Sport: Gem of the Ocean

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Blue-Water Racer. Ever since he learned to sail as a boy on Cape Cod, Designer Stephens has shown the same loving and calculating care for boats. Son of a prosperous Bronx coal dealer, he completed one year at M.I.T., got jaundice, never went back to college. Instead, he studied ship design so thoroughly by himself that when he was only 19 Marine Architect Drake H. Sparkman asked him to form a partnership. Later, Architect W. Starling Burgess invited Stephens to collaborate on the J-Boat Ranger, the fastest yacht in history,* which defended the America's Cup in 1937.

Stephens was 22 when he took a vacation from his drawing board and, with his father and brother Rod as crew members, astounded the blue-water racers by skippering his 52-ft. yawl Dorade to victory in a transatlantic race to England. The experience helped him go on to design deep-keeled, fast cruising yawls with flashy racing lines, such as Baruna and Bolero, and the shallow-keeled, sturdy Finisterre, that came to dominate blue-water racing against schooners and ketches.

Shy and modest, Stephens at 50 still looks much like a college sophomore with his horn-rimmed glasses and windswept shock of blond hair. In recent years he has left the family sailing much to gregarious Rod. instead spends his spare time painting or studying French and philosophy. Explains his wife: "He likes yachting people, understand. He just thinks there are other serious things in his life."