and – you point out in the book – almost always trailed by a gaggle of mostly friendly reporters, but reporters nonetheless. And around that time, the word that we hear so frequently today, especially at seven o'clock at night when we're looking at TMZ here in Boston, we hear the word paparazzi. And that's when paparazzi came into being. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? The Kennedys certainly enjoyed the presence of news photographers up until this point. After that, they really became a bit wary of it and began laying ground rules for how close the press boats could get and that sort of thing. But it was right around that time that word ‘paparazzi’ was coined.

BOB OAKES:   The sea and Jack Kennedy. You point out that Kennedy's love of sailing influenced public policy and especially in conservation. The best example we have of that today is that Jack sponsored the legislation to propose the Cape Cod National Seashore.

JAMES GRAHAM:   That's right. It certainly influenced that. The Secretary of the Interior at the time had expressed a little bit of frustration that President Kennedy didn't show very much interest in inland wilderness; he was always interested in seashores. So he proposed the Cape Cod Seashore and at least a couple other seashores that became national seashores. So his interest in the sea certainly influenced public policy.

I don't know if you want me to get into this part as well, but I think it influenced public policy in other ways. I write in the book that I think it had some influence on President Kennedy's embracing the idea of sending a man to the moon. He often used metaphors of the sea in describing space travel. He said, "This is a new ocean and we must sail it."

BOB OAKES:   And he called it spacefaring.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Exactly. Of course, this whole competitive spirit that we talked about earlier that had been instilled by Joe and Rose in the kids, there's one wonderful moment when President Kennedy -- a year or two after he'd committed the country to go to the moon -- he invited James Webb into the Oval Office, and talked to him about what the estimate is getting to the moon first your priority of NASA. Webb said, "Well, it is a priority." And President Kennedy quickly corrected him and said, "No, I think it's the priority."  Then he went off lecturing James Webb by saying, "We can't come in second, we can't come in second place by six months. That's no good. We can't spend these enormous amounts of money to come in second. We want people to look at the US and say that they were behind, but by god they pulled ahead." Which sounded exactly like talking about sailboat racing. 

BOB OAKES:   You write in the book -- there was a specific line I wanted to ask you about -- "It would be an oversimplification to attribute Jack's decision to go to the moon to his love of sailboat racing, but it must have added a subconscious allure."

JAMES GRAHAM:   I think so. Michael Beschloss wrote a really great article about the motivations of why President Kennedy chose to send a man to the moon. And people have speculated about a lot of things – it was a distraction from the Bay of Pigs, which had just happened weeks earlier than the speech about going to the moon.  President Eisenhower thought it was crazy to send a man to the moon and spend all that money on it. Eisenhower, I don't think, ever appreciated the symbolism of the race, of getting there first and establishing a finish line as President Kennedy did. Kennedy spoke often of going to the moon, as not something he wanted to do for the science, but to demonstrate American technological superiority and our ability to win a race.  So I think that notion of the race and the competition really resonated with President Kennedy in a way that might not have with a politician like Dwight Eisenhower. 

BOB OAKES:   Do you think that if not for his life and experience sailing competitively in sailboat races, if not for that, maybe he would not have made the decision to go the moon?

JAMES GRAHAM:   No, I would not make that argument. But I would say it was a contributing factor. As with so many political decisions, there are many, many factors that go into them. But I do think that very early on he asked his staff … The Soviets were doing all kinds of one-off stunts. They had the first woman in space and they had the first dog in space. Before Kennedy, they had launched the first satellite. Kennedy said, "What can we do over the long term that will redefine the race as something we can win?" And they knew at the time that if given time they could develop the rockets necessary to get Americans to the moon. So I think it was a contributing factor, for sure. 

BOB OAKES:   Let me ask about Bobby and Ethel. They purchased their own sailboat just like the Victura, a Wianno Senior, and they called theirs the Resolute. Tell us about the significance of that name.

JAMES GRAHAM:   I've asked Chris Kennedy, the son of Robert Kennedy, where the name came from because as many of you probably know, especially if you've toured the

Museum, you know about the Resolute desk in the Oval Office that John F. Kennedy had. I asked if it was named for that desk. He thought it was either that or because of the famous British boat for which the Resolute was named. The desk is made from the timbers of the Resolute.   Iit was probably more a combination of things for the legend of the Resolute, the desk, and the rest. Max Kennedy actually bought a Wianno Senior later and named it Ptarmigan, which is coincidentally – the British ship, the Resolute, was first called Ptarmigan and then it was renamed when it was outfitted for Arctic exploration, renamed the Resolute. So he just liked that little historic reference. 

