Frank Sullivan was a physics teacher with a love of fast sailboats. In his younger years he and his brother brought fame to the Harlem Yacht Club, founded in 1883, by winning the Brooklyn Yacht Club Challenge Cup, a tough 400 mile ocean race. The race was put on by the New Rochelle Yacht Club. His yacht "Mopsa" was the smallest boat in the race. This was in 1906 and according to the New York Times, the racers encountered "head winds, fog, squalls and huge seas."

By 1914 he was Commodore of the Harlem Yacht Club and served for many years thereafter in various capacities within the club, most notably as delegate to the Long Island Yacht Racing Association.

He was also a member of the Famous Cruising Club of America which was launched in 1921. In 1941 Sullivan was chairman of the awards committee tasked with selecting the recipient of the prestigious "Blue Water Metal" given by the club to "reward meritorious seamanship and adventure upon the sea displayed by amateur sailors of all nationalities, that might otherwise go unrecognized." That year, the medal was awarded to the British Yachtsmen at Dunkerque who helped in the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force in June 1940.


While Sullivan owned the "Witchcraft II", he modified her to suit his sailing style and to make her easier to handle for a man of his years. The Harlem Yacht Club featured her on their cover in December 1939 and had this to say about her inside.
Frank installed an auxiliary as soon as he owned her and began cutting down her immense spread of canvas. Little by little she has been changed from a top-masted sloop to an easier-to-handle yawl with less than half of the original rig. The Skipper offers the following: 59' overall, 37'4" on waterline, 12' 11" beam; seven tons of lead ballast, mostly outside, gas tanks installed in cockpit; equipped with a 35 HP heavy duty Kermath.
"The Best speed" says Commodore Sullivan a trifle wistfully, "is Almost -- not quite -- but almost eleven knots."
There are other stories in "THE LOG " of the Harlem Yacht Club that gives us a view into Sullivan's love of the sea; one concerns the saluting gun which is still on board the "Witchcraft II" after all these years. Again quoting from "THE LOG".
By the way, Commodore Newman received his first salute of the season from the "Witchcraft II" recently. It seems that Boris Newman bought a Crosby Cat and sailed her down the Sound with his father and mother as crew. On her way she passed the "Witchcraft II" and received the afore-mentioned salute. Commodore Sullivan is very punctilious about these matters. What puzzles Commodore Newman, however, is how to return a salute from a passing yacht when you are in a 33 foot cat-boat, with no signal halyards reeved and it's raining torrents. We can add one suggestion to the Commodore and that is to watch out for the saluting gun when he boards the "Witchcraft II." The first time we heard it we nearly fell over-board.
Frank carried on a love affair with "The Witch" that lasted twenty-two years. Sullivan took the "Witchcraft II" on any number of week-end cruses and one must think he was happiest on her decks. Frank never married and he died in 1948 five years after selling the "Witchcraft II" .