Sparkman & Stephens

Last updated
Sparkman & Stephens
Company typePrivate
Industry Naval Architecture
Founded1929 (1929)
Headquarters
Key people
Olin J. Stephens
Roderick "Rod" Stephens
ProductsSail and Power Yacht Design
Website www.sparkmanstephens.com

Sparkman & Stephens is a naval architecture and yacht brokerage firm with offices in Newport, Rhode Island and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. The firm performs design and engineering of new and existing vessels for pleasure, commercial, and military use. Sparkman & Stephens also acts as a ship and yacht brokerage. The firm offers similar design and engineering services for the performance optimization of existing yachts.

Contents

Their designs have won most of the major international yacht races such as the America's Cup, for several decades, including a string of victories in the Fastnet and Sydney to Hobart as well as winning twice the Whitbread Round the World Race by Sayula II in 1974 and Flyer in 1978.[ citation needed ] S&S has a number of custom yacht design projects as well as being designers for boat builders such as Nautor's Swan, Grand Banks Yachts, and Morris Yachts. With more than 100 units built, the S&S design #1710 also known as Swan 36 became the most utilized design in the history of Sparkman & Stephens. [1]

During World War II the company was employed to design the hulls for the invaluable DUKW 'army duck' and the Ford GPA amphibious jeep. [2] For this Roderick Stephens was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award.

History

DUKW DUKW 4.jpg
DUKW

Sparkman & Stephens Inc was formally created on October 28, 1929, with five partners: Drake Sparkman and his younger brother James Sparkman, James Murray, and brothers Olin J. Stephens and Roderick Stephens. [3]

The Stephens brothers began their careers as self-taught sailors on Barnstable Bay, Massachusetts. Both entered the marine industry at an early age – Olin apprenticing in yacht design under Philip Rhodes, and Roderick learning shipbuilding at the prominent Nevins Yard in City Island, New York, which would later produce several of his firm's designs. [4] With their father's backing, the 21-year-old Olin and his brother entered into a partnership with the already successful yacht broker Drake Sparkman, and Sparkman & Stephens, Inc. was formed.

S&S remains involved in designs having created a range of production sailing yachts such as the Morris 36 and 52 and a number of custom super-sailers including Victoria of Strathern and the 52-meter ketch Nazenin V, recently bestowed with multiple Superyacht of the Year Awards.

In August 2018 Donald Tofias purchased S&S and is now the firm's president. [5]

The brokers at Sparkman & Stephens represent over 800 crewed charter yachts worldwide in both sail and power, from 55 to 200 + ft.

Designs

Lightning (dinghy) Lightning dinghy on Lake Wallenpaupack, Pennsylvania.jpg
Lightning (dinghy)
DUKW DUKW 3.jpg
DUKW

See also

Related Research Articles

Olin James Stephens II was an American yacht designer. Stephens was born in New York City, but spent his summers with his brother Rod, learning to sail on the New England coast. He also attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nautor's Swan</span> Finnish sailboat building company

Oy Nautor AB is a Finnish producer of luxury sailing yachts, based in Jakobstad. It is known for its Nautor's Swan range of yachts models. The company was founded in 1966 by Pekka Koskenkylä.

Philip Leonard Rhodes (1895–1974) was an American naval architect known for his diverse yacht designs.

Geerd Niels Hendel was a naval architect and native of Germany. He found success in the United States becoming a prominent yacht designer who had a hand in an America's Cup victory in 1937.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">S&S 34</span> Class of fibreglass monohull sailboat

S&S 34 is a cruising and racing fibreglass monohull sailboat class. It was based on a design by Olin Stephens from Sparkman and Stephens after a commission from British yachtsman Michael Winfield.

