There were 3 major builders of the Dolphin 24 - O’Day Corporation's subsidiary Marscot Plastics in Fall River, MA, Yankee Yachts in Inglewood, CA, and Pacific Dolphin in Anaheim, CA. In addition, O’Day/Marscot had at least 3 subcontractors, Lunn Laminates in Port Washington/Huntington, NY, F.L. Tripp & Sons in Westport, MA, and J.J. Taylor & Sons in Toronto, CA.

At this point we do not know how hull numbers were assigned, and who assigned them. Simply using hull numbers, when we can actually determine one, can be misleading. For example, Yankee Yachts' founder built his first Dolphin from bare hull #71 provided by O'Day. He built a wood boat on that hull. She was his personal boat and he named it Yankee. Was this a Yankee (which did not actually exist as a company at the time), or an O'Day Dolphin? We assigned it to Yankee but.....Reading on you will find many more examples of this problem. Hull numbers do not appear to be entirely reliable as the indicator of who built how many boats. Click here to see more about Nameplates and Builders Numbers

We have a letter from Ray Story about his Loki, Pacific Dolphin #277, in which he says he was told by one of the past owners of Pacific Dolphin that Loki was the last Dolphin. On the other hand we have Mike Zint's recently Grand Finale which has Pacific Dolphin nameplate #300. Loki was Pacific Dolphin's show boat and might have been built earlier but may have been the last one sold? And we have the story of Rod Kulbach's Monika, presumably Hull #301, built by Rod in wood on a fiberglass hull made using the Pacific Dolphin molds - several years after Pacific Dolphin went out of business.

Jay Picotte's Recovery was one of 4, perhaps 5, Dolphins, built by F.L. Tripp & Sons in Westport, MA - but Recovery does not appear to have a hull number. The Tripp boats were built from 'Kits" supplied by O"Day and were, probably, incorporated into the O'Day hull numbering system, but we do not know for sure. These boats are assigned to Tripp. An interesting tid bit - Jack Hubbard's Hornet, a Tripp built carrys the sail #2975. The number 75 is because he was told that this boat was built for Sham Hunt, O'Day's sales manager, and it was hull #75. When the acquisition of O'Day by Bangor Punta was announced early in 1966, Sham decided to sell it and Jack bought it.

Chris Vandersteen's Lezah was built by J.J. Taylor & Sons in Toronto, Canada and also does not appear to have a hull number. There are estimates that J.J Taylor built 10 -12 Dolphins. These boats were also built from 'Kits" supplied by O'Day so these boats may also be, or may not be, included in O'Day's numbering system. Webmaster Note: January 3, 2012 - Your webmaster spoke yesterday with Jim Taylor whose grandfather founded J.J. Taylor and Sons. He told me that, as far as he knew, the company produced only one Dolphin 24, that for Dave and Hazel Morris (Lezah is Hazel spelled backwards). And, a conversation with Hazel Morris, who was the first owner of Lezah, indicates that this boat, with unfinished interior, was exhibited at the January, 1960 Toronto Boat Show. Developing...see Lezah's page.

One of the intriguing parts of the story is how many Dolphins were actually completely made by O'Day Corporation's arrangement with Marscot Plastics, which was originally owned by Palmer Scott, and eventually became an O'Day subsidiary. O'Day/Marscot's major sub contractor, Lunn Laminates built 25 boats in 1961, perhaps into early 1962. These boats were not from Marscot/O'Day supplied kits, according to its former Chief Engineer, Roy Berg. Was their tooling new tooling built by Lunn? or tooling shipped to them by Marscot/O'Day? Most probably the latter, with modifications made by Lunn, ie., converting Marscot's 2 half hull molds with the 2 halves later bonded together, into a full hull mold..

Its been reported that there were at least 22 "Kits" supplied to boat builders (early Yankee, Tripp and J.C.Taylor, and perhaps others) and to private individuals. These were bare hulls and complete fiberglass shells, no interiors, sometimes with centerboards and rudders, and sometimes not. In the cases where hulls only or kits were supplied to individuals, as in the case of hulls # 11, 12 and 13, these are counted as O'Day/Marscot built boats - inconsistant with how we account for 'kits' supplied to professional builders but......

O’Day considered the bare hulls they supplied to Yankee and others as "Kits". Sparkman & Stephens was collecting royalties on their Dolphin 24 design based upon boats built, and kits supplied, but they had no record of boats built in their files - an over zealous effort to clean up their files years ago resulted in the loss of many of their Dolphin records. Royalties were sometimes a subject of some dispute between S&S and O’Day. In the S&S files was an exchange of letters regarding late payment of royalties and specifically mentioning the royalties due on the early boats Yankee built. To make this even more interesting, John Shumaker was finishing these boats using the Mermaid 24 plans he had purchased in 1962 from S&S directly. Those plans were originally bought for a personal boat he was going to build for himself. When this project evolved into building wood boats on O’Day supplied fiberglass hulls this became a matter of royalties due on the use of the Mermaid 24 plans as well as the Dolphin 24 plans..

