Dick Gibbs formed Gibbs Boat Company in 1950 when he was 21 years old. Dick built 

wooden and later fiberglass boats in his plant in LaSalle, MI. The Gibbs Boat Company had

produced some 6,000 sailboats by 1972 when he sold the business to MFG in Union City, PA.

The principal boats built during this time period were Y-Flyers, the Rhodes Bantam, the Shark,

Phoenix, Dingo catamarans and the Thai MK 4 catamaran designed by Rod Macalpine – Downie.

 

Rod Macalpine – Downie was a brilliant King’s Scholar at Eaton College who had no formal

training in yacht design. Rod had seen the Shearwater catamaran, which was the latest rage in

the UK, and felt that he could do a better job. The Thai MK 1 class B catamaran was the first

boat Rod designed. Rod handily won the UK One of a Kind Regatta with ‘straight bullets’ in

1961. Shortly after, Rod Licensed Dick to build the Thai MK 4 for the U.S. market. Dick had

built about 100 Thai MK 4’s by the time they first met in person.

 

In 1962 Dick and Rod finally met at the First International Catamaran Challenge at Sea Cliff,

Long Island, NY, where Rod raced his Hellcat class C design to yet another victory. It was

during this time that they agreed to corroborate on the Shark Catamaran Project. They were to

campaign the Shark prototype throughout the United States. This barnstorming adventure

would begin in Montreal in 1962, travel as far west as El Paso, TX, back to the America’s Cup

at Newport in September, down to win the President’s Cup in D.C. and on to Yachting’s One of

a Kind Regatta in Miami in February of 1963. While in New Orleans during this adventure they

formed a boat design partnership, which began with a handshake and continued until Rod’s

death in 1986. During that time Rod and Dick designed some 80 sailboats with a combined

production in excess of 150,000 units for builders in the U.S., UK, Germany, Italy and Japan.

 

Their business relationship was a simple one, begun with a handshake and based on a steadfast

trust in and respect for each other’s talents. Both men were competent designers. Rod’s strength

was in hull form and Dick’s in production engineering. While both participated fully in all

deliberations of design, they agreed early on that in areas of disagreement Rod had the final

word in hull form and Dick in production engineering. Dick fully appreciated that it was Rod’s

genius in hull form design that made the Buccaneer (Mutineer) the fine boat that she is.

 

Chrysler had purchased in 1964 or 5 the Lone Star Boat Co. in Plano, TX and in addition to the

Lone Star 13’ and 16’ they had added a Gus Linell design; the ‘Barracuda’, a 13’ dagger board,

cat rigged scow. There had been a major surge of sailboat production during that decade and

demand for Chrysler’s sailboats was dwindling. In (1968) the Marketing Director of Chrysler

Marine, who had recently moved over from MFG, employed Rod Macalpine-Downie and Dick

Gibbs to submit designs for sailboats that would help bolster Chrysler Marine’s position in the

sailboat market.

 

Prior to associating with Chrysler; Downie-Gibbs had designed the 16’6” ‘Upstart’ for Bud

Sanxter of Starcraft in Goshen, IN and the 15’5” ‘Sidewinder’ for Art Hansen of MFG in Union

City, PA. along with several other designs for the UK and German market. In 1968 the 15

prototype of the Man-o-War, originally designed for Starcraft, had recently been completed.

When Bangor Punta bought Starcraft he decided to get out of the sailboat business and backed

out of Starcrafts’ contract to build the boat. The Man-o-War was then made available to

Chrysler to become the first design by Downie-Gibbs to be produced by Chrysler. The next in

line was the Buccaneer 18’ followed by the Mutineer 15’, the Musketeer, a 16’ catamaran, the

Pirateer 13’ and the Dagger 14’6”, an updated version of the Man-o-War.

