Finders not keepers — Bill returns the cup
But how did the yacht trophy end up at Value Village?
Trophies, cups and other spoils of victory and boating achievement are serried across the shelves of the RHYC clubhouse cabinets, acclamations in hardware of the century-plus history of this city’s prowess on water.
The Royal Hamilton Yacht Club began in 1888. The oldest extant trophy dates back to the early part of the last century.
There is, of course, the Lipton Cup, power boating’s highest prize. It was won in 1928 by the famous Hamilton industrialist Harry Greening, once RHYC commodore and president of the Greening Wire Co., which many remember from the city’s once impressive manufacturing cavalcade.
But the newest trophy in the club’s collection was presented circa 1946. What? Nothing since then? Yes, of course.
Many trophies have accrued in the interim, but a few weeks ago a young man from Dundas let the club know about something he’d just found.
At Value Village, Burlington. He picked it up for $7.95.
It’s a beautiful silver-plated cup, with decorative scrollwork, dedicated to one of the club’s great champions. Inscribed on the cup are the words “Presented to the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club in memory of William Finch Judd, 1879-1946.”
Somehow over the years — it was probably given in 1946 — the cup left the possession of the club; we’ll likely never know.
Now, thanks to Bill Robinson, it’s back where it belongs, safely behind glass with its fellow witnesses to the glorious past.
“I was drawn to it,” says Bill, “because it looked like the top of the Stanley Cup. It was with some other silver items, at the far end. So I grabbed it.”
He didn’t realize what he had until he got it home and assiduously worked off years of accumulated tarnish, which had dulled the sheen and obscured the lettering. He brought it back up beautifully.
“It was green inside and looked like someone kept a plant in it,” says Bill. “It needed a lot of elbow grease.”
Bill didn’t think twice. He offered the trophy back to the RHYC. He didn’t even ask for the $7.99.
But the club did one better. They had Bill and his family over for their Fun in the Sun event where he presented the trophy to Commodore Jan Graves-Passmore.
The club also had Bill over for dinner at the club and an interview with a certain Spectator columnist.
“The trophy is an amazing link to one of our more prominent sailors from the 1920s, and to the Judd Family, which had a long association with RHYC,” says Rob Mazza, vice-commodore and an avid student of RHYC history.
“Guy Judd, William’s father, was an original founder of RHYC in 1888 and commodore from 1906 to 1908. We are indebted to Bill, an incredibly generous gesture.”
William (Bill) Judd was renowned for winning the very first Telegram Trophy, sponsored by the Toronto Evening Telegram, in 1923, beating out all the Toronto sailors. He won it again in 1925, with Norm Robertson on his crew. (It wasn’t won again by a Hamilton sailor until 1932, when Dave Hughes of the Pals Club prevailed.)
Bill Judd sailed a lot with Norm Robertson, who just edged him out to be the first Hamilton sailing Olympian (Paris, 1924). Norm’s son, John Robertson, followed in his father’s footsteps and competed in two Olympics, London and Helsinki (1948 and 1952), the London Games when he was but 19.
John and his wife Sue joined us and another legendary sailor, Don Green, for that dinner, filling Bill in on the history of the RHYC (adult sailing lessons on this summer — there, a little plug for the club).
John told us how he didn’t really like sailing as a boy. “When I was six, I stepped back and fell off the dock.” The man who rescued him? A local undertaker, John revealed to general laughter.
We sat for some time, hearing such stories over the delicious clubhouse fare, and with the trophy on the table with us, it felt a bit like Bill Judd was there too, smiling along.