BOB OAKES:   Talked a little bit about Ethel earlier. She loved to sail. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Ethel loved to sail every day. After her children lost their father, I think she really valued that time sailing. She was not so much a racer, but just loved taking the children out. No child was ever left behind -- any child who wanted to join the crew. She's got 11 kids, that's a lot of childhood friends, so the boat was always loaded with kids. There's one most memorable incident. Ethel Kennedy, one thing that she very firmly believed -- and she was a woman with strong beliefs …

BOB OAKES:   I know where you're going with this. It's the ferry episode.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yes, yes. She really firmly believed that a sailboat always has the right of way over a powerboat, and it doesn't matter how big that powerboat is. So a ferry that carries cars and hundreds of passengers, it's still a powerboat.  So she had an ongoing feud with the captains of various ferries, one of which was called the On Cantina[?]. She got in its way and the captain of the On Cantina came running out on the flying bridge, screaming at Ethel and her crew to get out of the way. He's yelling at her and the On Cantina's crew is yelling at the captain saying, "Look out where we're going," and he's too distracted by yelling at Ethel. The On Cantina ran aground in the shoals, damaged the propeller and Ethel just kept sailing on.

I had a chance to ask Ethel about this incident and her feuds with these big ferryboat captains and she looked at me and squinted her eyes and said, "Sometimes when people are big, it goes to their head." [laughter] And she clearly thought of herself as David and these ferries as Goliath.

BOB OAKES:   You wrote that after Bobby's death, Ethel sailed almost every day when she could. What drove that, do you think?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Well, she loved to sail. She loved the time with the kids. You mentioned Egg Island earlier.  It really wasn't an island, it was a sandbar. They'd go up there and load up coolers with sandwiches and crackers and cheese and beverages. There's a man there who always hung out on the beach; he had a little powerboat and he couldn't speak, but he had a powerboat with a little outboard motor on it. So they named him Putt for the sound of his motor.  There's a great story that Ethel also shared with me. Putt eventually died. He lived in a little shack around Hyannis. She went and looked into the shack after he had gone, and there was a picture of Ethel pasted on the wall. Ethel, as she's telling me the story, said, "I didn't really ever photograph well.  I wasn't a very pretty woman, but there I was on the wall. And the rest of the wall was covered with pornographic pictures of women." [laughter]

BOB OAKES:   Any further comment?

JAMES GRAHAM:   I didn't pursue that line of questioning any further. [laughter] 

BOB OAKES:   I'm going to get you to read from a passage here. It's marked on 159 and 160. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Sure.

BOB OAKES:   In the book, Jim points out that the family often wrote letters to document important moments, and Ted wrote one after Bobby's death to his children. It was published in a private family book, and you included a passage of it in here. I had never read it before and it was, I thought, very moving.

JAMES GRAHAM:   I'll read this. To be clear, these are Ted Kennedy's words in a letter that he wrote to the children after Robert Kennedy died.

When I think of Bobby, I will always see Cape Cod on a sunny day. The wind will be from the southwest and the whitecaps will be showing, and the full tide will be sweeping through the gaps of the breakwater. It will be after lunch and Bob will be stripped to the waist, and he'll say, "Come on, Joe, Kathleen, Bobby and David, Courtney, Kerry, come on, Michael, and even you, Chris, and Max. Call your mother and come for a sail." One of the children would say, "What about the baby?" And the father would reply, "Douglas can come next year."  They'd push off from the landing, the sails of the Resolute catch the wind, and the boat tips and there are squeals of laughter from the crew and Bob says, "I think today is the day we'll tip over." And there are more squeals. And the Resolute reaches toward the end of the breakwater.  He will dive overboard and catch hold of the line that trails behind, inviting the children to join him. Child after child jumps into the water, grabbing for the line and those who appear to miss are pulled toward it by his strong and suntanned arms. 

Again, that's Ted Kennedy's words. 

BOB OAKES:   The imagery is incredibly powerful. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, and so much of the lives of the Kennedys are filled with those kinds of memories. I really think one of the powerful things about the Victura -- this is a book about a sailboat -- but it's really more so a book about a family and what made a family strong. And they all have memories like that and as I said, every day was an adventure, and they all have their own adventures that they'll recall for you.

BOB OAKES:   It's so interesting to me that in writing that letter, Ted chose to write about Bobby and the family sailing.

JAMES GRAHAM:   It's also of interest that so often when somebody dies in the Kennedy family and a eulogy is given that there are tales of sailing together. I mean, one of the things I often say, what motivated me to write the book, why I thought it was a good idea -- it's just the story of a little sailboat, right? When Ted Kennedy died, a lot of people got up and gave eulogies, many of them here in this building and some at a church in Boston. President Obama gave a eulogy. But four different people got up and in order to boil down the essence of who Ted Kennedy was, they told stories of sailing with him on the Victura. One of which was Senator John Culver, who told a wonderful story; you can watch it on YouTube or go to my website, TheVictura.com , and see it. It's definitely a wonderful story to hear.

BOB OAKES:   Eunice, talk a little bit about Eunice for a moment or two. You write that she was the best of the sailors among the daughters.

JAMES GRAHAM:   You know if you said to her, "Were you the best of the sailors among the daughters?," she would immediately say, "No, the best, period." [laughter] Men, women, all. She absolutely believed she was the best of the sailors.

