Dinghy History

The boat with history.

I bought the Portland Pudgy in Montana and towed it back to New Jersey with my bike.

The previous owner was named Georges de Giorgio. He is donned as one of the true global explorers of our time.

“His father was Italian Count of Santoponte and his mother was of Chilean Indian/Spanish decent. Georges was born in a car wreck in France on the way to Italy in 1928. George’s father moved the family to Chile at the age of 4 where he grew up working in his father’s wooden ship boatyard.

In 1947 at the age of 17, Georges joined an American Expedition to Antarctica becoming the youngest person to ever spend a year there. Georges lived a month alone on the Palmer Peninsula plateau, was the first to cross from the Atlantic to Pacific by dogsled with a joint British/American party, and has a mountain named after him, de Giorgio Mountain. The expedition also was accompanied by two women, this is the first time women had wintered in Antarctica. Did Georges really sleep with 50% of the women on a continent? (yes)

Because Georges was Chilean, his presence secured the Chilean claim to Antarctica. So Georges returned the next year as technical adviser for a Chilean government polar expeditions.

Georges then spent the next 30 years sailing the world’s oceans. Georges was the navigator on the ship Mischief for the famous English explorer HW Tilman. He also hunted for Sir Francis Drakes lost treasure on Robinson Crusoe Island.

Georges was on a boat offshore of Chile when the 1960 Chilean Tsunami hit. His boat survived landing in a field while all others were smashed on shore.

Georges lived and raised his children in Acapulco. He was the Harbor Master for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, a dive master, worked numerous years for Alter Hobi molding Hobi Cats, and won the San Diego to Acapulco sailboat race.

Georges chaperoned the Olympic Gold Canadian Synchronized swim team in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Georges was friends with Marlon Brando, Cliff Robertson, and also dated the actresses Stephanie Powers and Irene Papas. Georges has met Nobel Prize winners Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Nerudo, and Gabriela Mistral. Georges was Chiles first motion picture actor having roles in La Caleta Olvidada, Love Has Many Faces, and The Big Cube. [He also stars in 2-3 other movies].

Georges is also fluent in three languages French, Spanish, and English. He was recently featured in a documentary on the expedition to Antarctica called The Ends of the Earth, Finn Ronne’s Antarctica (www.ronneantarcticexplorers.com).
For the past eight years, George worked at the Lewis and Clark interpretive Center and Cascade Historical Society in Great Falls. George truly is the most interesting man in the world…”

There is a ton left out of this biography, but George keeps dropping bombs on us. I’m not sure if there’s anything he hasn’t done, anywhere he hasn’t been, or anyone he doesn’t know.

This man was smuggled out of Chile into England, I believe. He was trapped in a snow storm on a mountain, for four days, at the age of 11 with three other boy scouts (one with a broken leg).

He learned to fly a plane back in the 30s before he even knew how to drive a car.

He still bikes everywhere and goes for daily hikes, and is knowledgeable about history.