Manfred Curry (11 December 1899 – 13 February 1953) was a physician, inventor, sailor and author of American citizenship. He was born in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

; his father (Charles) was

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

and his mother (Adele)

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

Career

An accomplished athlete and

yachtsman A yacht () is a sail- or motor-propelled watercraft made for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a , as opposed to a ...

who represented the US at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games, he sailed more than 1400

regatta Boat racing is a sport in which boats, or other types of watercraft, race on water. Boat racing powered by oars is recorded as having occurred in ancient Egypt, and it is likely that people have engaged in races involving boats and other wa ...

s many of which he won. In later life he worked as a doctor specialising in bioclimatics and became the self-proclaimed discoverer of the

pseudoscientific Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable cl ...

phenomenon of " geomagnetic lines" or "Earth radiation" (ger. ''Erdstrahlen'') called the ''Curry Grid''. In 1925, Curry wrote a pioneering book on

yacht A yacht () is a sail- or marine propulsion, motor-propelled watercraft made for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a ...

aerodynamics Aerodynamics () is the study of the motion of atmosphere of Earth, air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dynamics and its subfield of gas dynamics, and is an ...

and racing tactics, published through to the present day and widely translated, describing how he undertook a scientific study on

sailboat A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails and is smaller than a sailing ship. Distinctions in what constitutes a sailing boat and ship vary by region and maritime culture. Types Although sailboat terminology ...

design, testing various rig configurations in a wind-tunnel at

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

. The significance of his book within yachting has been described by stating that he was the first to bring engineering analysis of the design of sailboats to the public eye. In the book, he describes several of his inventions or developments that are in widespread use today, including the fully battened mainsail, developments to Genoa jibsails and spinnakers, the 'Park Avenue' boom and the cam cleat (Called the "Curryklemme" in German). He described two successful racing dinghies as well as innovations used on an

America's Cup The America's Cup is a sailing competition and the oldest international competition still operating in any sport. America's Cup match races are held between two sailing yachts: one from the yacht club that currently holds the trophy (known ...

yacht. His iconic racing dinghy, ''Aero'' which examplars many of his technical innovations has been restored. In his home town of Riederau on the Ammersee lake, Curry set up the American Bioclimatics Research Institute. After his early death at the age of 53, his widow Maude Hester-Curry dedicated the new name of Manfred Curry Clinic (which is no longer in existence). Curry also investigated the supposed pathogenic properties of " earth radiation", a concept promoted in conjunction with a fellow medical doctor

Ernst Hartmann Ernst Hartmann (born 10 November 1915 in Mannheim, d. 23 October 1992 in Waldkatzenbach, a suburb of Waldbrunn (Odenwald)) in Germany was a German medical doctor, author and publicist. "Hartmann lines", a epistemology, scientifically unproven gr ...

and engineer Siegfried Wittmann. Earth radiation (E-rays) ger. ''Erdstrahlen'', which can only be measured by the subjective technique of

dowsing Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, Petroleum, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia),As translated from one preface of the Kassel experiments, "roughly 10,000 active do ...

, are not a scientific field of study and are considered to be

pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable cl ...

. As a youth, together with his father Charles Curry, he was friends with the Irish republican activist

Roger Casement Roger David Casement (; 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916), known as Sir Roger Casement, CMG, between 1911 and 1916, was a diplomat and Irish nationalist executed by the United Kingdom for treason during World War I. He worked for the Britis ...

during the latter's stay in Germany. The street Curry Park in his home town of Riederau is named after him. The magazine ''Sailing World'' inducted Manfred Curry posthumously to its Hall of Fame in 1993.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Curry Manfred 1899 births 1953 deaths American male sailors (sport) German male sailors (sport) Olympic sailors for the United States Sailors at the 1928 Summer Olympics – 12' Dinghy Sailors at the 1928 Summer Olympics – 8 Metre 20th-century German physicians People in alternative medicine 20th-century German inventors American yacht designers German male writers American male writers 20th-century American inventors Pseudoscience Physicians from Munich 20th-century German sportsmen 20th-century American sportsmen

Career

See also

References

External links