Glasspar
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The Glasspar boatbuilding company was born in 1949 when Bill Tritt began building small fiberglass boats hulls in his Santa Ana, California factory.
Bill Tritt had a keen interest in boats and cars before World War II, when he studied marine architecture and boat building. He worked for Douglas Aircraft's Production Planning and Illustration Departments during WW II, and by 1945 had built a number of catamaran sailboats. In 1947, John Green, a yachtsman friend, paid Tritt to design and build a racing sailboat in the twenty foot range. Fiberglass seemed the logical construction material, and Otto Bayer of Wizard Boats was enlisted as laminator. The boat was named the Green Dolphin, and four were built in various lengths. This was Tritt's introduction to fiberglass-reinforced plastic (FRP). By 1947 he was building small fiberglass boats, and built the first ever fiberglass masts and spars for sailboats. This company became the Glasspar Company and moved to larger quarters from Costa Mesa to Santa Ana, California, in the early 1950s. By the mid 1950s, Glasspar was producing 15 to 20 percent of all fiberglass boats sold in the U.S.
Glasspar built boats in ranges from car toppers to twenty foot models and everything in between. Just prior to 1969, when Glasspar was sold off, there were even twenty-one and twenty-five foot ocean going models. Boats were often given Mediterranean sounding names and the boat classes within the model were often indicated by a model type then model name with a hyphen in between. For example in the fourteen foot range there was a model called the Lido which came in three configurations. The Sport-Lido, Club-Lido, and Lido (standard). Another line, called the Mariner, might include the Sport-Mariner, Club-Mariner, or Mariner (standard) model. Some boat models were also named for areas in and around Southern California such as Avalon on the island of Catalina.
Models included, but were not limited to;
- Balboa Boat - a ten foot car-topper
- Superlight Boat - a ten foot car-topper
- Marathon Boat - an under fourteen foot runabout
- Lido Series - an under fourteen foot runabout
- Citation Boat - a sixteen foot runabout
- Avalon Boat - a sixteen foot runabout
- G3 Boat - a fourteen foot high performance ski boat
- SuperG Boat - a sixteen foot high performance ski boat
- Seafair Series - a sixteen foot cruising class
- Flying V-175 - a seventeen foot cruising class
Glasspar also build cars most notably the G2 (Glasspar) in limited numbers. The company was eventually sold to Larson Boat Works.
Restoring and preserving Glasspar boats has become extremely popular in recent years. The official Glasspar Owners Association can be found at [1]
Extensive information can be found at the Owners Association Website to include factory brochures, production data and even patents.
