Torsten R. Hedengren was born in Finland in 1888, the son of Ernest Hedengren, a
designer of 7 and 8 meter racing sloops for Baltic waters. Hedengren came to the
United States in 1913 and after two years of employment with engineering firms in
New York, he was hired by Nordberg Manufacturing Company in Milwaukee as a diesel
design engineer. He fostered Scandinavian and U.S. yachting interests and was
instrumental in bringing the Scandinavian Gold Cup Race to the United States in
1927. He was especially interested in the history of the Queen’s Cup race and trophy
donated to the South Shore Yacht Club by Walter C. Hill on 1 September 1938.
Hedengren advocated that the Queen’s Cup should be called the Silvie’s Cup. Between
1938 and his death in 1941, he did extensive research on the Cup’s history,
publishing an article on the subject in Yachting
Magazine.
