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Olson ULDB Home: George Olson George Olson, legendary boat builder and boat designer, is considered by many to be the father of the Santa Cruz ULDB sailboats. Born:
1939 In 1968, George Olson, then 29 and a longtime surfer, surfboard designer and sailor of the endless long swells of Monterey Bay, California decided to create the boat that would win the "proposed" under 30 foot Transpac. This was long before he became famous as the creator/co creator of the Santa Cruz 27, Olson 25, 29, 30, 34, and 40. In fact, in 1968, George was employed in the rather humble occupation of 'hod carrier', the guy who carries bricks up a ladder for the mason. "I played around with boats as a hobby," he says. To George's way of thinking (and budget), the challenges to create a boat with the same keel, displacement and sail area as a Cal 20, but longer and faster, with the most waterline possible. This was an extension of the thinking that created Sopwith Camel, a maxed-out, masthead 'Cal 20-plus' he'd built with Wayne Kocher. The previous year, they'd sailed it to victory in the MORA long distance race to Newport Beach. "That was before 'ultralight' had even been coined," says Olson. "And even though a lot of people think we set out to create a real light 24-footer, we really went at it the other way around. We had all this Cal 20 stuff laying around -- so we started with a given displacement of 2,000 pounds and made the longest boat we could.' Olson figured the new boat also had to rate decently under the then-in-use Cruising Club of America (CCA) rating, so 'a friend of mine from Cabrillo College got us in to use their computer, which at that time had only like 64 functions but took up two rooms,' says George. 'Still, we were able to to ask it things like, "If we decreased the beam so many inches and increased the waterline, how much faster would we go?"' The result of all the number crunching was Grendel, a 24-ft fiberglass rocketship built of fiberglass over a male mold. Although the MORA TransPac never happened, Grendel (named for the monster in Beowulf) proved a terror on the water, winning the 1970 MORA season championship and that year's MORA Long Distance, which finished in Ensenada. When Ron Moore rescued Grendel's mold from certain destruction, a new partnership was born between Ron and John Moore and George Olson. The next chapter of the story was the creation of the Ultimate Wednesday Night Boat for Monterey Bay -- Summertime. The first thing the trio decided was that new boat needed a little more beam than Grendel's 5 feet and change. No problem. They just jammed a few 2X4s in the mold and pried it apart until it looked about right. A foot more beam looked pretty good, and the glass and resin started flowing. Wednesday nights would never be the same again. The partners were expecting a downwind hot rod, but to everyone's surprise, the boat pointed well, too. Off the wind, the high, flaring bow kept the boat's head above water while surfing and the V-bottom made it track so well that the faster it went, the easier it was to control. It wasn't long before locals started pounding on the Moore brothers' door going, "I gotta have one of those, too!" Summertime was the prototype of the popular Moore 24. George later formed and operated Pacific Yachts in 1978. Pacific yachts built a number of designs including George's "Olson" line until 1987 when Pacific was closed to bankruptcy. George Olson has also been away from the wild and crazy boat building business for a number of years. He went on to design and build amusement park sets for Disney and Universal, among others. Pacific Yachts also built the following boats: Olson
911S designed by Carl Schumacher |
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