William Howland Taylor was a widely known and respected writer on yachting and yachting subjects and the first writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for sportswriting. A newspaperman and magazine editor, Taylor devoted much of his working life to yachting. He was the author and editor of five books on the subject, knowledge derived from the salty background and small boats of his native Massachusetts. He wrote about the finest yachtsmen of his day and of history--Sir Thomas Lipton, Tom Sopwith, Captain Charlier Barr-- as well as famous boat builders and designers such as W. Starling Burgess and Nathanael Greene Herreshoff. He also wrote about the great boats, with names such as Yankee, Rainbow, Endeavour, and America, as though they were racehorses.

While working on the staff of the New York Herald Tribune Taylor won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the America's Cup races of 1934 between...