John Spencer (boat designer)

John Alfred Spencer (6 July 1931 – 4 March 1996)[1] was a New Zealand boat designer.

Biography

Spencer was born in Melbourne[2] and moved to Eketahuna in 1933. He spent most of his life in New Zealand.[3]

He was a well-known designer of sailing boats of all sizes, including the Cherub, Javelin (NZ),[4] Firebug and Flying Ant classes of sailing dinghies. His designs used thin plywood, hard chines, a vertical stem and stern and light displacement. The minimum weight for a Cherub hull was 50 kilograms (110 lb) and a Firebug is 40 kilograms (88 lb).[5]

Spencer's most famous design was arguably the 62-foot hard-chined Infidel, later known as Ragtime, which he designed and built for Tom Clark, a New Zealand industrialist. Ragtime was launched in late 1964 and went on to win the 1967 Auckland Class A Championship. Eventually sold to US owners, Ragtime won the 1973 and 1975 Honolulu Transpac Races, the 2008 Transpac Tahiti Race, and Division II of the 2008 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.

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References
  1. Kitchin, Peter (14 March 1996). "Maker famed for quick ply boats". Evening Post. p. 5.
  2. John Spencer - a brief biography
  3. John Spencer - obituary
  4. Javelin class designer
  5. "Firebug". Sailboat Data. Retrieved 3 December 2015.


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