We have discussed
the Spirit Class before and as shown in the above image. The boat was designed as a flush-deck one-design class for San Fransisco Bay in the mid-1960s. Although the class never took off the original Spirit was hugely successful and various sisters were built. It has been difficult to track what boats were built. Here is a list of owners and boats for this design in it's various forms.
Even this list is not completely correct. Based on my research the first boat was built by American Marine of Hong Kong, as were hulls three, four, and five. The boats were then shipped to Easoms Boat Works of Sausalito, California. There they underwent a good amount of rework as the construction quality was questionable at best. Understandably Easoms has been credited with their construction. Hull two was built entirely by Easoms.
Even the record of the development of the class, generated by this office and as shown below is ambiguous at best. Here it is.
In 2000, Wooden Boat magazine published a ten page article about the boats (Wooden Boat #156). Even here they reference the ever-allusive hull #6 as follows:
A sixth boat is rumored to have been built of fiberglass in New Zealand.
I was finally able to track down this boat, also named Spirit (just to further confuse matters) and shown just above. The boat was in fact built of fiberglass by the highly respected boatbuilder John Lidgard of Aukland in 1965. She was built with a small, attractive deckhouse, the draft was increased to 6'-10", a separate skeg and rudder were designed and her sail area reduced slightly. Please note hat as mentioned in the development of the class paper above, the model with the small deckhouse was dubbed the Mariner Class.
Here are a couple of shots that give a peek at her underbody and a good look at her cockpit.
Here are the Plans.
Principal Dimensions
LOA 33'-5"
LWL 28'-6"
Beam 8'-5"
Draft 6'-10"
Displacement 12,320 lbs
Sail Area 535 sq ft
