Designing and Racing
Geary was born in 1885, in Atchison, Kansas, and moved to Seattle with his parents in 1892. He exhibited an early attraction to water-related activities. In 1899, at age 14, he, along with a friend, designed and built the 24-foot centerboard racing sloop Empress.
Four years later, with lifelong friends Dean and Lloyd Johnson, Geary designed and built Empress II, another 24-foot centerboard racing sloop. With Geary at the helm, she was never defeated in local races. While a sophomore at the University of Washington, he designed Spirit, a 42-foot LOA (Length Over All) racing sloop for the Seattle Yacht Club. Spirit would successfully challenge the Canadian Yacht Alexandra for the Dunsmir Cup in 1907. Geary’s success attracted the attention of several prominent Seattle businessmen who at Geary’s suggestion would finance his education as a naval architect at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Read more about this topic: Leslie Geary
Famous quotes containing the words designing and/or racing:
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