Based on your Webmaster's research to date, it seems that in 1960, at least 29 boats/hulls were built by O'Day at their Marscot Fall River, MA plant. Roy Berg, former chief engineer at Lunn Laminates, and himself the first owner of 'The Black Dolphin", recalls that the O'Day plant had a fire in late 1960, that the tooling was shipped to Lunn who was contracted to build 25 boats in 1961. Lunn was a family owned, experienced, fiberglass laminate subcontractor who had made torpedo parts and periscope housings for the US Navy and who, incidently, built the tooling for and made the first 5 Seawinds - the start of a business that eventually became the Allied Boat Co. After the 25 boats were built we don't know where the Dolphin tooling went, presumably back to the O'Day plant.

Based on data collected to date there appears to be a gap in O'Day hull numbers between # 29 and # 56 (with the notable exception of Flipper, #41) which could accomodate a provision for Lunn's 25 boat production. Click here to go to Nameplates and Builders Numbers.

Then, there is the question of the "O'Day plant" itself. The first boats were built by Marscot Plastics located in Fall River, MA for George O'Day and Associates, Inc. This is what the nameplate on Passage, hull #10 says. Maybe Marscot Plastics was actually an independent company at the time and later was acquired by O'Day? Or perhaps it was already an independent subsidiary. Other unverified information indicates that O'Day 'acquired' Marscot Plastics in 1958 and moved it from New Bedford to Fall River.

In the "Dolphin" article section of Blanchard S. Fressenden's "The Sailboat Classes of North America", Doubleday, 1963, p252-253, there is a quotation attributed to US Yachts, Inc, Village Square, Westport, CT- no individual's name given. US Yachts was owned by investors who were also some of the original investors in O'Day Corporation. US Yachts was reportedly formed for the specific purpose of selling the Dolphin and other early fiberglass sailboats. They were a sales agent for O'Day and their personnel actually sold the Dolphin 24.

"Fifty boats have been delivered and 10 are being built now to order for customers in the United States. Fifty per cent of the Dolphin owners use them solely as weekend cruisers, while the other fifty per cent are raced and cruised. We anticipate 40 new owners in 1962. Three boats have been built from kits and all are sailed from Southport, CT".

We know these particular 3 boats, Dick McCally's hull #11 Windsong, Phil Zerega's hull # 12 Teal - later Marionette - and Clark DuBois's hull #13 Teridot - a hull, deck and cabin shell. They were delivered in 1960

In the S&S files is a November 27, 1963 letter to Lyman Bullard, CEO of O'Day from Bob Larson at US Yachts discussing, among other matters, the sales possibilities of the Dolphin out on the West Coast. US Yachts was the sales agent representing O' Day Corporation's Dolphins. This arrangement reportedly started with sales of Dolphins sub contract manufactured by Lunn Laminates, Tripp & Sons, and presumably J.J. Taylor & Sons in Canada. In that memo Bob Larson states "the sales of the Dolphin to date, including boats already sold for 1964 delivery, as 70", of which 6 were in kit or unfinished form. Presumably, this included boats built/sold by all O'Day sub contractors.

These sources, taken literally, put sales at 60 boats sold or on order through 1961, and 70+ through sometime in 1963.These numbers may include sales of kit boats to Canada or to other builders. It seems certain that the anticipated sales in 1962 of 40 boats to new owners did not materialize. There is support for the existence of sales, or perhaps delivery, problems in 1962, 1963 and 1964 based on other documents your webmaster saw in the S&S files - and there was rising S&S concern over this issue. It is not clear if these problems were due to O'Day's difficulties in manufacturing, or to actual sales problems. Roy Berg of Lunn Laminates told your webmaster that people at O'day told him that they were not making any money on the Dolphin ("put at least $500 in each boat they delivered"). Roy also said that was probably also true for Lunn and the boats they built! In a Jan 17, 1964 letter to Lyman Bullard, Rod Stephens states that only 5 Dolphins were sold in 1962 and only 6 in the first nine months of 1963.

It is very difficult to follow this bouncing ball on the differing numbers of boats built. There is an interesting letter in the S&S files from Olin Stephens to O'Day in 1964 expressing concern about potential customers who had contacted his office complaining they were unable to buy a Dolphin 24.

Dyke Williams, who did some research on this subject for his Good Old Boat article, has an estimate of 60-100 built by O'Day and its sub contractors.The unofficial O' Day site (http://www.iheartodays.com/model_dolphin.html)  has an estimate of 36 - probably does not include any Lunn built Dolphins? For now, I think Dyke's 60 to 100 has the Marscot/O'Day/Lunn/Tripp/JC Taylor Dolphin sales bracketed - with about 75 being my comfort number.

Yankee Yachts’ production appears to be better known. They built about 175 boats starting with (at least) 4 kit boats built on O’Day hulls in 1964/65. It seems they used O’Day’s hull numbering system with their first kit boat hull # 71. The last boat Yankee built, that we know of, was hull # 248 in 1971/72.

We have an S&S file letter indicating that John Shumaker considered buying the O'Day Dolphin 24 tooling but decided to build his own. We have no record of what happened to the O'day tooling - one unsubstantiated rumor is that it was sold and used to start the Grampion 24 line of boats.

