One who is not familiar with sea minded movie stars and producers might picture them as owning plush lined gold plated power yachts with gold laced captains, ! engineers, stewards, crewmen, etc. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many stars own sailboats, and there is no plush lining or gold braid in sight. Humphrey Bogart may be seen in faded blue denims and a well worn windbreaker at the wheel in a long distance sailing race, but he cannot be picked out from his crew because of his dress.

Unlike people in some other professions, the movie star or producer has hundreds of people who depend on his being on the job. If he followed his inclinations and decided to devote all his time to sailing, and to hell with the movies, then the extras, cameramen, directors, makeup men, hairdressers, scenic artists, dress designers, film processors, distributors, and exhibitors would all be out of jobs. Not only that, but their ironbound contracts shackle them to the studios for a certain number of pictures a year, and the schedule is so strenuous that there are only brief periods of freedom.

Some, like Errol Flynn, were sailors before they were dragged more or less willingly before the camera. Flynn's book on his sailing adventures and shipwreck on the Australian coast long before his advent into the movies makes amusing reading, and in its technical detail shows him to be a real sailing man.

When affluence struck him in Hollywood he was able to buy the best sailboat he could find. He chose the eighty foot Alden designed ketch Sirocco and in her made many long cruises to Mexican and other waters. During the war the Sirocco was sold and he now owns the 103 foot schooner Zaca, at present cruising in Mediterranean waters.

James Cagney, producer and star, has several sailboats. He owned the San Francisco built fifty-eight foot schooner Martha for many years, as well as the Chappelle designed and Robinson built Swift. His busy life leaves little time for sailing, but he is to be seen in his twenty-three foot one-design Albatross in Newport-Balboa harbor, or at nearby Catalina Island in the Swift.

One of the most active sailors is Humphrey Bogart who owns and sails the forty-seven foot yawl SaNtana, originally built for Bill Stewart of the Union Oil Company by Wilbo and designed by Olin Stephens in 1935. She was first rigged as a schooner but George Brent, one of her later owners, rerigged her as a yawl in 1941, and sold her to her present owner a few years later when he acquired a larger vessel,

Santana has taken part in most of the local long distance races and can hold her own with, or beat, many of the Southern California racers in the larger classes. In a recent race around Catalina and San Clemente Islands in high winds and heavy fog, a distance of 170 miles in the open ocean, she was first across the finish line, losing on corrected time to the light displacement sloop Flying Scotchman which finished six seconds behind her. So thick was the fog that neither boat saw the other until they hit the line. Before acquiring the Santana Bogart had a power cruiser and during the war was active in the task cruises of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary.

George Brent owned Santana for a short time before buying the Sartartia, formerly owned by the late Buck Jones who sailed her in the 1936 Honolulu race. Brent changed her name to South Wind and sailed her for some years in local waters, then sold her to Jack Warner, the producer. After being on the beach for a short time George bought her back and raced in her in the 2,400 mile Honolulu race of 1947. He had planned to continue on to the South Seas, but delays and crew trouble as well as the studio schedule made this impossible. George Brent is a fine sailor and navigator.

Arthur Lake is not only in the movies but is tied down with the Blondie radio program as well, yet he finds time to sail the ten meter sloop Blondie most weekends in local waters. He also has a twelve foot Delta class sailing dinghy which he races in the waters of Santa Monica Bay.

Dana Andrews owns two large sailboats, the forty-seven foot Katherine and the eighty foot Vilehi ketch. He has made long voyages in both vessels, his last being a 2,000 mile round trip to the Gulf of California in Mexican waters accompanied by as many nieces and nephews as he could cram aboard. He has been a boat owner for many years, having previously owned a power cruiser in which he explored the islands lying off the Southern California coast.

After having sailed half around the world with Irving Johnson in the Yankee, it is not surprising that Sterling Hayden found dry land much too dry. The result is that he owns the Colin Archer designed and built Oscar Tybring, a Norwegian lifesaving vessel. She is a husky gaff rigged ketch and has no auxiliary engine. She is worked out of and into her moorings entirely under sail. Although this vessel is over fifty years old she is in good condition and beautifully kept up. Until recently he also owned the gaff rigged schooner Brigadoon on which he made his home. However with the advent of his third child the quarters became too crowded and he moved ashore. Like other motion picture stars, Hayden looks forward to the time when he can strike off the fetters of his profession and again sail to far places.

