Canoe building plan

We have discussed the S&S 34 before and also the model licensed for sale in the United States, the Palmer Johnson 34.  We don't know exactly how many of these popular boats have been built, only that in the first year of production at Winfield & Partners (later known as Aqua Fibre), 39 contracts were signed.


The boat shown here is yet another version, built by Swarbrick of Western Australia and designated as Sparkman & Stephens design #1959-C2.  The images shown are of a launch sequence of a new boat from the early 1980s.  We don't know exactly how many were built by Swarbrick at that time either.

Here is an interesting article from the Italian magazine Yachting Quarterly about the S&S 34 design in general, in Olin Stephens' own words.

Earlier this week we posted an article about Prospect of Whitby V and her sister, Dorothea. As a blog reader correctly pointed out, there was a third boat built to this design, Tramp. The owner contacted us and was kind enough to send these images. The boat has been under the same ownership since 1998 and makes her home on the east coast of England.

As I mentioned we don't know much about her. The file says "Tramp is a modified version of Prospect of Whitby V" and that's about it. She was built by the Torquato Romano Gennari Shipyard of Italy and was launched in 1976.

It looks like the rig was increased in height over the original two boats and the keel was modified. Here'a a telex from S&S to the shipyard which explains the change to the keel.

Earlier I posted an article about design #2381, racing yacht Challenge. This design was also utilized for two other boats, designs #2381-C1 and C2. Let's start with design #2381-C2. She is a near duplicate of Challenge, but built of wood using cold-molded Epoxy methods by Muir of New Zealand and launched in 1980. She is named Ngaruru and is seen in these images.



Design #2381-C1 was a completely different boat with a cruising interior. The only things that were utilized about this design were the hull, appendages and rig. Even the drive-line is different. Her transom was changed slightly which resulted in a longer overall length but otherwise her hull is identical. I can't find a record of her name but she was built of aluminum by McMullen & Wing, Ltd. of New Zealand. She was also launched in 1980.

Here are the plans.

Back in July we posted an article about design #2134, the Northstar 80/20. This production fiberglass boat utilizes essentially the same design with very minor changes. The boats were built with Lloyd's (plan) Approval by the Swallow Craft Company (Kang Nam Shipbuilders) of Korea. These boats were also known as the Swallow 40. The production run ran from 1979 to 1984.


Here are the plans.


And here's a design review from Sailing magazine. Please double click for zoom.

We've made reference to this boat before, or at least her sister Bay Bea. I was reminded of her as we had an inquiry from the Commodore of the Royal Malta Yacht Club looking for any images we might have of her. In reviewing the files it did remind me just how well this boat did in her first four years of racing including a bullet in the 1973 Middle Sea Race. Here's a summary of her winnings.


As often is the case we find very few images of her in the files. The Commodore of RMYC was kind enough to send us this scan of the cover of the Middle Sea Race program for 1974 where they used an image of Aura taken the previous year.


Here are the plans.

Aura was built of aluminum by Palmer Johnson of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. She was launched in 1971.

Here's the new S&S 30 in some very nice colors. Click here for more information.