SLEEPING BEAUTIES

Few sights are more beautiful than the collected curves of an ocean racer's hull, bared for the spring overhaul

After long months under winter cover, sailboats and powerboats in yards all over the country have been rolled out into the warm sun for their yearly overhaul. The boat yards themselves, virtually deserted since October, have suddenly come alive. The narrow spaces between hulls have filled up with the organized clutter of the boating trade. One of the best known of the boat yards is Nevins (right) on City Island at the western tip of Long Island Sound. There, the cream of the ocean-racing fleet is being readied for the season. And there, during these early weeks of spring, a visitor can get a rare look at the soaring curves of these hulls out of water. For a report on some of the practical economics of boat ownership and maintenance, turn to page 21.

Looking remote and ineffectual against the sweeping sheer of the ocean racers' hulls, experts at Nevins Yard prepare the sleek beauties for another season. Inside the shed (above), crewman Don Street goes to work on the deck of S. A. Long's gleaming yawl "Ondine." Outside in the yard, two other queens—De Coursey Fales's proud old staysail schooner "Ni√±a" and A. Howard Fuller's 57-foot sloop "Gesture" (foreground)—lift their regal chins while a workman puts on another coat of antifouling paint

The varnished hull and sweeping lines of Carl Hovgard's 57-foot yawl Circe, Class B winner in the 1954 Bermuda race, give her a feeling of speed even on dry land

TWO PHOTOS

RONNY JAQUES

TWO PHOTOS

JERRY COOKE