There's one moment when they were out racing together and Eunice was on the boat, and they're racing along and she somehow – this is not evidence as her skill as a sailor, but it's illustrative. They're sailing along and somehow she fell out of the boat. They're going down wind so they're flying the spinnaker, which is that big parachute, or balloon-shaped sail, hard to raise and lower. So she comes up and starts treading water and she waves to the sailors, "Keep going round the mark, come around and come and get me on the next leg of the race." So she treaded water for 15 minutes or something like that. That was how committed she was to racing and winning and competing. 

BOB OAKES:   She sailed with fierce intensity and wild daring recklessness. And what you just said is really a pretty perfect example of that. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah. She was often compared to Joe, Jr. in terms of her bravery at the tiller. 

BOB OAKES:   She was such an accomplished person in life on dry land. Do you think that the way she sailed matched the seriousness and purposefulness in the way she approached life? She had several jobs or careers and worked tirelessly for people who were mentally or physically challenged.

JAMES GRAHAM:   The wonderful thing about the Kennedy family is all the things that kind of come together and grow the family. They had a daughter named Rosemary who was intellectually disabled, and Eunice was very close to her. Eunice was also an athlete. She played tennis I believe for Stanford and was a great sailor. And isn't it wonderful that that combination of things after she became an adult and the President took office, she was able to convert those two passions into forming the Special Olympics?  There's apparently a biography being written about Eunice, and I really think we need that because she really redefined how Americans in particular, and really the world, understand people with intelligence disabilities or disabilities of all kinds. It's a really remarkable contribution that I think in history she'll be noted for. People have said she would have made a great President herself if she had been born in a different era.

BOB OAKES:   Certainly was driven in life and, circling back to sailing, you point out in the book that despite a bunch of accidents over the years and some serious illnesses, she sailed well into her 80s and sometimes had to force a nurse or two, she dragged them on to the sailboat just so she could get out onto the water.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, Chris Kennedy told me a story. He was coming in from a day of sailing and Eunice was heading out to go sailing with a nurse in tow, the crew, and Chris asked her, "Where are you going?" "Going sailing." "Well, wait a minute, let me call one of my brothers to go with you." "Why? You don't think I can sail myself?" [laughter] But she definitely loved sailing. 

There's a moment I describe in the book in which she was very near death and not feeling very well. Ted, who was also ill, went to visit her. They spent several minutes and in an effort to cheer her up, decided to go through the brothers and sisters and ask which of these were serious sailors and which were not serious. So Ted threw out Jack: "Serious," she'd say. And Kathleen: She'd say, "Not serious at all." And run through the list and then of course Ted had to ask her, "Who is the best sailor of all?" "I am," she said. [laughter] I've already said that that would be her answer. 

BOB OAKES:   So let's spend a few minutes talking about Ted. We picture Ted, I think, mostly on his beloved Mya, but he loved the Victura as well.

JAMES GRAHAM:   He did. He was really an outstanding racer and took racing very seriously. He also saw it as a way to connect with his children and with nieces and nephews, who were now fatherless by 1968. He took his children out often sailing for a few days. Patrick's described … He had an annual father/son outing where they'd go out on the Victura and go camp, sail on Martha's Vineyard, or wherever the winds happened to be blowing, where the boat would go.  He clearly saw that as a family time. It was something he loved to do. And it worked because the children clearly loved it, too.

They're all, so many of them have now acquired boats of their own and sail as well.

BOB OAKES:   When I ask about the development of sailing, so to speak, in Ted's mind, when he was younger, long before he became the lion of the Senate, he lived in the shadow of his brothers. And you wrote here: "For years to come, no matter his accomplishments, Ted's status as a Presidential younger brother made him seem even less self-made than the other sons of Joe Kennedy. The exceptions were accomplishments racing the Victura, where nepotism gave no aid." He had independence and a sense of self-accomplishment on that boat.

JAMES GRAHAM:   That's a good point. If you think about it, he was always in the shadows of such accomplished, older brothers and sisters. But as a skipper in a sailboat race, the name Kennedy meant nothing. Either you won or you lost. And he must have loved that, that he could prove himself in that way. It's kind of an amazing thing that President Kennedy, when he was President, did not race, to my knowledge, much at all, if at all. But he loved coming out and watching his younger brother Ted race sailboats. So he'd be out there on the Presidential yacht watching Ted race around in the Victura.

BOB OAKES:    Late 1940s, Edgartown Regatta, a special moment, you write, for both Jack and Ted on the Victura. Jack was in Congress at the time, wanted to sail the race and asked Jack[sic] to crew. And the Congressman flies in at the eleventh hour. Tell us what happened. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Apparently, you're supposed to have a ticket or be on the boat and the rules did not allow for this, but Ted and the family friend, or cousin I guess, Joe Gargan, were on the boat waiting for Jack to arrive. They were late to get to the starting line, but they really wanted to sail with their Congressman brother Jack. Jack, the plane lands and he runs out in a suit and his briefcase to the end of the dock, jumps on the Victura, goes down below, changes clothes. Comes out and they make their way. I think they can hear the starting gun in the distance, but they rush out and get in the race and it was kind of a cloudy, rainy, misty day. I don't remember what the outcome of that race was, but they …

BOB OAKES:   You wrote that Ted gave Jack the tiller and when they got to the starting line, Jack could see the line that the other boats were sailing in, so he went in another direction. He took a chance in order to see if they could catch the rest of the participants.

