SAILING, SAILFISH, SUPER SAILFISH, SUNFISH, SAILBOAT

A Very Short History of The Sunfish

Alex "Red or Al" Bryan and Cortlandt "Bud or Cort" Heyniger of Waterbury, Connecticut designed the Sunfish. The design was an evolution that progressed from Sailfish to Super Sailfish and to Sunfish.

[Left: Al, Right: Cort] The original name of the company was Alcort. The company name could have been Cortal, but Alcort listed first in the telephone book, so it was selected.

About 1941 Al and Cort, while still in school, started building and selling Skeeter class iceboats. The skeeters were built in a barn. They carried 75²ft of sail. This sail size was used on later sailboat designs. To provide year round work a summer product was needed, so the Sailfish sailboat was created.

The first Sailfish design was 14 ft long, but 14 ft long sheets of plywood were not available, so the boat was redesigned to be 12 ft long.

Production of the Sailfish began about June of 1945 with both kits and completed boats being made available.

The Sailfish was featured in a Life Magazine article and production increased from a [Sailfish Kit] few boats a year to where a factory was needed to keep up with the orders.

The Sailfish and Super Sailfish did not have a cockpit, so the sailor had to sit on top the decking with legs stretched out in front. This configuration was not comfortable, especially for long periods of time. This was the impetus for the Sunfish design and development.

Sunfish came into being in 1952, 1953, or 1954. No one seems to be able to pin the date for sure. The company’s first employee, Carl Meinert, drew his idea for the Sunfish on the shop floor and the Sunfish was born. Then a cockpit was added to the deck. Super Sailfish parts; sails, transom, rudder and spars were used on Sunfish. Heyniger designed the famous Sunfish Logo by putting a nickel on a piece of paper and drawing a circle around it and adding a tail, mouth, fins and eye to the circle.

In 1958 the third plant was out grown, so Alcort designed and built a plant to their own specifications. The boat hulls were still made of wood.

In 1959 Joe Schmit of Naugatuck Chemical Company convinced Alcort to try fiberglass. The Super Sailfish was produced in fiberglass in 1959 and the Sunfish manufacturing process was changed over to fiberglass in 1960. Several changes to the design came with the fiberglass. One change was that the fiberglass hulls weighted more than the wooden hulls. For the first couple of years the wooden and fiberglass hulls were nearly equally competitive. Later the fiberglass boats were faster than the wooden ones.

The Sailfish was phased out in 1962, but the Super Sailfish stayed in production for several more years with 100 to 200 hulls a year being built and sold.

Alcort stopped marketing kits in the mid-60s.

In the mid-60s Alcort needed support because the rapid growth of business overwhelmed them. They picked AMF as the best choice to take over the business. In 1969 Alcort was sold to AMF and by 1982 over 200,000 Sunfish had been build and sold.

Alcort did not use chopper guns in the production process. A hand lay-up in a female mold process was used through out the line of boats. This production process provided a high quality product, but was labor intensive. AMF manufactured the boats after 1969 and I have not located their history.

Ten Cate (pronounced Kata) manufactured the Sunfish under license in Holland. Korna Boats of Canada produced the boats in their Clinton, Ontario, plant. New plants were built in Chile and Uruguay to produce the boat under license. Fogh, a Danish company, manufactured sails. They produced Sunfish sails for many years.

Vanguard took over the Sunfish from AMF several years ago and have continued manufacturing the boat.

The first Sailfish sold for $128.50 and the first Sunfish was sold for $195.00.

The primary source of information in this article was:

The Sunfish Book

By Will White

Published in 1983 by l Books, 34 Commercial Wharf, Boston, Massachusetts, 02110

ISBN 0-914814-31-1

This note caused this web page, Sunfish History, to be created.

September 24, 2003

I am trying to research the sunfish that was given to my dad over 30 years ago and was old then. I have never seen or even found anybody who has seen another wooden sunfish. Have you? It never sailed well so it's been in the garage all these years and still looks great. I couldn't bare to part with it after mom and dad sold the cottage so it came home with me.

I'd appreciate any help!

Thanks for your time!

Paul Melse

October 29, 2003

Nice page,...found it by accident.
We live at the Jersey shore looking for a boat for the kids,....will likely be a Sunfish like I learned to sail on in summer camp about 30 years ago. Our first boat was actually similar a styrofoam Snark,..with a Kool Cigarette ad. on the sail.

Happy sailing,....

B. O.
Toms River, NJ

June 28, 2004

SUNFISH

Frank, I am writing because I saw your web site about the sunfish. I am trying to find out information about a wooden sunfish I have in my garage. I saw the e-mail from Paul Melse on your web site about his wood sunfish and his search for information about it. I sailed mine the last time about 20 years ago, but it is ready to go anytime. My sails have faded and so has the yellow paint. Can you help me with finding out information about my sunfish? Your brief history tells me that it was built between 1952 and 1960. Anything you can tell me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Pete Warren

February 19, 2005

Hello from Wisconsin!

