James Higgonson WEEKES

Like the rest of the crew of Herman Whiton's Llanoria in 1948, Jim Weekes represented the Seawanhaka Yacht Club. Weekes was in the US Navy during World War II and was the executive officer on a battle cruiser in the Pacific. His grandfather was an early member of the Seawanhaka YC, and both his brother, Arthur, and brother-in-law, Porter, were commodores of the club.

Weekes gold medal from the 1948 Olympics was left in the hands of his wife, Kay, when Weekes died suddenly in 1977. She gifted it to Dermot O’Flynn, an Irish surgeon who had cared for her. On his death at 94, he left it to his son, also Dermot O’Flynn. The younger O’Flynn was fascinated by the medal and tracked it down its origins and eventually presented it to the Seawanhaka YC where he it was set into what was named the “James Weekes Olympic Gold Memorial Trophy.” The trophy, designed by Decapo Goldsmiths in Dublin, represents the coastline of Torbay, where the 1948 Olympic yachting took place, in Irish Silver with the Gold Medal suspended in the centre of the 1948, 6-Metre race area. It is placed on a piece of Irish Bog Oak from Fota Island which is more than 800 years old.