J. Vincent and Barbara recently celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary. This event came on the heels of Mr. Vincent and Barbara having become reacquainted with POLA virtually 61 years to the day that she was launched by the Vincents in 1939.

During the course of their owning and caring for POLA Barbara wrote and successfully published a number of articles about her and their life with her. One of these articles appeared in YACHTING magazine in 1954. We are pleased to post a copy of the article here, courtesy of the Vincents.

A personal note here: Please notice the photo on the first page of the article. The boat on the right is SCAMP, a Kettenburg (San Diego) P.C. (stands for Pacific Class, 32 ft. LOA and adopted as one design class of the San Diego Yacht Club in the 1920's). Yours truly (Website initiator Steve Barber) owns a Kettenburg 38. It was the ownership of the Kettenburg which led me to obtain my Bear, POLA... a long story I'll tell you sometime. Anyway, as the owner and renovator of two classics, one indigenous to and part of the history of Northern California and the other one synonymous with Southern California sailing history, both members of the SF Master Mariners, both beautiful to look at and sail in their own right etc, etc, etc, yawn!!, let me tell you it feels good to see these two names having been chums for over 60 years.

This race inaugurated the 1939 World's Fair* held at Treasure Island. J. Vincent entered the race simply to help the Bear boat design become a "class" for racing purposes. The story of how POLA came to claim first place is found in the WoodenBoat article in the Records section of our website.
 
*officially called the Golden Gate International Exposition 1939.