JAMES GRAHAM:   That's right. I had forgotten about that. They really did know how to read the waters. I'm a Lake Michigan sailor, and there's no such thing as a tide in Chicago. But here the tide going in and out is a big factor in sailboat racing and they were really, really good at that. And that might have been a factor in that particular race.

BOB OAKES:   One by one, you wrote, they caught the other boats and finally eked out a victory at the end. I imagine that had to be one of many, many memorable moments for Ted on the Victura.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, there are so many stories of the Kennedys sailboat racing and coming from behind. That's part of the family lore, those various races. There's one other one about Jack when he was a youngster, coming from behind, even though the gaff rig busted and yet somehow he managed to win the race. I think that is a metaphor for life; Ted sailing is a metaphor for life. That notion of coming from behind is something that politicians really understand well, because so often somebody comes from behind in an election.

BOB OAKES:   You write about how after Jack and Bobby passed, Ted would sail the Victura out at night just to think all by himself.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, imagine the trauma of losing both your brothers. By that time, he'd also lost Joe, Jr. and his older sister Kathleen, now Jack and Robert. For days, he would go out sailing alone at night under the stars and collect his thoughts. There are other stories of the Kennedy family really enjoying sailing at night. There's a wonderful passage from Eugene O'Neill that Patrick Kennedy read at a funeral for his sister Kara, in which O'Neill writes about sailing at night and gazing up at the stars.

BOB OAKES:   You think sailing at night for Ted gave him a sense of purposefulness again? Certainly, his relatives thought it helped him focus.

JAMES GRAHAM:   I think so. The Kennedys are famously Catholic, but I think that they connect with their Maker as much at sea as anywhere. Kerry Kennedy told me that she never really feels closer to God than when she's out on a sailboat at night. I think that really puts life in perspective when you're out there on the water and experiencing the infinite sea. John F. Kennedy famously had on his desk, the Resolute, a little plaque that said "Oh, God, the sea is so great and my boat is so small." I believe that plaque is here in the Museum, if I'm not mistaken.

BOB OAKES:   Amy says yes. Summer 1994 – I'm wrapping up in a few minutes -- get ready with your questions – summer 1994, in the grips of a tight US Senate race. I remember this well, I covered this race as a reporter, that race with Mitt Romney. Looked for a while like he might very well lose, even the Senator's own campaign polls had the race nip and tuck or dead heat. Senator had to be concerned. And the afternoon before everyone knew what would be an extremely important first debate, he asked his driver to take him here to the Library so that he could stand and reflect near the Victura. Tell us about that. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   He did. It was the afternoon of a debate. He's down in the polls, or the polls had him and Romney neck in neck, more or less, and some polls had him behind. You know when you're a challenger to a guy like Ted Kennedy, being on the stage with him as an equal, challenging Ted really is a boost to your campaign. So it was a really crucial debate between Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney. And just to collect his thoughts, he came here and walked around the lawn. I think he sat on a bench somewhere outside part of the time and also must have spent some time with the sailboat. He said later that it was just a chance for him to collect his thoughts and reconnect with his values and the memory of his brothers and sisters. 

There was a line in the debate -- I don't remember exactly -- but he was challenged on a scandal in which the family was accused of profiting on some kind of a real estate deal involving the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, I believe. He basically responded by saying,

"Our family has paid too high a price to try to profit financially from public service."

BOB OAKES:   We're on the same page, because I actually have that called up right here. I remember that moment in the debate back then. When you cover a lot of politics, I think every now and then you can find a moment or two where you can actually see a campaign change right in front of your very eyes. That happened once to me in the race for President that John Kerry was nominated for. We were out in Des Moines, Iowa, and he had been slipping, slipping, slipping and at that moment, on that one particular day, he gathered a bunch of veterans together and it was a very, very moving moment at an event near his campaign headquarters. The energy in the room was incredible, and you could feel the momentum in that Democratic primary swing back to John Kerry at that moment.

It was overpowering.

I remember this line in that debate and you knew when he said that line, you could hear it on the other end of the televisions all across the Commonwealth, people saying, "Wow, that is a campaign-changing moment." I think he had one of those moments at that time. You wonder, if he would have been able to call that up had he not been here that afternoon, reflecting on his life with his brothers and the boat right next to the Victura.

JAMES GRAHAM:   One of the wonderful things about the story of the Victura is, as I said, it's the story of the family, it's not really just the story about John F. Kennedy as a 15 year old boy sailing it. It's that relationship between John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, and Robert and then Joe, Jr. and the others. What I really love is that with the construction of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate nearing completion, that that boat – I hope that that boat becomes more a symbol of the family and the relationships between them and what that chemistry meant than just about John F. Kennedy. Because I think that's the real story of the Victura.

