MADE IN TOLEDO” SAILBOATS – Fall 1987
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The Great Lakes… 84% of the continent’s fresh water… a different story in every drop.
By Peggy Kaighin
This article is reprinted by permission of Marine History Lines, The Journal of Western Lake Erie Historical Society.
Photo portrait of Francis Sweisguth, designer and developer of the Star Class racing yacht. Image from Starclass.org
Toledo’s central location reaches out to a wide water area of diverse waterways conducive to sailing. National and International Champions in their class of boats have brought trophies to rest in Toledo. Boats make Champions, and Champions make boats. After World War I recreational sailing by the average person prompted the building of class boats for competitive sailing. Cat rigged boats were built by the dreamers and by the serious sailors. Many a back yard or basement spawned a cat boat, A Class boat, the Interlake, was designed by Francis Sweisguth, the Star Class boat designer. It was an 18-ft. center board boat with a simplified rig and enlarged cockpit. In 1935 five Interlake’s competed at the Sandusky Sailing Club and the ILYA Regatta. The next year thirteen boats raced, and this group formed the Interlake Sailing Association.
Toledo sailors caught the fever for the competitive Interlake. Vince Dimaio built a wooden craft with cotton sails. It weighed 950 lbs. Several small boat builders around the city built Interlakes, and other class boats. The Luedtke Brothers, Richard and Ray founded their Beacon and Linwood St. Boat Works in 1918. The 22-ft. cat boat with a center board through the keel was carefully crafted. They used redwood and white cedar for the frame. Oak Harbor white oak was purchased green to be steamed into a keel with no knots, and out of one piece of oak. The sails were working sails made in England by Canfield and Carter of fine Indian cotton fiber.
Luedtke’s made a 28-ft. L boat of mahogany. It had two bunks and an ice box. (An L boat still sails on Traverse Bay.) The cost was $1800 to $2,000 in 1939. The brothers sold their boats directly to their customers. A cat boat ranged in price from $1000 to $1200 in 1939. The Luedtke’s moved their boat building operation to Troy and Chase St. where fire destroyed their blue prints and materials. In 1955, the doors were closed. Winzenreid’s on Broadway maintained a boat works, but their boat building consisted of a not too successful gaff rigged cat boat. Luedtke’s eliminated the gaff rig.
The first six Interlakes that the Luedtke’s built were sold for $450 each. The owners were Norm Turner, George Peters, Dick Faist, Herb Gill, and Harry Allison. This group of avid sailors raced on the Maumee River during the 40’s and 50’s. In that span of time a feeling arose that there was a problem with the wooden hull. Keen competition was difficult with varying weights in the hull from water in the center board, the rudder, or in the hull itself.
At the Lyman Boat Works in Sandusky, Angelo Giovanelli built a boat for Julie Wein, the owner’s daughter, with a fiber glass hull. This embryo sparked a whole new concept. For $3,500 the first glass Interlake was formed in 1955. But Vince Dimaio, a sales manager at Owens Coming Fiberglas, in that same summer, made the mold, formed the fiber glass hull, raced the boat, and took the Toledo Area Championship by storm. Sailors were dazzled with the sleek hull that retained no water weight. They wanted one just like it, and that first year, Vince sold two boats. The next year with six or seven in making, Vince decided to quit his job, and build the fiber glass Interlake for a living.
In the meantime, other boat builders were making a business of this innovative hull. Gordon Douglas designed and produced the Thistle, Highlander, and Flying Scot for pleasure boating and for competitive racing.
The popular Scot was licensed by Vince Dimaio and made by him for thirty- five years in Toledo.
Ray Greene, a notable in the Toledo boating industry, began manufacturing boats in his father’s garage on Lincoln Ave. An engineering graduate of OSU in 1937; he designed, built, and sold 400 12-ft. cat rigged boats by 1943. This boat was aptly named the Nipper. It was a small fun racing boat for young and old.
Ray Greene’s career in boat building spanned a period of forty years, and grew to a 37,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility. With fiber glass hulls he built the 26-ft. New Horizon, co-designed with Alfred Youngquist; the 22-ft. keel boat, Ranger; and a clear plastic dinghy among others. He designed the rigging for his boats, but the sails were made in England.
The first production fiber glass boats made and sold in volume came from Ray Greene’s Toledo based company. Volume meant shipping to and selling through dealers, thus, a 25 percent mark-up to the customer. Ray Greene and Vince Dimaio part company here. Vince sold his custom boats at the retail price. Ray Greene’s boats were production built.
Color in the fiber glass boat was processed in a revolutionary way. No longer does the proud owner have a spring painting chore. Vince Dimaio describes the system this way. “… colored modified polyester resin was first sprayed into the mold and set up hard. Subsequent layers of fiberglass and resin are sandwiched in a balsa wood core made from small resin sealed blocks. The thick durable gelcoat exterior prevented water penetration and hid the shrinkage pattern of the fiberglass weave. Compartments assured rigidity, floatation, and a tough long lasting structure free of maintenance.”
Comet Class race during the Inter-Lake Yachting Association regatta 1937. Image from the National Museum of the Great Lakes Archive.
At Customflex, Inc. of Toledo, founded in 1955, Vince Dimaio built many classes of sail boats: Tornado, Crescent, Comet, Cape Cod Knock-About, Rhodes Bantam, and the Penguin. The Penguin is an International Class dinghy that is sensitive, responsive, and difficult to sail. Colleges adopted the Penguin for sailing instruction and for competition. Building three a day, Vince sold five to six thousand of these boats.
Toledo’s small sail boat business was beginning to wane in the late 60’s and 70’s for several reasons. Polyester the fiber glass base, rose in price 500 percent. A petrel class boat, of which only five were built, in 1956 cost $1300 with sails. In 1973, that same craft cost $5000. At Ray Greene’s, shipping and production costs were sky rocketing.
The affluent public toward the eighties turned to the larger, roomier, cruisable, family sail boat. Competition was not a one class race, but a handicap race. The sailor was pitting his boat against time, against protest, against crew, etc. The Put-In-Bay Regatta in 1986 had 30 small sail boats competing as compared to 450 small center sails in 1952. Large cruisers and racing boats numbered 500 in 1986, but only 150 in 1952. The turn around in numbers tells the story.
Ironically, after twenty years or more of a life’s labor, economics and the whim of the public shut down Toledo’s small sail boat business. Vince Dimaio’s Custom Flex stopped production on all boats except the Interlake, and in 1975 he sold this business. Ray Greene sold his business in the same year.
A new concept of small boat sailing is showing some promise. It is board sailing. On the lakes, the Maumee River, and even the ocean, small sails are sighted that have the advantage of being portable.
Another glimmer of hope is that economics may again swing the big boat owners back to the competition of the smaller class boats where the pure joy of a race is all in their hands.
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