About Clarity
Clarity
has a unique story to tell and a life which provides testimony to her resilience. She was one of four sister designs by Wm. Fife (number 722) and was built by Thornycroft for William Vett of Copenhagen to compete in the 1924 Olympic Summer Games in Le Havre. Sailing against seven other European and one Cuban yacht, Vett and his crew Knud Degn and Christian Moller won silver medal.
After the '24 Olympics, Clarity
participated in the 1926 Scandinavian Gold Cup, but was soon sold to Jens Jespersen, a master cabinetmaker in Copenhagen and one of the founders of the Kastrup Sejlklub (a yacht club 50 km. west of Copenhagen), who sailed her through the 1930's and 40's. It is believed that her enclosed cabin, which she still proudly sports, was designed and installed by Jens during this period. This would make sense, given its low, sleek lines inconsistent with more mid‐century cabins typically fitted to a yacht of her size.
Clarity
is presumed to have come to the U.S. sometime in the 1950’s. Her history in the states is unclear, until she was purchased in Maine in 1980, still sailing in very much her original (1920’s) condition. The buyer, Jed Pearsall (then 22), prepped her in anticipation for his summer in Newport to observe the 1983 Americaʹs Cup. Unfortunately, during transit from the restoration shop in Pennsylvania, a strap broke loose and she bounced on the trailer, sending poppets through her hull and cracking several frames. So back into the shed she went, otherwise shiny and new. She stayed there for 15 years while Jed and his father (noted mid‐century Danish modern furniture designer, Adrian Pearsall) completed other restoration projects including the famous Herreshoff designed 1905 New York 30, Amorita, the 1913 Burgess P‐Class Chips
(now sailing in the Med), and the beautiful 1925 Fife designed Hallowe’en.
However, Clarity
never was out of the picture and with the help of MPG restorations in Mystic, Connecticut, she hit the water again in the spring of 1997 and
enjoyed two glorious seasons exploring Newport’s pristine sailing conditions. But in late 1998 she went on to meet another near disaster. While taking part in Newport’s annual Classic Yacht Regatta, she was hit broadside by a port tacking Concordia yawl. Her port side was split open mid‐ship nearly to the waterline, taking down the rig, and nearly sunk. While the insurance claim wanted to “total” her, Jed’s commitment to Clarity
again never waivered. In fact, Clarity
has been under the care of the Pearsall family for the past 40 years. Through all of her travails, she has continued to maintain most of her original structure, deck, planking, and nearly all of her original hardware and spars. She is very much a time capsule of a truly vintage Six.