I will also say that I think that sailing together was a really powerful shared experience. It was deliberately pursued by people like Ted Kennedy trying to connect with his children. There's really valuable family lessons from that, in that if you can find something to share with your children and your cousins that is a really wonderful shared experience – it doesn't have to be sailing, it can be anything. It could be fly-fishing; I think you fish for trout, right? It could be quilt making, it could be all kinds of things – but find your own Victura as a family and I think you'll do well. 

BOB OAKES:   I've dragged my kids on many fishing trips. Okay, questions from the audience. Step up to the microphone.

Q:   I have a question. I don't know if it's in your book but in Jacqueline Kennedy's, the tapes that came out, her long interviews with Arthur Schlesinger, one of the last things he asks her is when was President Kennedy most relaxed, and she said on a boat. Because there was no telephone.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Yeah, yeah, and certainly that photo from the Sports Illustrated spread really shows it. There's another news account at the time when he's President and he's with Ted and they're coming in from a cruise on -- might have been the President yacht coming back to Hyannis, it must have been Hyannisport -- and they see the Victura, winds blowing 30 knots or something like that and they look at it and they just say to each other, We've got to go out. So the President and Ted go out sailing. So clearly, he relished those moments. . 

Q:   Then just one quick question – the grandchildren of the next generation, the Shrivers, the Smiths, the Kennedys, who are some of the most outstanding sailors in the family?

JAMES GRAHAM:   I know that Robert and Ethel's son Joe really spent a lot of time with Ted and became an avid sailor. I know Max has raced a lot with the family. Chris Kennedy, who I came to know because he lives in the Chicago area, actually owns the boat – after they gave the Victura to the Kennedy Foundation for this Museum, they acquired another Wianno Senior and named it Victura. That has now come into the hands of Chris, although many of the members of the family sail it.  So I'm not sure if any one of them really stands out. Certainly, Joe, and Ted Kennedy, Jr. was a very good competitive sailor. I think his name shows up as a winner of many races.

Q:   I had the pleasure of running into the Kennedys several times in Maine. They used to go sailing there quite a bit. Is that in your book? And how much time did they actually spend up there?

JAMES GRAHAM:   In Maine. I don't really know the answer to that, but I know that there's a story of Robert and Ethel taking the children up to Maine sailing. The story was that they used to navigate with roadmaps instead of nautical maps. [laughter] And the rocky coast of Maine is not a place you want to take lightly. 

But that was an incident where Kathleen Kennedy, now Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, was not with them and fell off a horse, on their way to Maine. So a Coast Guard boat came to give them the news and Robert jumped off the boat and swam in high waves and everything else, swam across the water to the Coast Guard boat so he could get ashore to be with Kathleen, to be with her and attend to her injuries.

Q:   You had spoken before about the PT109. I've often wondered, it's sort of known that Jack Kennedy had sustained a very bad back, or had a back problem and he also had Addison's disease. Did he sustain his back injury during World War II, or was it due to something else?

JAMES GRAHAM:   Well, he had back issues prior to World War II. Whether that incident aggravated his back injuries, it's hard to say. I mean, after that incident, he was able to do all that swimming, so his back must not have been bothering him very much then. But I think it's been said that many people after World War II said that John F. Kennedy injured his back on PT109. In fact, I think he had injured it earlier. And he didn't necessarily correct those reporters who said that so it's not entirely clear how the back conditions were sustained.

Q:   You open the book by quoting the Tennyson poem Ulysses . I just wonder if you can talk about sort of what that meant to the family and how it entered family lore, et cetera. 

JAMES GRAHAM:   Thanks for bringing that up. Ulysses , of course, is a Tennyson poem from the 19 th century based on Homer's Odyssey of the legend of Odysseus, who was a great mariner. And it all started with a little ten-year-old girl named Jackie Bouvier who memorized the poem with the help of her grandfather when she was only ten years old. When she became engaged to John F. Kennedy, she recited the poem from memory to him. Jack was just delighted by it and it became his favorite poem, and he used it in speeches. 

There's one moment when he was running for President and he wanted to conclude his speech with words from that poem, but couldn't remember them. So he writes, "Jackie, give me the last words that begin with 'Come my friends.'" She proceeds to write several lines of that poem, starting with "Come with my friends, tis not too late to seek a newer world."

And of course after John F. Kennedy's death, Robert Kennedy took up that poem himself and began using it in speeches. He published a book called, To Seek a Newer World , taking a title from that. Then, when Robert F. Kennedy died, Ted Kennedy became under prominent consideration for the Presidency and his greatest speech was in 1980 at the Democratic National Convention, when he was conceding the race to President Carter and he gave his famous "Dream shall never die speech." But before he got to that concluding line, he quoted from Ulysses.  

To this day, there are grandchildren of that generation of Kennedys who memorize portions of that poem, sometimes performing it for the family at the dinner table. Conor Kennedy recently, who's I think is 18 years old and a grandson of Robert and Ethel – he's more famous for having dated Taylor Swift [laughter] -- but he also memorized the poem in its entirety for a class of his own.

