Ray Greene was an early plastic boat pioneer and, if not the first, at least one of the first, production builders of glass reinforced plastic boats.This is a photo of him from the Toledo Blade which I scanned from Dan Spurr's book Heart of Glass, Fiberglass Boats and the Men Who Built Them. Much of what is in this section comes from Dan's book.

Ray lived in Toledo and grew up passionate about boats. In 1929, at 16, he started wood dinghies in his family's garage. Perhaps inspired by his chemist father, his other passion was plastics. While at Ohio State University pursuing mechanical and industrial engineering degrees his research led him to synthetic resins. By the mid 1930s he was building small boats using melamine and urea resins with ordinary cloth for reinforcement.

Owens-Corning Fiberglas was also located in Toledo. In 1941, the company began weaving glass fibers for commercial use and Greene, who had been doing some experimental work for them with rocket tubes, purchased half the initial run of these fibers and built boat models using urea formaldehyde reinforced with glass. During the same period other companies were rushing to develop better resins. In 1942 Ray Greene got his hands on a laboratory produced sample of a polyester cold setting resin and built a dinghy reinforced with glass.

During the war Ray was a commissioned officer in the navy working on the building of small craft. After the war he returned to his boat building business and in 1947 introduced the Rebel, a 16' fiberglass hull, wood deck day sailer. More than 5000 were built and they are still actively raced. Ray himself was an active racer and winning skipper in the Rebel Class. By 1949 Ray believed he was the largest fiberglass boat builder in the world.

Because of the necessity to cure the resins in an autoclave or oven, boat production was complicated and limited to small boats. In 1957 Ray Greene commissioned S&S to design for him the New Horizons 26, an all fiberglass boat. This boat is pictured at the left. This was S&S's first design for a production fiberglass boat. When George O'Day and Olin Stephens had their phone conversation on Dec 8, 1958 resulting in Olin's memo to his staff to start design work on the Dolphin (the birth certificate) this boat was mentioned along with Trina , the first Shaw 24. To see a copy of the New Horizons 26 ad that appeared in Yachting Magazine's 1961 Boat show issue, click here. Webmaster Note: Some confusion here on the name, and length, of the New Horizons 25/26. The actual length is 25'5" but in various places she is referred to as the New Horizons 25, and the New Horizons 26.

For reasons not altogether clear the New Horizons 26 project was not well regarded by S&S. It had a good sales spurt after introduction in 1959 but sales fell off sharply after the introduction of S&S's 3rd design for production in fiberglass, a 27'er designed for Gordon Dougless and Ray McLeod, Jr., founders of Tartan Yachts. Ray Greene was not happy with this development. Pictured at the left, the Tartan 27 was very sturdily built, and an excellent sailer, gaining immediate attention and admiration. Eventually more than 700 would be built. The lead designer at S&S for the Tarten 27, the Dolphin 24, and perhaps even for the New Horizons 26, was Bill Shaw.

So, these 2 designs, Bill Shaw's Trina, an all wood 24'er designed for the Midget Ocean Racing Club (MORC) rule, and the New Horizons 26, S&S's first production fiberglass boat designed to be an all fiberglass small cruiser, form the parentage of the Dolphin 24.

And, because of Trina's origins, a famous Dolphin grandparent would be Finisterre  - click to see why.