Boat owning motion picture producers include John Ford, whose eighty-seven foot ketch Araner (formerly Faith) was designed by Hanna on the lines of Captain Slocum's famous Spray. She was built in Essex, Massachusetts, in 1926 and takes the palm for distance covered. She has twice made the 5,000 mile round trip to the Hawaiian Islands, has been once to Acapulco, Mexico, and back, 2,500 miles, and makes the 2,000 mile round trip to the Gulf of California every year. Like most Southern California vessels she is kept in commission all the year around, and her owner uses her for weekends during the all too brief intervals from the studio grind.

Milton Bren and his beautiful actress wife Claire Trevor own and sail the sixty-eight foot cutter Pursuit, built in Germany in 1929. She races in the M class and may be seen at sea as often as- her owners can escape from the studios. Pursuit is kept up to perfection and always looks as if she had just left the builder's yard.

Preston Sturges is another sailing man. Like some of the others he owns several vessels, the largest of which is the Destiny, sixty-two foot schooner which crosses two yards on her fore. When running, a square-sail and raffee are carried which are brailed in to the mast when not in use. Her owner sailed her in the 1936 Honolulu race. Sturges is a keen student of the almost extinct Block Island design. He owns the Island Belle, built from the lines of Roaring Bessie, and has another Block Islander almost completed which is authentic in lines and rig. At present he finds little time to sail. The responsibilities of a producer exceed those of an actor as he is usually responsible for the financing as well as the production of a picture.

Jon Hall and his talented and beautiful wife, Frances Lang-ford, owned the Atkin designed and Fernandez built Moonglow. a forty foot ketch on which they cruised local waters for some years. Reversing the usual process, he deserted sail and built the Hurricane, an express cruiser driven by twin Wright Typhoon engines. Now he can cover more water in less time than when he was a sailboat owner.

Dick Powell, after possessing several large sailboats, at present owns a twenty-three foot Albatross class one-design in which he races in Newport-Balboa harbor.

Richard Greene, hailing from England and one of our younger stars, takes time off to sail his thirty foot ketch Stardust in local races and cruises around the offshore California islands.

Eddie Albert started sailing many years ,ago when he bought his present forty foot ketch Cynthia one afternoon. Knowing nothing whatever about sailboats and sailing, he set off for Catalina Island, some twenty miles off the coast, that same night. As he had come straight from the cornfields of Iowa he had not even seen a sailboat before, consequently the worried and whitehaired Providence who looks after the sailormen, spent a sleepless night until Eddie dropped the hook at the island.

Since then Albert has sailed thousands of miles, and his knowledge of sailing and navigation was seized upon by the Navy and put to good use in the landings at Tarawa and other beaches. He shares the pleasures of sailing on Cynthia with underprivileged boys from the Los Angeles Police Department Boys Club. He goes to their camp on Catalina in the summer, takes them out on Cynthia and, teaches them the rudiments of seamanship.

Among the owners of power cruisers are Lou Costello of the team of Abbot and Costello. His vessel is the eighty foot Queen Lolly Christolo, which is powered with a 400 horsepower diesel. Charlie Chaplin, another Englishman, owns the fifty foot Panacea, also powered by a 400 horsepower diesel. Like other actor-producers he has little time to use her, although formerly he was often to be seen in Catalina Island waters. Bob Burns of bazooka fame owns and sails the Robin, a forty foot Harco cruiser powered with a pair of gasoline engines of 200 horsepower each and capable of a speed of twenty-five knots.

Among others temporarily on the beach are Ronald Coleman who owned the beautiful and fast sixty foot ketch, Dragoon; Spencer Tracy who owned the forty foot ketch, Resolute; Lee Tracy who had the Adore and sailed her in the 1936 Honolulu race; Lewis Stone who sailed the large schooner Wetona; Hopalong Cassidy (Bill Boyd), owner of several power cruisers, and others.

By tacit consent their fellow boat owners respect the desire of movie stars for privacy, and they are treated with the same attention, or lack of it, as is accorded others who find their relaxation and pleasure in boating.

Unfortunately the publicity departments of the various studios have been guilty of exaggerating the perilous adventures of some of the sailing actors, who of course are not responsible for these stories, and to their credit be it said that they are just as sore at the studios for putting out highly colored stories of their wild adventures as any other yachtsman would be if an incident were exaggerated to make a hero out of him.

Movie actors are human beings who enjoy the same activities as other people. They ask to be allowed to enjoy themselves in their own way without the spotlight of publicity being turned upon them. Those who know them as fellow sailors agree that they stack up well alongside the sailing men of other professions.