Philip TEUSCHER

Philip Haemo de Thorneycroft Teuscher

(adapted from an article in Sea History by Walter R. Brown)

Philip's 2011 Autobiography

Philip Teuscher is an adventurer and avid professional sailor, whose curiosity, interest in history, and knowledge have taken him around the world. He is a twenty-first century Renaissance Man; for years, he was a regular contributor to Sea History on such diverse subjects as the steamboats of Istanbul, Victorian-age kerosene-illuminated lighthouses in the Bahamas, and Caribbean sailing craft. In 1989 he was presented with the NMHS James Monroe Award for historiography for his extraordinary work in developing lively testimony of the traditions of local boatmen, from Caribbean Indians to Long Island Sound oystermen. With Gregory Pettys, producer, he wrote and directed the sixty-minute documentary Last of the Karaphuna about the surviving Caribbean aboriginals of the Dominica in the Lesser Antilles. He is also author of “The Last Drift,” a history of Connecticut’s last wind-powered fishery. This oral history of Connecticut’s oystermen, those who dredged the state-owned natural oyster beds under sail, captured stories depicting a way of life that disappeared over half a century ago.

Philip Teuscher has owned and sailed many boats. One of his favorites was Shadow, originally a cat-rigged sandbagger built in 1887-1888 for one of the founding members of the Cedar Point Yacht Club of Westport, used for racing in Long Island Sound. She then became an oyster boat before his family bought her, sloop-rigged, in 1943, and used her as a yacht until he sold her in 1966. His other boats have included a 26-foot Cuban fishing smack in which eleven refugees escaped from Cuba in 1962. Two others were inspired by William Atkin-Colin Archer double-enders; one of them, Tanaquill, sailed in three Operation Sail parades in New York Harbor. Teuscher’s current boat is an 1890s authentic steamboat, Rum Hound, in which he cruises in Long Island Sound.

Teuscher’s appreciation and love of the sea came from his family. He is one of four brothers—all of whom shared a maritime passion. They spent many years on family boats when their father, Dr. William P. Teuscher, became a ship’s doctor for Grace Lines.

In addition to his maritime pursuits, Teuscher plays classical guitar, skis, and ice skates. He enjoys ballroom and Latin dancing, martial arts, windsurfing, polo, and fox hunting. He has been on horseback safaris in South America, Europe, Mongolia, and Africa, has scuba dived in waters around the world, has a pilot’s license, has worked as a professional photo-journalist, is a collector of Model A Fords and a Merchant Marine officer.