Roderick Stephens, Jr. was one of America's best known and respected sailors. In 1933 he became Associate Designer, later promoted to President, of Sparkman & Stephens naval architecture and yacht design firm, a company founded in 1929 by his brother Olin Stephens and Drake Sparkman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swan 36</span> Sailboat design

Swan 36 is a fin keeled, fiberglass constructed masthead sloop first manufactured by Nautor's Swan in 1967. The first Swan sailing yacht ever produced by the firm, it was designed to serve recreationally but also compete in the One Ton Cup.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swan 65</span> Finnish fibreglass sailing yacht

The Swan 65 is a large fibreglass fin+keeled masthead ketch- or sloop-rigged sailing yacht design, manufactured by Nautor's Swan. It was introduced as the new flagship of Nautor in 1973. At the time of its launch it was the largest glass reinforced plastic (GRP) constructed yacht in the market and because of its excellent racing history, one of the most famous Swan models ever built. The first 65-footers were delivered to owners in 1973, and the production continued until 1989 with 41 hulls built in total.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swan 37</span>

Swan 37 is a GRP constructed, fin keeled, one tonner masthead sloop and successor to the Swan 36. It was designed by Sparkman & Stephens and manufactured by Nautor Oy between 1970 and 1974 with total of 59 boats being built. Sparkman & Stephens designed the Americas Cup winner Intrepid with a trim tab on the trailing edge of the keel. S&S used the same trim tab on at least some of the early Swan 37s. Measured by racing success, Swan 37 is one of the most successful Swan yachts ever built and it is famous for winning the Round Gotland Race on six occasions in four decades by a yacht called Tarantella II. At least two Swan 37 boats Dulcinea and Trishna are known to have circumnavigated the world. As part of that circumnavigation, Dulcinea participated in the Cape to Rio race in 1976. She is still actively sailed under the same name in the US. In the US market Swan 37 was also marketed as Palmer Johnson 37.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swan 38 (yacht)</span> Sailboat class

The Swan 38 is a Finnish sailboat that was designed by Olin Stephens of Sparkman & Stephens as a cruiser-racer and first built in 1974. It is Sparkman & Stephens design #2167. A special reduced sail area version was also produced to comply with the One Ton class rules.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swan 43</span> Sailboat class

The Swan 43 is a Finnish sailboat that was designed by Olin Stephens of Sparkman & Stephens as an Royal Ocean Racing Club rule cruiser-racer and first built in 1967. The boat is Sparkman & Stephens' design #1973.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swan 411</span> Sailboat class

The Swan 411 is a Finnish sailboat that was designed by Sparkman & Stephens as an offshore cruiser-racer and first built in 1977.

The Swan 76 is a Finnish sailboat that was designed by Sparkman & Stephens as a racer-cruiser and first built in 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swan 57</span> Sailboat class

The Swan 57 is a Finnish sailboat that was designed by Olin Stephens of Sparkman & Stephens as a racer-cruiser and first built in 1977. The boat is Sparkman & Stephens' design #2297 and was their last Swan boat designed.

The Swan 47, also called the Swan 47 S&S, is a Finnish sailboat that was designed by Sparkman & Stephens as a cruiser-racer and first built in 1975.

George Harding Cuthbertson (1929–2017) was a founding partner of Cuthbertson & Cassian yacht designers, one of four companies that in 1969 formed C&C Yachts, a Canadian yacht builder that dominated North American sailing in the 1970s and early ‘80s.

William H. Tripp Jr (1920–1971) was an American naval architect who created many popular wooden and later fiberglass sailboat designs. Tripp used the diminutive, Bill, as his usual first name.

Hughes Boat Works was a Canadian boat builder based in Centralia, Ontario. The company specialized in the design and manufacture of fibreglass sailboats.

The Hughes 48, also sold as the North Star 48, is a Canadian sailboat that was designed by Sparkman & Stephens as a cruiser and first built in 1970. The boat is Sparkman & Stephens' design 1956.

References

  1. "Design 1710 - Cybele and the Swan 36". Sparkman & Stephens. 11 April 2012. Retrieved 20 March 2017.
  2. Allen, Thomas B. (August 2002). "Odd DUKW: On land and in the water, World War II's amphibian workhorse showed the skeptics a thing or two — now it shows tourists the sights". Smithsonian . Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution.
  3. Adkins, Douglass D. (2012). Dorade : The History of an Ocean Racing Yacht (1st ed.). Boston: David R. Godine. ISBN   978-1-56792-447-3 . Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  4. "Olin Stephens – Leading designer of racing yachts who produced 2,200 boats, among them six winners of the America's Cup" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-02-06.
  5. "Donald Tofias buys Sparkman & Stephens >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News". 31 August 2018.