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Marblehead Model Yacht Club Commodore Benjamin Franklin "Biff" Martin's apartment is home to boats
and sails, old and new, including ones he is repairing.
every nook and cranny that can afford the
space: boats, sails, national sailing magazines,
and plaques from his various title
victories.
Many of those plaques include National
Championship titles, a race that Goodwin
has won eight times throughout his
multi-decade sailing career. His first was in
Toronto, Canada in 1974, a race in which
Goodwin “came out of nowhere” to secure
the title while racing among the bigwig
sailing names of the time.
Nowadays, Goodwin mostly stays away
from the spotlight and traveling that
marked his more successful years as a model
sailor. Now he mainly sails on Sundays, one
of the MMYC’s official sailing days, though
fewer and fewer boats are being launched at
Redd’s Pond, in part due to the weather, but
also due to a steady decline in membership
over the past few years.
When Goodwin goes out now, he’s lucky
to see even two other sailors out on the
pond getting their boats wet. One of them
that he can usually count on is the MMYC’s
commodore, Benjamin Franklin Martin,
though everyone calls him Biff.
Martin, also a Marblehead native who
grew up a stone’s throw away from Redd’s
Pond, deems the pond the “Mecca” of model
yacht racing.
“This is where it all began,” says Martin.
“It's where the Marblehead class began, and
everyone loves to come and sail on Redd’s
Pond even though it drives them nuts. The
trees around it make it almost impossible to
just come there and sail and win.”
Martin and Goodwin have been close
friends for nearly 60 years and counting, in
large part due to model yacht racing. Martin
is quick to acknowledge that Goodwin is
the most successful racer that Redd’s Pond
has ever seen.
“He’s a piece of work. Every time that
I’ve gone to Redd’s Pond I’ve gone to beat
him, even when we were kids,” said Martin.
“He's pretty good at what he does, but
sometimes –– sometimes –– I can beat him.
And he knows it.”
Though Goodwin may not remember,
Martin’s first memory of the champion
yachtsman was from when he was 3 years
old.
“He’s always been a good friend to me.
There's been times when he and I are the
only ones that have sailed all summer long.
We show up Sunday morning and race each
other (for) 10 races,” Martin said.
Martin’s apartment in Marblehead,
much like Goodwin's home, is chock-full
of sails and boats, many old, but some new
that he’s still repairing.
“It's an obsession," he said. "I mean how
many places have you seen where somebody
has a hobby that their whole apartment is
taken over with?”
His obsession with model yachting is
part of what has kept Redd’s Pond alive as a
destination for model racing all these years.
It costs nearly $3,000 every two years to
cleanse the pond and keep it clear of algae,
but the $25-per-person cost of membership
to be a part of the MMYC unfortunately is
a mere drop in the bucket, leaving the burden
on Martin to seek larger donations and
find other streams of income for the club.
As to what the future holds for the
Marblehead Model Yacht Club, Goodwin
believes that’s in the hands of a younger
generation of sailors who have yet to discover
the passion of model yachting.
“The people who are members are all
getting on, so we’ll just have to see. Some
new group is going to have to take over in a
few years,” Goodwin said.
Until then though, most Sunday mornings
from April to December, any visitor to
Redd’s Pond will witness the old guard still
standing strong, watching over the pond as
they’ve done for more than a century.
In their eyes, they’ve already done their
part to leave their legacy in Marblehead. It’s
up to someone new –– maybe even someone
like you –– to set sail and carry on the
tradition of model yachting at Redd’s Pond.
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