June 14, 2009 - Peggy Benkard (Sloup du Jour) told us of Peach Blossom. This boat belonged to a Paul Cox, now deceased. Paul sold it several years ago to someone from Michigan. Peggy advises Peach Blossom was older than her boat and had a pole strut below the mast.

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March 14, 2012. DFI staff have been checking and cross checking our data bases and have come to the tentative conclusion that Peach Blossom was actually sold to someone in Illinois, not Michigan and that today she is Terry Glenn's and Nancy Broeckl's Porpoise and sails out of Belmont Harbor/Chicago, Illinois. Here is an excerpt from Terry's email received in September, 2010.

"I am the current owner of the Dolphin 24 PORPOISE, and a member of the Wilmette Dolphin fleet Nancy Broeckl bought the boat in 1992 from C. Paul Cox of Easton,  Maryland. I became a co-owner when she bought the boat.

When I was crew at a Penguin Regatta several years on the Chesapeake C. Paul Cox II was a competitor and ran the regatta. He explained he grew up on PORPOISE, so his father may have been the original owner.  I know it was cruised extensively by the Coxes.

The boat is an O'Day Dolphin, built by Marscot Plastics, Fall River, MA. Hull No. 3235, Class #15 in 1960. The boat has been kept in Belmont Harbor, Chicago since acquired here. Nancy Broeckl is a member of Chicago Yacht Club, which has a Belmont Station, and is their historian."

DFI analytical technology employed picked up the the following clues to come up with the tentative conclusion

1) Peach Blossom, Hull #15 is 'older' than Sloop du Jour, an O'Day built boat, most probably a 1960 built boat, hull #21 Sloop du Jour. We know she was Sam Jones' Julep in Fenwick, CT, bought in the late 1960's. Up until now we did not know where Julep came from, and did not know how old she was - no hull #.

New DFI analysis not yet published indicates that Don Haydon sold his Dionis, O'Day #21 to a man from Fenwick in the late 1960s. Fenwick, a borough of Old Saybrook, CT is the smallest borough in the state of Connecticut, is located on Long Island Sound at the western side of the CT River. It had a 2000 census population of 52 (a famous resident of this borough was Katherine Heburn). As we are confident that only one Dolphin could have entered the tiny Fenwick community in the late 1960s (Sam Jones would certainly have known about it if there 2 Dolphins there!) we feel that Dionis must therefore be Julep.

2) How many Paul Cox/Cox families can there be who owned a Marscot/ O'Day older than Sloop du Jour, now known to be hull #21?

3) the timing of the supposed sale of Peach Blossom by C. Paul Cox in 1992 is in the time range Peggy Benkard thought that Peach Blossom was sold.

4) Wilmette is not in Michigan, but it is on Lake Michigan!

The fact that we don't know how the boat got from Fisher's Island, NY to the Chesapeake Bay is a minor detail but will not stop us from banging the right corner, hitting the perfect shift and .....Besides, that question mark at the top of the page after the #15 gets us off the hook.

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