Champion yachtsman Robert T. Leary, 83
By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Staff Writer
A love affair with the ocean and a life of adventure at sea ended July 29 with the death of Robert T. Leary, champion yachtsman, retired Coast Guard captain, vice president of Prudential Securities and former chairman of the state Transportation Commission. He was 83.
Leary was only 13 when he got his first job as a yacht captain in Connecticut in 1932. A year later he signed on as second yacht captain under the famous skipper Irving Johnson.
One year after Leary entered the Coast Guard Academy in 1938, Johnson invited him to sail as first mate in the 96-foot schooner Yankee on an 18-month circumnavigation of the globe recounted in a book and a movie. Welcomed back by the Coast Guard on return, Leary was commissioned in 1941.
During World War II Leary commanded two landing ship tanks participating in the invasions of the Aleutian Islands, Solomon Islands, Tarawa and the Marshall Islands, and carried occupation troops into Tokyo Bay.
He returned to Hawai'i after the war and became a dominating TransPacific Yacht Race sailor. He navigated in Flying Cloud in 1949 then won twice in Staghound, first as weatherman then as navigator. In nine TransPac races, he took two firsts, a second and a third.
As a Coast Guard lieutenant commander, Leary skippered the cutter Durant on weather station Uncle operating out of Honolulu, and served as commander of the Coast Guard Auxiliary here. Then-Gov. George Ariyoshi appointed him chairman of the state Transportation Committee from 1973 to 1979.
In the business world, Leary became a stock broker and vice president of Prudential Securities. He was a member of the Kane'ohe Yacht Club, the Cruising Club of America, the TransPac Yacht Club and the Adventurers Club of Honolulu.
He is survived by a daughter, Lani Leary Houck; sons Bill and Tom Leary; and three grandchildren. Friends are invited to join the family at the Kane'ohe Yacht Club on Monday, from 5 to 7:30 p.m. to celebrate his life. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the National Coast Guard Building Fund, in care of Coast Guard Foundation, 394 Tauswonk Road, Stongington, CT 06378.
