Buddy Melges, Jr.

Buddy Melges, Jr., a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, enjoyed his first major success in 1959 when he took the North American championship and went on to a long career as a top sailor. He won innumerable races and is the only person to have won the Clifford D. Mallory Cup for three straight years (1959-61). The Mallory Cup symbolizes the North American Sailing Championship.

Melges was a two-time Star World Champion in 1978 and 1979, and won the 5.5-metre World title in 1967, 1973, and 1983. Nationally, Buddy captured the E-Scow national championship five times, triumphing in 1965, 1969, 1978-79, and 1983. He was also a seven-time skeeter ice boat World Champion in 1955, 1957, 1970, 1972, 1974, and 1980-81.

At the 1964 Olympics Melges was joined by Bill Bentsen and they took the bronze medals in the Flying Dutchman class. Together they also won the gold medal in the Flying Dutchman class at the 1967 Pan American Games. At the 1972 Games, Melges again had Bentsen as a partner and they were joined by a third crew member, Bill Allen. With the experienced Melges as helmsman, the USA scored an overwhelming victory as, apart from the discard race (in which they finished fourth), they were in the top three in all six scoring races.

In the America’s Cup, Melges skippered Heart of America in the 1987 Challenger Trials, competing against Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes. In 1992 he helmed the America3, helping Bill Koch win the America’s Cup.

Buddy Melges ran Melges Boat Works, a company that started as a wooden rowboat builder, but evolved into providing top-quality performance hulls and sails. He served in the US Army during the Korean War, earning a Bronze Star.

Melges received numerous honors and awards. He was US Sailing’s Rolex Yachtsman of the Year in 1961, 1972, and 1983. In 1972 US Sailing awarded him the Nathanael G. Herreshoff Trophy for Outstanding Contributions to the Sport and in 1986, he was the first recipient of the W. Van Alan Clark Jr. Trophy, the National Sportsmanship Award. He was inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame in 2001, the Inland Yachting Association in 2002, the National Sailing Hall of Fame in 2011, the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame in 2007, and the World Sailing Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2009 Melges was given the Vince Lombardi Award for Distinction in Sports from the Wisconsin Historical Society History Makers.