I have had a sunfish in my family for 25 years. To this day we use it as a rental at our resort. I was surprised to see how little information there is about these unique boats. Thanks for your nice website.

Heather Davidson

Lynn Ann's Campground

December 13, 2005

Hi,

I too, have an old wooden boat in the barn, but it's a Sailfish rather than a Sunfish. To be precise, it's a Super Sailfish. In about 1954-55 my Dad built (or helped build, can't remember for sure) a kit for a friend - which I think was a standard sailfish. Then another friend or neighbor wanted one, and bought a kit for a Super Sailfish. Dad built that for him, and also used the parts to build his own from scratch, which I sailed up through college. During my college years, my folks moved to the other side of the country and Dad took his boat with him (the nerve ....). So, since I was working in the summer and had a little money I found my own boat. Mine is not a kit boat, however, but factory made wood. How can you tell? The kit boats had plywood decks and hulls, the factory boats used masonite (not sure if it's just a layer of masonite, or masonite over plywood). The factory boats were a little heavier and this may be the reason.

I believe my Dad was also the originator of the plastic rings which hold the sails to the spars. Originally the sails were lashed with a length of line, which was pretty tedious and time consuming. So my Dad went out and bought some wire rings for shower curtains. Much easier and quicker to just clip them on, which is why we used them. Dad grew up just a couple blocks from Lake Erie during the 1930's (before it became polluted) and raced a fair amount - mostly Comets, I think. Anyway - he was a pretty decent sailor so we usually did well, which prompted some complaints about the "non-standard" rings giving us an advantage - they could turn on the spars and give the sail better shape. Soon after Alcort came out with their custom plastic version of the shower rings.

Dad also developed some back problems, and started sailing lying down on his stomach steering with his feet. This is actually pretty comfortable, and it wasn't long before many racers followed suit. Plus it's a lot easier to get up over the top as you capsize :-) I used to enjoy oversheeting and standing her up on edge so you could lie on the side instead of the top. It wasn't fast, but it was fun.

Dad sold his boat years - make that decades - ago out in Arizona. Mine's still out in the barn here in PA, but will probably soon make it's way to Annapolis for the Juniors fleet, if they'll have it.
Eastport Yacht Club and click on "Juniors."

Jim Kevern, [email protected] <[email protected]>

PS: I think I paid $200 used for my factory built boat back around 1969

From: Bruce C. Neumann <mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 12:37 PM
Subject: Missing history

You mention in the history, Vanguard took over production from AMF, which I believe is incorrect. I have a 1990 Sunfish which was produced by Pearson Yachts, that sold the rights to Vanguard in the later 1990s.

Apparently in spring of 1991 Vanguard bought the rights to Sunfish from Pearson. Another article stated the rolled deck/hull splice began late 86 or early 87 and was supposedly a Pearson improvement. I did notice a lot of dissing of Pearson Sunfish due to QC issues and gelcoat. I have had mine for 17 years, and have had no production problems with it. All the problems were of my doing, broken pintle pin, dents and dings in the gelcoat. I won mine in a Radio/Brewing company campaign in Baltimore in 1990

Bruce Neumann
Hagerstown Maryland 21740 USA

Frank,

Very interesting info on the Sailfish/Sunfish. I noticed you did not mention, or did not know about, a one page article in "Boys Life" magazine around 1962. The article was entitled "Sailing Surfboard" and described how to make an 11 foot 10 inch Sailfish from wood. The article included a basic plan and some instructions. A friend of mine decided to try and build one. We worked all summer on the project, and with a little parental help succeeded in completing the boat. We did not use any commercially available parts except for the sail. All other parts were home made. The boat provided many years of sailing fun for my friend and others.

Capt. Bob Hoffman

Holgate, NJ

Frank

I have to credit the Sunfish with starting my interest in sailing, an interest that continues today. I grew up in Middlebury, Connecticut just outside of Waterbury. I purchased my Sunfish, which I still own, in 1964 for $425. I purchased it at J.E. Smith in Waterbury which was the local lumber yard. My friends followed my lead and soon there were several of us sail them.

At that time we sailed on Lake Quassapaug and challenged the Snipe Club for dominance on the lake. It was a great way to spend summer days. Some days we seemed to spend more time in the water than on the boat but we learned the feel of a sailboat by doing.

The boat carries a 4 digit registration number and we traveled around the state participating in races. Although I have no victories to my credit, the competition was another learning experience.

These were great life forming experiences that I hope young people are still able to capture today.

Regards,

Bill Nordby

[email protected]

August 27, 2008

Hello - do you know of any boatyards etc who have or make old sailfish parts? I am looking for an old Sailfish tiller/rudder combo - ours floated away.

Thanks

Peter

[email protected]

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