This company played an important, and at this point, somewhat mysterious role in the early days of the Dolphin. Bob Larson, one of George O'Day's original investors in G. D. O'Day Associates Inc. (later the O'Day Corporation), was one of the owners of US Yachts along with Warren Dellenbach and others. The company referred to itself as an affiliate of O'Day but the exact corporate relationship between the companies is not clear. Your webmaster has spoken with Bob several times and he was very helpful in the effort to better understand the early days of the Dolphin.

In early 1960 the Dolphin 24 was introduced and initially marketed and sold by G. D. O'Day Associates, Inc. Starting up the Marscot Plastics plant in Fair Haven, MA, not only with the Dolphin but with a number of O'Day small sailboats including the popular Uffa Fox designed Daysailor, put a major strain on the plant and the organization.

Perhaps, in part to address these problems, US Yachts was formed in late 1960 to market and distribute sailboats, initially representing O'Day in marketing and selling the Dolphin 24 , and later other companies' boats as well. Warren Dellenbach, an engineer, and also one of the original O'Day Investors, was significantly involved with addressing the start up problems that O'Day was experiencing in late 1960.

Both Bob and Warren were involved with the mid 1960 decision to stop production of the Dolphin at the Marscot plant, and to contract Lunn Laminates of Port Washington, NY to build 25 Dolphins starting in early 1961. It seems that the Dolphin may have been too large and complicated a boat to be easily accomodated in the small 10,000 sq ft plant mostly producing small sailboats. The Lunn Dolphin had a revised fiberglass layup and a reputation of having a lower weight distribution profile than the Marscot built Dolphin. There is not one mention of Lunn Laminates in S&S's Dolphin 24 technical files - Surprising, given the change in construction reported and S&S's reputation for checking up on builders of their designs. This is a very interesting story, still being investigated. For more on this click here to go to Lunn Laminates

After this contract was finished in late1961, or early 1962, US Yachts continued to represent O'Day as the Dolphin 24 marketing and sales representative until 1964 when, with the urging of Sparkman & Stephens (reported in a memo found in internal S&S files), O'Day directly took this responsibility over. Interestingly, the Lunn built Dolphins had a nameplate that did not mention O'Day and the marketing literature put out by US Yachts does not mention O'Day either. This is the nameplate of Louis Classen's Spirit of Fellowship Lunn built hull # 223 (23)

Paul Ingle (Seminole) provided us with some US Yacht literature on the Dolphin from his old files. This is the front page of their Dolphin 24 flyer from January, 1962.

This is the back of the 1962 flyer.

This is the US Yachts price list from January, 1962

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July 30, 2009 This ad flyer was found in a 'black book' that Peg Benkard got when she bought her boat, Sloop du Jour . While we don't know the date of the ad it was likely in late 1961 prior to the NY Boat Show. Note all the other boats, potentially competitive to the Dolphin, that US Yachts was selling - in addition to the Dolphin. It may be that Dolphin sales fell off significantly in 1962 -1965 in part because of this sales conflict, resulting in S&S urging O'Day to bring the sales and marketing function 'in house".

This is the header for another 1962 US Yachts price sheet. The wording is indicative. Previously, US Yachts had been described as an affiliate, or as a division of O'Day. We will continue to try and find out more about the relationship between US Yachts, O'Day and Lunn Laminates.

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