BOB OAKES:   Before we go outside, we started by talking about doodles and we're going to finish by going back to art.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Before I go to this, I do want to say one quick word. I really wanted to say a word of thanks to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, because their support of my research here for this book was really, really invaluable. Of course, they preserve the boat but I spent a lot of time in the Library doing research and the help of the Library staff and all these photographs, the one that I love so much of John and Robert, I had not seen it anywhere but I found it here in this Library.

But one of the indications of how much this boat meant to the Kennedys as a family and especially a generation of the Kennedys who were the children of Joe and Rose, in 1963 the three sisters -- Jean, Patricia and Eunice -- decided that what their three brothers really wanted for Christmas were paintings of the sailboat Victura. And they commissioned an artist named Henry Koehler, who's in this photo, in the fall of 1963 to go out to Hyannis Port and go out on a boat. It might have been the Honey Fitz or it might have been the Marlin, I'm not sure. A powerboat. Joe Kennedy, Sr., who was an invalid at this time because of a stroke, they gave him a ride on the boat with him as this artist Henry Koehler drew sketches of the sailboats.  So here you have the President, the Attorney General of the United States, and Senator Ted Kennedy together, very important people in this country at that time and the sisters think that the thing that they most really want for Christmas are paintings of the Victura.

So Henry Koehler made these paintings. This is one of Jack and Jacqueline, and then this is of Ted and Joan Kennedy, and then nother one of Robert and Ethel. And in the fall of '63, as he's working on these paintings in his New York studio, one of the sisters wanted to come by and check on the progress of his work. So she came by the studio. Henry turned off the radio because he didn't want the gathering to be disturbed so they could have a conversation. The sister looked at the paintings. He can't remember which sister it was. He just said it wasn't Eunice; it was one of the other two. The sister thought the work was great, and she walked out the door and headed down the street. And the phone rang and it was the artist's, Henry Koehler's fiancée, saying, "Do you have your radio on?" "No." "The President's just been shot."  He ran out the door to see if he could find that Kennedy sister, and she was long down the block somewhere. He found out later that the sister learned of it from someone who recognized her on the street, a stranger had grabbed her and said, "Your brother's just been shot." 

But these paintings were nonetheless finished. He thought he'd lose the commission as a result of that. But he finished the paintings and delivered them for Christmas. Jacqueline had to accept for her husband.

BOB OAKES:   I said this the other day on the radio -- sorry about the cough, still coming off a cold -- I said this the other day on the radio and let me conclude– first of all, before I conclude I want to say that James is going to go downstairs next to the boat and take some one-on-one questions from you, if you want to question him there.  But on the radio the other day, at the end of our other interview, I said that this book -- if you love the story of the Kennedy family and you love a great story about how a family develops together through one shared interest -- this book is a gift. It's a real gift. And thank you very much. I appreciate it.

JAMES GRAHAM:   Thank you, Bob.  [applause]

Watch CBS News

John F. Kennedy's beloved sailboat Victura back on display

May 29, 2017 / 7:28 PM EDT / CBS News

BOSTON -- The night before President Kennedy traveled to Dallas, he made a simple sketch inside a Houston hotel room. It may be the last thing he ever put on paper, but it wasn't the first time he thought of his sailboat, Victura.

"All throughout his life it was being out in the sun, in the wind, on the sea, in the salty air, that somehow was always a source of renewal and inspiration for him," said Stacey Bredhoff, curator at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Victura, meaning "about the conquer" in Latin, was given to him by his father when JFK was 15. He named it, cared for it and sailed it for three decades.

"It's exposed to the elements over the summer so that people can see it," Bredhoff said, so it needs the work every year.

In Osterville, Massachusetts, CBS News' Jeff Glor watched as the Victura was being restored by 75-year-old Malcolm Crosby, whose family designed the boat model 100 years ago.

"A lot of history here," Crosby said.

Kennedy credited the boating skills he learned on Victura with saving his life in World War II. And in 1953, pictures of Kennedy and a then-Jacqueline Bouvier onboard launched America's love affair with the young couple.

"The Kennedys have boating really in their DNA," said Greg Egan, who owns the Crosby Yacht Yard and overseas the revarnishing, polishing and painting.

"Every year we give it a protective coat of varnish," Egan said. "We want to make sure the boat's in great shape and protected for all the visitors."

Victura was returned to the library earlier this month, back at its prime spot on the shoreline.

"What do you find most fascinating about Victura?" Glor asked Bredhoff, the library curator.

"Just the fact it was his and it was so important to him and was such a part of his life," she said.

"It's wonderful to see her here, in the sunshine," she continued.

Where the stories it holds can be shared anew.

• John F. Kennedy

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Author Discusses Kennedy Family's Tradition Of Sailing The Victura

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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.

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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.

