Spirit

Yesterday I posted about the big Spencer/Kiskaddon schooner New World, here’s her forerunner, the Sparkman & Stephens sloop Spirit. Intended as the first of a new San Francisco Bay racing class, S&S design #1557 was drawn mainly by Robert Harris in the summer of 1960. The boat was to be very much a day racer, with an interior consisting of two long benches P&S, a huge centralized cockpit, and no engine. All the later boats in the class were modified with a smaller cockpit and short doghouse over the galley and chart table, and had engines included.

Despite a lifelong love affair with heavy displacement metre-type boats, Olin Stephens knew very well how to produce a fast boat not contorted to some rating rule. Long waterline, moderate beam, lots of draft and ballast, and strong construction without overloading with accomodations and what Dick Newick used to call, “inconveniences”. A displacement/length ratio of 250 was decidedly lightweight for anything racing across oceans. And Spirit raced everywhere, Acapulco, Honolulu, Bermuda, and Tahiti, and usually finished somewhere near the top.

While Spirit was the product of Kiskaddon’s vision, the S&S catalog included another close reference. This was design #97 a 1935, 30’6″ x 7’10” boat called Babe, which Olin later often referred to as one of his favorite designs.

Spirit was 33’5″ overall with a 28’6″ waterline, beam is 8’5″ and designed draft 6’0″. Designed displacement was 13,150 lbs though it was 14,850 in the later boats, which had a waterline 12″ longer. Ballast was 6200 lbs and sail area 552 square feet. She was built by American Marine in Hong Kong with mahogany planking over white oak frames with a plywood and fiberglass deck. I sure would like to know if she’s still sailing.