Brattle Forum Covers Sea, Air Sports

Two sets of panelists each occupied half of Thursday's Brattle Street Forum, discussing pastimes comprehended by the title "Sports of Sea and Sky."

A group of four discussed sport parachuting in the program's first and five members of the command of Boston's 12-meter sloop Nefertiti followed with an hour's discussion of America's Cup racing, originally recorded on August 7.

Jacques Istel, president of the committee of the Sixth world championship of sport parachuting, currently being held in Orange, led the discussion of sky-diving. Isten was the man who introduced the sport to the U.S. in the fifties.

Tracing the recent evolution of parachuting, Istel noted that the ranks of 'chustist has swelled from a handful in 1955 to "between 50 and 70,000 today." Commenting on film clips of jumping in California he observed that skydivers can vary their speed of fall, and can reach speeds of 120 m.p.h.

Following discussion of the equipment of parachuting, the panelists turned to competitive jumping. Explaining the requirement of series and accuracy jumps, Istel pointed out that in men's competition the 'chutist does not know the order in which he will have to perform the series until he had begun his free fall and receives signals from the ground. Following the 'chutists, the five-man from Nefertiti discussed the America's Cup races, dwelling on the changes in design of Cup defenders and especially of Nefertiti.

During films of the J Boats contending in 1937's Cup race, Nefertiti's sailing master Fred Sawton observed that after World War II the expense of maintaining a yacht of J Boat proportions (150 feet long) has forced a switch to the smaller twelves. It was not 1958, however, that Commodore Henry Sears of the New Yacht Club arranged for the post-war challenge race between the American Columbia and British Secptre.

Following films of the '58 race, maker Ted Hood, who designed and now skippers the Boston yacht, described innovations in design Nefertiti. The boat, he said, is what shorter and wider than there twelves, with her mast stepped somewhat aft to allow for the use of a larger Genoa jib.