Where to Buy

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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• 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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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: 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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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 Hardcover – April 1, 2014

• 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
• See all details

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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
• #1,125 in Sailing (Books)
• #8,007 in Political Leader Biographies
• #13,025 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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The Kennedys, a Sailboat, and the Sea

James W. Graham

284 pages | 6 x 9

Biography and Letters

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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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Victura : the Kennedys, a sailboat, and the sea

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9. The Kennedy Sailing Tradition

One of the most well-known Kennedy pastimes is sailing around Hyannis Harbor, Lewis Bay and into the Nantucket Sound. JFK spent many summers sailing with family in his Wianno Senior "Victura" in these waters. U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy often raced in the legendary Figawi regatta every May in his wooden schooner,  Mya . Many Kennedy family boats are moored at Hyannis Port Yacht Club, less than one mile from here. Visitors may wish to board a sightseeing vessel to see the Kennedy Compound from the water. Boats leave from Bismore Park docks.

The Kennedy Sailing Tradition

Close by, at the Hyannis Port pier is where Ted Kennedy's beloved sailboat Mya could be seen on its mooring, if he wasn't out winning a race! It wasn’t just Ted and JFK, but most of the Kennedys that have enjoyed taking to the waters in a vessel powered by wind. Today, the next generation of Kennedy sailors race their various Wianno Senior sailboats. The famous Crosby Yacht Yard made the "Seniors" in nearby Osterville to navigate our shifting Cape Cod shoals.

Bobby Kennedy

Robert “Bobby” Kennedy, active in politics and instrumental in the civil rights movement, was born on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Massachusetts. He and his wife Ethel, who married in 1950, had eleven children. They purchased the second of three houses that form the Kennedy Compound as their family started to grow. Robert managed his brother John F. Kennedy’s successful senate campaign in 1952, and went on to manage JFK’s national campaign in 1960. JFK appointed him U.S. Attorney General. In that role he worked closely and confidentially with his brother, serving as advisor during difficult times such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. He resigned as attorney general after his brother’s death. He was then elected U.S. Senator from New York. Robert was shot on June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles, California during his campaign for President. He was pronounced dead the following day.

The 35th President of the United States, 1961-1963

1. the kennedys and cape cod, 2. 1960s main street, hyannis, 3. rose fitzgerald kennedy, matriarch of the kennedy family, 4. the kennedy church, 5. site of presidential election acceptance speech, 6. protecting cape cod’s seashores, 7. peace corps memorial, 8. the kennedys’ contribution to maritime heritage, 9. the kennedys sailing tradition, 10. the 35th president of the united states, 1961-1963, explore hyannis, while you are in hyannis, plan some extra time to explore main street and its shops, restaurants and extensive arts and cultural offerings  for a list of current events and things to do in hyannis:.

Search for JFK Jr.: Reliving the hours, days after the 1999 Kennedy plane crash. Photos.

One man dead, one rescued after boat capsizes in rough seas at Tweed River near Queensland-NSW border

A man has died and another man has been hospitalised after the pair were rescued from a stricken boat at the Tweed River mouth on Saturday morning.

A major rescue operation was launched after the men were seen clinging to the upturned hull of a 6-metre runabout in rough conditions. 

What's next?

Investigators say initial enquiries indicate neither man was wearing a life jacket. 

A man has died and his companion has been rushed to hospital after their boat capsized in rough seas while trying to cross the Tweed River bar in far northern NSW.

Police say the men were spotted clinging to the upturned hull of a 6-metre half-cabin runabout just before sunrise this morning.

A major rescue operation was launched involving water police, volunteer marine rescue, surf lifesavers and a rescue helicopter.

Rescue crews were able to bring one man to shore.

The other man was winched out by helicopter but was unable to be revived.

The boat washed up on Duranbah Beach, a popular surf break on the Queensland border.

It is believed the men had launched the boat from the Kennedy Drive Boat Ramp in Tweed Heads.

The Tweed River bar is a notoriously treacherous crossing – a powerful 2.5-metre swell at the bottom of an outgoing tide made conditions particularly dangerous.

'Very, very rough' surf

A spokesperson for the rescue helicopter said one man was found unresponsive near the northern breakwall, while the other man was retrieved from the water by members of the public on a jetski before emergency services arrived.

Dale Hack, who witnessed the incident from the beach, said the surf was extremely rough.

"From about 12pm yesterday the swell rose and [the bar] was very, very rough," Mr Hack said.

"No one was surfing — it was just a wash."

Investigators say initial enquiries indicate neither man was wearing a life jacket.

Swimmer rescued

In a separate incident, a 47-year-old man had to be winched to safety by the rescue helicopter from the ocean at Broken Head.

Rescue crews say he was pulled out to sea and called triple-0 from his smart watch, staying on the phone to emergency services while he waited for help.

He was found more than 1 kilometre offshore near Suffolk Park and dropped back to the beach, where he was able to walk to a waiting ambulance.

He was taken to hospital for assessment but has since been released.

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The Grateful Dead and Francis Ford Coppola are…

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The grateful dead and francis ford coppola are among the newest kennedy center honors recipients.