According to the Roster by Hull Number, there is a lapse of 3-4 years from sometime in 1972  thru 1975 when no boats were built. This is a mystery period and we need to find out more about what happened then. John Shumaker told your webmaster that sales just dried up. When Yankee Yachts went out of business in 1975, one of their suppliers ended up with the tooling and in 1976/1978, produced about 50 boats under the name of Pacific Dolphin, and then, they too, went out of business

So with #301 identified at the top end, a lot of supporting information from the Roster Section, and assuming that O'Day kept a some kind of progressive hull number system no matter who built boats for them, a chart was developed that might be a reasonable recap of the number of boats built, by whom, and when. That chart will be updated as we get more information, or more rational theories.

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October 31, 2009. As we know O'Day production was interrupted in the latter part of 1960 because of a fire. They contracted  Lunn Laminates to build 25 boats starting in early 1961. We have good evidence of this from Ralph Heinzerling Jack Rabbit and from Roy Berg, former Chief Engineer at Lunn.

A basic question was/is - how many boats did O'Day build in 1960? Early, and erronious, governing theory was that it was perhaps 13-14 boats. Bodes Well, # 29 is reported to be built in 1960. Stan Barnes (Shaman, # 25) bought his boat new in November, 1960 and still had his check stub to prove it! So, 29 boats built in 1960 looks pretty good.

Except for the apearance of Fred Croft's Flipper, O'Day Hull # 41 on October 30, 2009 there were no O'Day built boats listed between hull # 29 and # 56, a very interesting gap of 27 boats. Courtship was reported by last known owner Donna Johnson as a 1972 Yankee # 42. Since Yankee started its numbers with # 71 it seems pretty certain this hull # is incorrect (and we have repositioned this boat as a Yankee in the Roster).

Casandra Rose, # 56 is reported to have been built in 1962, possibly making her one of the first boats O'Day built after Lunn finished their production run.

Could this gap of 27 hull numbers from # 29 to # 56 be the 'space" that Lunn filled with their 25 boats? It has been over 2 years that we have been searching and no boats had surfaced in this space - that is until October 30, 2009 when Flipper, # 41, showed up. Webmaster Note: April 29, 2011. To add still more confusion, or perhaps an answer Ed Colie's Sambo must? have been a Marscot/O'Day built boat as the boat they originally ordered from Lunn had been rejected for quality problems. At this time where else could one possibly get a Dolphin - except from Marscot/O'Day. Both #41 and Sambo have the characteristic teak topped fiberglass combing that date from when O"Day was restarting its production in 1962?

The following table was updated June 19, 2009. It was based on the theory that in 1960 O'Day built as many as 29 boats in 1960. At least 4 'kits' counted in the O'Day sales reports from 1964 are counted here as Yankee boats - their first 4 boats were built on O'Day supplied hulls, with the first in completed in 1965. J J Taylor sales are almost pure speculation and are used to balance the numbers given above. There is the additional problem of when boats are reported built, and when they are actually sold

	1960	61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70	71	72-75	76	77	80s	Total
O'Day/Marscot	29	0	3	3	4*	0?	0	0									35**
Lunn	0	25	0	0	0	0	0	0									25
F.L.Tripp	0	0	0	0	0	5	0	0									5
J.J.Taylor**	0	4	2	2	1	0	0	0									9**
O'Day	29	29	5	5	1*	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		74
Yankee Yachts	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	8	24	27	59	53	0	0	0		175
Pacific Dolphin	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	35	16		51
Monika																1	1
Total	29	29	5	5	1!?	7	2	8	24	27	59	53	0	35	16	1	301

* 4 hulls counted as Yankee built boats ** excluded from O'Day total

** January 3, 2012 - under review - see note in text above (5th paragraph)

This table does not have an explanation for the 'gap' O'Day boats, #30 - #55, since the gap we had reserved for the Lunn built boats is in question with the appearance of Flipper. The production by O'Day in 1962 - 1965 was pitifully small a fact that S&S confirms in their internal memos - but this small - - 10 boats - !!? This for a boat that was performing well on the MORC circuit?

A reading of this subject should include a reading of Roster Overview so that understanding and/or misunderstanding of the state of this undertaking is optimized... :-) So, for now, we will leave the table as is, and await more evidence before we construct a new theory.

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October 27, 2010. Mark Steinhilber (Rascel) came up with a plausible explaination for the appearance of Flipper, O'Day # 41, and preserving our original theory that the 'gap' in O'Day hull numbers - #30 to #55. Here is his email (excerpted/edited) Maybe this is a bit of a stretch but I like it

Still looks like the 25 Lunn boats may fill in hulls 30 to 55. #41 that may have been a boat that O'Day re-tooled (in preperation for restarting production after the Lunn order was finished), adding the  bridge deck, wider hatch, modified mast step, rubber portlite  frames, (and wood capped fiberglass coamings).

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August 14, 2011 - Text and table updated to reflect Rod Kulbach's Monika, hull #301

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