John Spencer (boat designer)

John Alfred Spencer (6 July 1931 – 4 March 1996){{cite news | title= Maker famed for quick ply boats | date=14 March 1996 | work=Evening Post | page=5 | first=Peter | last=Kitchin}} was a New Zealand boat designer.

Biography

Spencer was born in Melbourne[http://www.uk-cherub.org/doku.php/people/john_spencer John Spencer - a brief biography] and moved to Eketāhuna in 1933. He spent most of his life in New Zealand.[http://www.firebug.co.nz/images/acrobat/download/js_obituary.pdf John Spencer - obituary]

In the 1950s, Spencer established a boatbuilding workshop on Bute Road in Browns Bay, Auckland, where he pioneered construction techniques for lightweight flyer boats and yachts.{{cite report |url=https://knowledgeauckland.org.nz/media/1741/tr2011-010-north-shore-heritage-thematic-review-vol-2-parts-6plus-july-2011.pdf |title=North Shore heritage – North Shore area studies and scheduled items list: volume 2 parts 6+ |first1=Heike |last1=Lutz |first2=Theresa |last2=Chan |work=Heritage Consultancy Services |publisher=Auckland Council |date=2011 |access-date=7 July 2023 |archive-date=1 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230201094607/https://knowledgeauckland.org.nz/media/1741/tr2011-010-north-shore-heritage-thematic-review-vol-2-parts-6plus-july-2011.pdf |url-status=dead }}

He was a well-known designer of sailing boats of all sizes, including the Cherub, Javelin (NZ),[http://javelins.org/category/history/john-spencer/ Javelin class designer] 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 {{convert|50|kg}} and a Firebug is {{convert|40|kg}}.{{cite web|title=Firebug|url=http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_id=7458|publisher=Sailboat Data|accessdate=3 December 2015}}

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.

References

Category:1931 births

Category:1996 deaths

Category:Designers from Melbourne

Category:Australian emigrants to New Zealand

Category:New Zealand yacht designers