WASHINGTON (AP) — An iconoclastic filmmaking legend and one of the world’s most enduring musical acts headline this year’s crop of Kennedy Center Honors recipients.

Director Francis Ford Coppola and the Grateful Dead will be honored for lifetime achievement in the arts, along with jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, blues legend Bonnie Raitt and the legendary Harlem theater The Apollo , which has launched generations of Black artists.

This 47th Kennedy Center class will be honored with an evening of tributes, testimonials and performances on Dec. 8 at Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The ceremony will be broadcast on CBS on Dec. 23.

Starting out as a folk-infused quintet in psychedelic-era 1960s San Francisco, the Grateful Dead steadily morphed into a cultural phenomenon and one of the most successful touring acts of all time.

Fueled by the carnival atmosphere of its traveling Deadhead fanbase and an ethos that encouraged tape-trading and emphasized live performance over studio output, the Dead have spanned multiple generations and remain wildly popular. Lead guitarist and founding member Jerry Garcia died in 1995, but the band continues almost nonstop touring in multiple incarnations.

“There’s a lot of ingredients that go into it,” drummer Mickey Hart said, when asked about the music’s longevity. “The fans say that the shows feel like home. It gives them that feeling of connectiveness and community and joy and love for life and the music.”

Currently calling themselves Dead and Company with guitarist John Mayer taking Garcia’s place, the band is in the midst of a several-month residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas.

Coppola, 85, has established himself as a trailblazing filmmaker, winning five Academy Awards and earning a reputation as a driven artist willing to risk his reputation and finances for his vision. Even after the massive successes of “The Godfather” and a sequel, Coppola drove himself into near bankruptcy while filming “Apocalypse Now,” which turned out to be another classic.

At times, he wondered whether he had ruffled too many powerful feathers along the way to ever receive Kennedy Center Honors induction.

“I’ve been eligible for the past 20 years, so the fact that I never received it made me feel that maybe I never would,” said Coppola, who took part in fellow director Martin Scorsese’s induction in 2007. “I just assumed I wasn’t going to win it, so to hear that I was chosen was a surprise and a delight.”

Coppola, who has produced wine from his northern California vineyard for more than 40 years, also made sure to shout out another northern California recipient this year.

“And it’s a big treat to be there this year with the Grateful Dead, my San Francisco colleagues,” he said. “I’m very delighted and pleased.”

Sandoval, 74, rose to prominence as a musician in his native Cuba, playing piano and percussion but specializing in the trumpet. His work brought him into contact with jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie, who championed his music and personally helped him defect from Cuba while on tour in Europe in 1990. Shortly after his defection, Sandoval performed at his mentor Gillespie’s own Kennedy Center Honors induction.

“Modestly apart, I do think I deserve it. I worked so hard for so many years,” Sandoval told The Associated Press. “It’s a huge honor, and I feel completely overwhelmed. I have to pinch myself sometimes. I’m just a little farmer from Cuba. God has been so good to me.”

Raitt’s memories of the Kennedy Center Honors go back to the 1970s, when she accompanied her father, Broadway performer John Raitt, who was taking part in a tribute to composer Richard Rogers.

“I got to visit the White House and hang out with the Carters,” said Raitt, 74. “I got my first taste of what this weekend really means.”

As an adult performer, Raitt experienced the other side of the Kennedy Center Honors equation: performing as part of tributes to Mavis Staples in 2016 and Buddy Guy in 2012. These performances are frequently kept secret from the honorees themselves, and Raitt said she looks forward to seeing who the planners come up with for her tribute.

“I really, really want to be surprised, and I don’t want to know,” she said.

Over a 50-year career, Raitt has received a plethora of music awards, including 13 Grammys and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone magazine named her to its lists of the 100 greatest guitarists and the 100 greatest singers of all time. But Raitt said the Kennedy Center Honors status holds a special place because it extends to all aspects of the performing arts, encompassing all forms of music, dance and performance.

“The thing that puts (Kennedy Center Honors) at the pinnacle is that it’s culture-wide,” she said. “It’s hard for me to even fathom what this means.”

It’s extremely rare for the Kennedy Center Honors to select a venue, rather than a performer. But The Apollo’s nine-decade run as an incubator for generations of Black talent has qualified it as an exception.

“It’s not a traditional honoree, for sure,” said Michelle Ebanks, the theater’s president and CEO, who cited the recent induction of the show “Sesame Street” as a similar out-of-the-box selection. “We’re absolutely delighted by the honor.”

The Harlem landmark has served as a proving ground for Black performers dating back to Billie Holiday, James Brown and Stevie Wonder and extending into modern performers like Lauryn Hill. This year, the theater has moved events to a new venue down the street, dubbed The Apollo Stages at the Victoria Theater, while the original venue undergoes renovation and expansion.

“It’s more than a theater. It’s a cultural touchstone … that’s rooted in the Harlem community,” Ebanks said. “It really is a recognition of a collective passion. … Over the decades, The Apollo has never stood still.”

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