I
would welcome any information on the history of the
Spirit sailboats. I contacted Glastron a while back
and they sent me a small amount of info and told me
that since they had stopped building them so long ago
that there was not much information available. I have
posted the documentation that they sent to me on the
documentation page. So far, the following information
is what I have picked up from various places, once again,
any input would be welcomed.
• Glastron
did not actually "Make" Spirit sailboats but
instead licensed a company called North American Yachts
to make them at the Glastron plant in Austin, Texas
and use the Glastron name. The sales_sheet
for the Spirit 28 lists North American Yachts "A
Conroy Company" as being the contact. I read somewhere
on the internet that the North American Yacht Company
actually sold the molds to Glastron because they were
under the threat of a lawsuit from another yacht manufacturing
company with the same name. I have not been able to
substantiate that. Many people around the world refer
to Spirit sailboats as "North Americans".
• At one
time Glastron was a boat manufacturing giant that produced
a variety of different boats. The markets changed and
though they are still quite large they have down sized
considerably in the last decade. They quit having anything
to do with sailboats when the last Spirit 28 hull rolled
off some time in 1981. Click Here For Glastron History
• Spirit sailboats
were in production from 1979 through 1981 and consisted
of three models - The Spirit 6.5, the Spirit 23 and
the Spirit 28. The designers for the Spirit 28 were
Bob Finch and Earl Blackwell. Bob Finch was evidently
involved in numerous boat designs and it is my understanding
that he was an integral part of the design team at Catalina
as well as other manufacturers.
• There is
a company based in England called "Spirit_Yachts"
that builds some really beautiful, blue water, wooden
sailing yachts. This company is in no way related to
the Spirit sailboats made in Austin.
• The Spirit 28
came in two models, one with pedestal steering and one
with a tiller. There were also some built with shoal
keels and some built with fin keels but I do not know
if that has any relation to which steering option that
was chosen or not.
• The Spirit
28 came stock with a 2 cylinder Yanmar Diesel with a
drive shaft driven prop or a gasoline engine with a
"saildrive". Older model "saildrive"
transmissions are often difficult to service and hard
to find parts for.
• The only stock
colors I know of are a coffee colored hull with either
a brown or blue sheer strap and bottom paint.
• I spoke
with someone here in Austin that worked at the Glastron
plant and he told me that there were considerably more
of the 6.5's and 23's built than the 28 model. He said
that there were probably less than 300 hulls of the
Spirit 28 built and he did not know where they had all
shipped. To date (08-02-07) the highest hull number
I have been notified of is 300.
• Glastron
sold off all of the molds and plugs for the Spirit Yachts
when they terminated production. At least one of the
plugs and possibly some of the molds were sold to a
maufacturer in South Africa. I have been told by one
of these boat owners that there are no hull numbers
burned into the stern freeboard of these boats.
|