 

PRODUCTION

Design of the Buccaneer 18’ began in (1968). Because the Buccaneer was to be a production

boat; read a wider range of built weights was to be expected, the design displacement was

established at 785 lb. The boat weight was to be 500 lb. with a crew allowance of 285 lb. She

was designed with long waterlines and with adequate beam and a modest aspect ratio sail plan

to reduce the heeling moment. The waterlines were retrimmed to produce as nearly a

symmetrical heeled waterline as possible, minimizing weather helm due to heeling. She has a

long easy entry to reduce bow wave and easily greases onto a plane. The Buccaneer is a boat

that suffers little if sailed with three persons, e.g., 165 lb. over the design displacement. A

renowned builder of patternmaker prototypes constructed the original cold-molded wooden

Buccaneer 18 prototype in England. This overweight, 3/8’ thick, glass covered tooling plug,

was first sailed/raced on Lake Michigan near Chicago. The event was Yachting Magazine’s One

of a Kind Regatta which took place in late summer of (1968). The Buccaneer 18 placed second

to the Thistle in a fleet of twenty plus boats.

 

It took Chrysler most of 1969 to set up their marketing, distribution, sales and tooling to

manufacture the Buccaneer 18. In August of 1969 Chrysler held a press preview to introduce

the Buccaneer 18 at Honey Harbor, Ontario, Canada. The Buccaneer 18 debuted for the boat

dealers at the Playboy Club, Lake Geneva, WI in September 1969.

 

During 1969 when Chrysler was gearing up to manufacture the Buccaneer 18 there were only a

handful of production builders of dinghy sailboats; Alcort - Sunfish, George O’Day – O’Day

day sailor and the 505, and the Ray Green Co. - Nipper and Rebel to name a few. Chrysler had

the unique ability to produce an unlimited number of boats. They were able to warehouse

unsold inventory in 5 regional facilities and had a national marketing and distribution

organization. Their dealer organization built three sailing simulators to train salesmen and

dealers to sail and sell sailboats. It was this well founded infrastructure and commitment that

allowed Chrysler to convert sailboat manufacture from, ‘order one-build one’ to ‘what color

would you like.....Is delivery on next Tuesday OK?

’

It is uncertain how many Buccaneers made it into the hands of individual owners in 1969. In

the sailboat industry the model year begins in September; thus any boats manufactured in late

1969 would have been considered 1970 models. By 1970 production was in full swing. During

Chrysler’s ten-year tenure in the sailboat business they built about (4,000 Buccaneers), (8,000

Mutineers) and total of 22,000 plus dinghies. To compare, it took forty years of Flying Scot

production to reach 4,000 units.

 

 

All of the first generation Buccaneer 18’s were built by Chrysler Corporation’s wholly owned

subsidiary; Chrysler Boat Corporation at the Plano, Texas plant on 1700 Nautical Way.

(Total production is estimated to be 4,050 units). The production figures by year have not

been identified. On January 31, 1980 the Chrysler Boat Corporation was sold to the next

builder, Texas Marine International, Inc.

 

NOTES

Please note that this is to be a work in progress. The production records for Chrysler, TMI and

Starwind have not been recovered as of this date. The records for Gloucester and Cardinal are

available from Harry Sindle. I have received some yearly/overall production estimates from

Dick Gibbs based on his recall of Royalty payments. Because TMI and Wellcraft failed to pay

Royalty payments when they were experiencing financial hardship even these estimates are not

very accurate.

 

I have reviewed all of the documents on hand. I hope those to be only about one third of the

material that I will eventually collect as the BCA  Archivist.

 

In the absence of production records I am attempting to reconstruct production numbers from

sail numbers. TMI and Starwind both produced an unknown number of boats with no sail

numbers. TMI, Starwind and Cardinal all at one time or another during their production used

some non sequential numbering systems for their sail numbers with the result that at times the

same sail numbers were used by two different builders. I have discovered that some Dealers

used inflated sail numbers, i.e., 8000, 8008 and 8888 perhaps to provide the illusion that

production was greater than it actually was. Owners over the years have selected clever or

individualized sail numbers on there own without regard to their hull number. Many owners

bought boats without sails and kept their original numbers for the new boat. There were also

lapses in production due to legal issues with Bayliner and Wellcraft and delays in transfer of the

tooling from one builder to another.

