Aileen Shields Bryan

 02 Jul 22:

Who came up with the concept for the Sunfish? Aileen Shields Bryan, Alex Bryan's better half. As in Alex Bryan and Cortlandt Heyniger of ALCORT Sailboats 

"Aileen Shields Bryan, daughter of Corny Shields, was among the best female sailors of her time. Sailing from the Larchmont YC, she won the Women’s National Championship Adams Cup in 1948 as well as Atlantic Class and 210 Championships. In 1950 she and her crew, Margot Gotte, wrote a detailed, 3-page article for Yacht Racing Magazine, titled “How to Win a Sailboat Race”. Also in 1950 she married Alexander Bryan. Her husband, along with Cortlandt Heyniger, had designed and built the Sailfish, which was essentially a sailboard with a lateen-rigged sail. Aileen had a hand in it’s creation: Aileen, after taking the Sailfish (which did not have a cockpit) for a sail while pregnant, thought the craft would be more comfortable with a place to put one’s feet. Her ideas were taken to the drawing board and thus the Sunfish, with a cockpit and a slightly wider beam, was born. The Sunfish has since become the most popular recreational sailboat in the world.

The spark that set off Alcort’s extraordinary success was Aileen, Corny Shield’s daughter and perhaps the best female sailor of the time: winner of the ’48 Adams Cup and Class Champion in both Atlantics and 210’s. Corny credits Aileen with introducing Long Island Sound to “the greatest spinnaker-handling asset to come to yacht racing – the spinnaker turtle”. But, Sunfish was her greatest gift to sailing. The story goes: After Aileen married golfer Alex Bryan in 1950, her time on the water was dutifully in a wet bathing suit on the rough sandpaper deck of a Sailfish. For America’s leading yachtswoman, this had its limits. Not wanting to flop around on its flat deck when pregnant, like a beached whale, she “insisted” that Al and Cort build her a wider boat with a cockpit well for her feet, so she could more naturally sail, seated athwartships holding a hiking stick. It’s easy to imagine her saying, “Hey guys, let’s make a real sailboat”, one that’s more fun and easier to sail properly than this uncomfortable, tippy board we’ve been peddling?”

Aileen’s concept was drawn out in dust on the shop floor by Carl Meinelt… a 1-foot wider Sailfish with a cockpit well. Sunfish was born to become, “The most popular fiberglass sailboat ever designed, with a quarter million sold worldwide” said the American Sailboat Hall of Fame in 1995.

National Sailing Hall of Fame. Bryan, Aileen Shields - National Sailing Hall of Fame

Skipper uses the same technique for holding the tiller as in the photo above...

We think Aileen is the lady we see in early Sailfish and Sunfish advertisements.

Thank you Aileen.