MARIONETTE

Model: Dolphin 24

Year: 1960

Design: #1497

Builder: Marscot Plastics / O’Day

Photo by Benjamin Mendlowitz taken August 28, 2014 on Eggemoggin Reach, Maine. Marionette was in 'delivery mode' crewed by daughter Nicole Breault and her husband Bruce Stone.

MARIONETTE is owned by Ron Breault, Old Lyme, Connecticut - she is hull #012 and was built in in 1960.

““I have just had a phone conversation with George O’Day, who is very anxious to get going on two new boats to be built of Fiberglass, which he would like to have built according to our designs. The smaller boat he has in mind would be a Junior Ocean Racer...”
”

— Olin Stephens - December 8, 1958

So begins the story of the Dolphin 24. Sixty plus years ago Olin Stephens dictated an internal memo, copies to – Bill Shaw, Drake Sparkman, Rod Stephens) and Gil Wyland, (Sparkman & Stephens' chief engineer.) That memo describes a phone conversation he had with George O'Day. I call this memo the Dolphin 24 Birth Certificate. I found it as a tissue carbon copy in the back of the Dolphin 24 technical file at S&S’s offices on 5th Avenue in New York.

Marionette at her slip in Niantic Bay YC, in Niantic, Connecticut

My Dolphin, Marionette (shown above in her slip at Niantic Bay YC, in Niantic, Connecticut) is Hull #12 built in 1960 by Marscot Plastics for George O'Day and Associates, Inc (O’Day Corporation) in Fall River, Massachusetts. Her particular hybrid construction typifies the period - a guy with good hands on know how but no boat building experience, bought a bare fiberglass hull, used a borrowed trailer to truck her to his backyard in Southport, Connecticut, and there under a tarp, over the next several months, built a quality wood boat on that hull.

In the mid and late 1950s, the new Midget Ocean Racing Club (MORC) was giving racing skippers of modest means not only their own rule under which their smaller boats could race, but the opportunity to tinker, revise, re-engineer and reinvent their ‘one design’ boats to make them faster, and still take their families out to the islands off the New England coast in safety.

And after nearly 60 years Dolphin 24s can still win races as this 2008 trophy at left attests! Marionette was 1st both days in her class, and had the best corrected time in the entire 132 boat fleet in the Around Block Island Race. And, she won again in 2010! And in 2012!! And in 2015!!!

Marionette has also thrice won (2011, 2016 and 2018) the S&S Association Global Challenge Trophy (at left) for the best performance by an S&S designed yacht. In 2009, she finished 2nd to the legendary Dorade.

A big part of my life with Marionette was the decision to start a website about the Dolphin 24. I wanted to describe, and with the help of others, find out more about how Dolphins played their small but important role in the days of sailboat design transition from wood to fiberglass. In the process I wanted to find out how my Dolphin made its unique way through a 50 year maze to end up in my barn with a new life.

Sparkman & Stephens Association Challenge Cup

Dolphins move around in pods so Marionette wanted to have other Dolphins join with her and share their experiences describing how they got their new lives. We wanted to help lost Dolphins find their way to new lives through the restoration and renovation efforts of their owners.

To help get this project off the ground, on February 6, 2007, I interviewed Olin Stephens (98 years young at the time!) at his home in Hanover, New Hampshire. This was a life experience for me.

Olin, on the sofa in his Hanover, NH living room filled with mementos and awards received during his long life of achievement, surrounded by numerous piles of technical literature and current projects. Here he is accepting my wife’s world famous homemade strawberry jam as an appreciation gift for this unforgettable experience he gave me.

The small silver ‘pot” in the center, inscribed to the ‘all amateur crew” of Dorade on winning the 1931 TransAtlantic Race. Olin was 23, winning by over 2 days elapsed time against mostly larger boats, in a boat he designed and skippered, with his father and brother in the crew. This put Olin and his firm on the track to becoming the outstanding marine architects of the last century.

At the gracious invitation of Harry Morgan and Bruce Johnson, I spent several hours on March 6, 2007 going through Sparkman & Stephens' old Dolphin 24 files in New York City. Unfortunately, much had been destroyed years before in an errant mission to streamline their filing system. Among the various internal correspondence I found a quote that will warm any Dolphin owner’s heart. This from the man who, at 21, founded the leading marine architectural firm of the last century: