ALAN SUYDAM grew up on the north shore of Long Island, NewYork. As a teenager, he was given an old Comet-class sailboat to restore and sail. His experience with that wood boat formed a lifelong love for sailing and woodworking. He has restored several wood sailboats, including Penguin, Blue Jay, and Lightning class boats. While in high school, his interest in sailing and boatbuilding took a prophetic turn in the local public library when he came upon a book on model yachting published in 1938 titled Yachting with Models by John Black. With the help of his father, Alan scaled up the lines from that book and built his first sailing model—a 50" Marblehead design named CHEERIO. She remained a display model for the mantle until 1995, when the U.S.Vintage Model Yacht Group was formed by a group from the Marblehead Model Yacht Club for the purpose of preserving, building, and sailing older sailing model designs. As a winter project, Alan converted CHEERIO to radio control and began entering yearly competitions. He has been an active supporter of the organization since then. His competitive sailing experience has resulted in national vintage model regatta wins, in the Vintage Marblehead class, the Vintage Schooner class, and the Vintage 36" class.