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F.L.Tripp & Sons, Westport, Massachusetts - Dolphin builder (updated October 20, 2011)

 
   

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This is a boatyard and marina in Westport, MA that began building fiberglass fishing boats in the early 1950's. F. L. Tripp built its own fiberglass power boats in the small building at the left, and in the old days built and/or completed boats for other boat companies as well. They built several Allied sailboats here and launched them on a railway through a set of large double doors located where the two small windows are now. They built either 4 or 5 Dolphins here in 1965 with parts supplied by O'Day. Jay Picotte's Recovery (click to go to Recovery) was built there and he recalls a conversation he had some years ago with "Uncle Bill" - Allen Tripp who said of his Dolphins "Yep, I built that boat." He went on " Might have built more too if Sparkman & Stephens didn't send someone up here to look over my shoulder. I don't like being told how to do my job." After a pause he looked at me and admitted "They were probably the best boats we ever built".

Your webmaster met with "Uncle Bill" in the first year of this website and he was a wonderful source of information about the early days of fiberglass boat building. We are planning to meet again and together will try to fill in some gaps in our understanding of the early Dolphin days. He mentioned that when Palmer Scott retired from O'Day he came to work at F.L.Tripp part time bringing a wealth of fiberglass manufacturing technology and know how with him. He also told me that he remembered building Imp (later to become Recovery) for 'that guy from the brokerage firm". This was Hal White from the firm White, Weld.

The Tripp 22, now called the Angler 22, is a bass fishing boat used in waters of nearby Buzzards Bay. Interestingly, this boat is built from modified tooling originally acquired from Palmer Scott at Marscott Plastics, who had built and sold the Marscott 23 fishing boat in the 1950's. This is a picture of Jay Picotte's Angler 22, Waterlily, built in 1983. Click here for a larger view.
Incidentally, F.L. Tripp was a dealer for O'Day in the 1970's. O'Day had a landlocked plant in Fall River only 15 miles away and often used Tripp's facilities for testing and rigging out their boats. And, coincidently, your webmaster took delivery of his brand new O'Day 27 on chilly April morning in 1974, or maybe it was 1975, from these very same Tripp docks.

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