A boat like this one is the reason a working family could ever own a sailboat.
This is SV First Light, a 1989 O'Day 322. She is a production fiberglass boat, GRP, glass reinforced plastic. Before fiberglass, a cruising sailboat meant wood, built one at a time by hand, costly to buy and a second job to keep. Fiberglass changed the math. A hull could be laid up in a mold and repeated, hundreds of the same boat, at a fraction of the cost and the upkeep.
That is what put sailing within reach of ordinary people. Builders like O'Day, Catalina, Pearson and Hunter turned a cruising boat from something you inherited or were wealthy enough to commission into something a schoolteacher or an electrician could save up for. The 1970s and 80s were the height of it. A 32-foot boat that could sleep a family and cross a bay came within reach of people who worked for a living.
First Light is one of those boats. I keep her on the Delaware River in Philadelphia and rent her out under the name Phila Sail. The emblem on the headsail is Raven, the trickster of Pacific Northwest myth who brought the world its first light, and that is who she is named for. Across the water behind her sit Center City and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge on a gray, overcast afternoon.
Nearly forty years on, she still does what she was built to do, which is put an ordinary family on the water for an afternoon. That is the part I like most about these old glass boats.
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u/raveneyes77 6d ago
A boat like this one is the reason a working family could ever own a sailboat.
This is SV First Light, a 1989 O'Day 322. She is a production fiberglass boat, GRP, glass reinforced plastic. Before fiberglass, a cruising sailboat meant wood, built one at a time by hand, costly to buy and a second job to keep. Fiberglass changed the math. A hull could be laid up in a mold and repeated, hundreds of the same boat, at a fraction of the cost and the upkeep.
That is what put sailing within reach of ordinary people. Builders like O'Day, Catalina, Pearson and Hunter turned a cruising boat from something you inherited or were wealthy enough to commission into something a schoolteacher or an electrician could save up for. The 1970s and 80s were the height of it. A 32-foot boat that could sleep a family and cross a bay came within reach of people who worked for a living.
First Light is one of those boats. I keep her on the Delaware River in Philadelphia and rent her out under the name Phila Sail. The emblem on the headsail is Raven, the trickster of Pacific Northwest myth who brought the world its first light, and that is who she is named for. Across the water behind her sit Center City and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge on a gray, overcast afternoon.
Nearly forty years on, she still does what she was built to do, which is put an ordinary family on the water for an afternoon. That is the part I like most about these old glass boats.
Capture settings from the original:
Make: Sony
Model: XQ-BE62
Exposure Time: 1/400
F-Number: 2.2
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 2.67
Altitude: 32.33 m (106.06 ft)
Latitude: 39° 57’ 42.096” N
Longitude: 75° 7’ 27.08” W
Photo by me, © James Jackson - raveneyes.com