 

So you see it is quite a mess and will be very difficult, if not impossible, to ever determine the

actual overall production numbers. I suspect, at this time, that the numbers that I had published

earlier were inflated a bit. The Buccaneer production was inflated less than the Mutineer was. I

will continue working on solving the mystery and will add to the Buccaneer Production History

Document as I recover additional reliable information. I have uncovered much interesting

information about the various builders, the dates of their production and the terms of the

transfers. These details will be included as the document is completed.

 

As a counterpart to the Buccaneer Production History I plan to develop a timeline of which

developments/improvements/modifications were made and when. I will also eventually

produce a chronological listing of features, equipment and colors available for each model year.

My research to date indicates that Chrysler made boats until December of 1979 or January

1980. The model year is from Sept until the next August. So both Chrysler and TMI built 1980

Buccaneers under the Chrysler trade mark. For the 1981 model year, from September 1980

until about March of 1981, when TMI went out of business, TMI made Buccaneers under their

own Trade Name. Wellcraft purchased the legal rights to build Buccaneers from TMI in the

spring of 1981 and so also built and marketed 1981 Buccaneers under the Starwind trade

name. During 1981, Bayliner of Seattle, Washington also built Buccaneer 18's, some of these

boats could have been considered 1981 and some 1982 models. Likewise, both Starwind and

Gloucester built Buccaneer models in 1984, and both Gloucester and Cardinal built Buccaneer

models in 1987.

 

During the severe weather of the October, 1977 Championship of Champions several

Buccaneers were dismasted, capsized and swamped. Following this 'bad press' so to speak

several design changes were made by Chrysler to make the boat better and safer. My boat is

sail number 2332 and is a 1978 boat. Most of the boats sailed in the C of C had sail numbers in

the 2816 - 2836 range and would also have been considered 1978 models. None of these boats

had the later improvements.

 

It is my best guess that in mid 1978 and for sure for the 1979 model year, i.e., Sept. 1978,

Chrysler had redesigned the boat. These improvements included redesigned the inner hull to

prevent water from entering the spaces under the deck and seats, at this time the jib changed to

the luff wire replacing the tube-luff furling system. Since the forestay no longer had to be lead

below deck the spinnaker launcher was enlarged and improved. The mast step was raised to

clear the centerboard when stepping and a hinged step was provided. Jibsheet tracks were

relocated to the inside edge of the seats, eliminating the need for jib in-hauls, and Harken cleats

added to the windward side for cross sheet cleating. At this time the bow eye moved from the

top of the deck to the stem of the hull and Large Elvstrom bailers replaced the older round style

cockpit drains. This had been a major redesign of the Buccaneer at considerable expense to

Chrysler. All of these new redesigned Chrysler Buccaneers were known as the Champion

Edition.

 

To answer your questions, the higher mast step came earlier that you thought, mid 1978 or by

Sept. 1978 for the 1979 model. Starwind announced for the 'new 1983 models' ( this would

have been in the late summer of 1982) that the hull joint would be lapped, (flanged as you call

it). This is also when the cockpit got lengthened and brought them into a squabble with Dick

Gibbs. These boats interestingly enough were not called Buccaneers but Starwind 18's. The

outboard shroud chainplates were related to the lapped deck hull joint. There was no mixing or

matching of this design feature that I am aware. Gloucester in 1984 made the change to topside

centerboard hangers. The spinnaker launcher being molded as part of the deck mold was

introduced in the Gloucester 1985 (Sept. 1984) model year. After this time one could not

purchase a Buccaneer without a spinnaker launcher. You have a much better handle on the

various mast lengths used. (I will be asking you for your data on masts when I get to that point

in the History Piece). I am still recovering documents to help sort out by sail number when

specific design changes were made. I am sorry not to be of much help to you on that issue at

this time

Michael Connolly BCA Archivist/Historian June, 2004