The material changes and the industry follows. Jensen Marine, W.D. Schock and Cheoy Lee show that moulded hulls scale; wooden production classes stop being built one by one. What survives in wood survives because somebody chooses to keep it.
What happened
- 1957 — Cheoy Lee's first production pleasure yacht, the Lion 35
- 1958 — W.D. Schock Corp founded; Jensen Marine's Cal 24 follows
- 1965 — Master Mariners Regatta revived for National Maritime Day
- 1974 — WoodenBoat magazine founded; Grand Banks stops building in wood
- 1975 — Svend Svendsen moulds the first fibreglass Folkboat on the Bay
Where
Designers
Hugh Angelman
Designer and yard partner — Wilmington, California
Robert Clark
Yacht designer — England
Thomas E. Colvin
Naval architect and builder — Virginia and Florida
Charlie Davies
Designer — Southern California
Jim DeWitt
Sailmaker, designer and painter — Richmond
Hank Easom
Boatbuilder, sailmaker and racer — Sausalito and Tiburon
William Garden
Naval architect — Seattle, then Vancouver Island
Jack Laurent Giles
Naval architect — Lymington, England
Cyrus Hamlin
Naval architect and teacher — Maine
C. Raymond Hunt
Designer — Boston
C. William 'Bill' Lapworth
Naval architect — Southern California
Bill Lee
Yacht designer and builder — Santa Cruz
A. E. 'Bill' Luders Jr.
Designer and yard principal — Stamford, Connecticut
Ed Monk Jr.
Naval architect — Bainbridge Island
Ed Monk Sr.
Shipwright and naval architect — Seattle
Ron Moore
Boatbuilder — Santa Cruz
Gary W. Mull
Yacht designer — San Francisco Bay Area
George Olson
Yacht designer — Santa Cruz
Robert 'Bob' Perry
Yacht designer — Seattle
Josh Pryor
Designer, owner and charter captain — San Francisco
Knud H. Reimers
Naval architect — Stockholm
Philip L. Rhodes
Naval architect and marine engineer — New York
William 'Bill' D. Schock
Boatbuilder — Newport Beach and Costa Mesa
Carl Schumacher
Yacht designer — Alameda, California
Sparkman & Stephens
Naval architects and brokers — New York
Tord Sundén
Naval architect — Sweden
Joel White
Naval architect and yard owner — Brooklin, Maine
Tom Wylie
Yacht designer — Canyon and Watsonville, California
Builders & Yards
Abeking & Rasmussen
Lemwerder, Germany
American Marine Ltd. — Grand Banks
Junk Bay, Hong Kong; later Singapore
Børresen Bådebyggeri
Vejle, Denmark
Brooklin Boat Yard
Brooklin, Maine
Cheoy Lee Shipyard
Shanghai, then Hong Kong
Concordia Company
South Dartmouth, Massachusetts
Easom Boat Works
Sausalito
Jensen Marine / Cal Yachts
Costa Mesa, California
Kettenburg Boat Works
Point Loma, San Diego
Millerick Brothers
Boatbuilders — San Francisco Bay Area
Moore Sailboats
Watsonville, California
Spaulding Boatworks / Spaulding Marine Center
600 Gate Five Road, Sausalito
W. F. Stone & Son / Stone Boat Yard
Hunters Point → Tiburon → Harbor View → Oakland → Alameda
Svendsen's Boat Works
Alameda Marina, Alameda
W. D. Schock Corp
Newport Beach, Corona and Santa Ana, California
Classes & Types
Cal 40
Lapworth, 1963 — the end of the argument
Dragon
Johan Anker, 1929
El Toro
Richmond Yacht Club, 1940 — over 11,000 built
Colvin Gazelle
Thomas E. Colvin — junk-rigged steel schooner
Mercury 18
Sausalito, 1939 — one of the first plywood one-designs
Nordic Folkboat
Gothenburg, 1942 — and a large Bay fleet
Sea Witch Ketch
Angelman & Davies, from c. 1937
Snowbird
Willis Reid, 1921 — Newport Harbor's junior class
Thunderbird
Ben Seaborn, 1958 — the plywood era's great success
Associations & Institutions
St. Francis Yacht Club
The Marina, San Francisco
Vessels
Yankee
Gaff schooner, 52 ft — W. F. Stone, 1905; launched 18 April 1906
← The Postwar Fleet · Revival & Preservation →
Wooden Boat Atlas v3.0 · built 30 July 2026 · a project of the Golden Gate Wooden Boat Foundation · licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · open data · corrections