Obit. from the Chicago Tribune:
Harry G. Nye, Champion Yachtsman
September 22, 1987|By Kenan Heise.
Harry Gale Nye Jr., 79, one of the nation`s most respected yachtsmen and former owner of Murphy & Nye Sailmakers and Nye Tool Co., twice won the Chicago-to-Mackinac race and was two-time world champion in yachting`s International Star class.
A memorial service for Mr. Nye, a resident of Newport Beach, Calif., and formerly of Evanston, will be held at 11 a.m. next Monday at the Belmont Station of the Chicago Yacht Club in Belmont Harbor. He died Sept. 11 in Newport Beach after a long illness.
Mr. Nye, a Chicago native, was attending Yale in 1932 when his father died. The family tool and die business was suffering during the Depression, and the young man was without work. He loved sailing and began mending sails as a hobby and then as a business. By the outbreak of World War II, when canvas and other sailmaking equipment was no longer available, he had hired 15 workers to cut and sew sails. He sold the company in the late 1950s.
The Nye Tool Co., the tool and die firm founded by his father in 1904, was sold in 1964 to an Indiana company.
His sails had gone around the world, and Mr. Nye used them himself in 1942 to win the International Star world championship. He repeated the feat in 1949 against a field no longer reduced by a world war.
Mr. Nye captured the ``Mac`` in 1950 and 1951. He also won the Detroit-to-Mackinac Race.
In 1965, he was named Chicago-area Yachtsman of the Year.
He won the Olympic trials in 1956, but did not go on to compete because of his health.
Over the years, he owned more than 50 ships, all called ``Gale,`` a family name.
Survivors include his wife, Audrey; four daughters, Judy Hallisy, Sally Parris, Nancy Kriz and Gale; two sons, Harry III and Charles; and a brother, Americus.
