 
If the boat named Spray were to motor slowly through an anchorage today it would turn heads in admiration and generate at least a million inquiries: What is it? Who built it?
That straight stem and the beautiful sheer line would seem familiar to some. Others would find a teasing hint in the shape of the forward trunk cabin, with its teak trim and grab rails.
The boxy saloon, with workboat windows, wouldn't quite fit the mental picture of a yacht some observers would be forming. But then its perfect wood construction, the wire lifelines and stout stanchions, and the big cockpit would ring bells. What the heck is it?
It's a Grand Banks - and it isn't.
In 1962, Robert J. Newton and his sons, John and Whit, were running a custom boatyard on Junk Bay in Hong Kong called American Marine, Ltd. Father and sons built heavy sailboats and big motor yachts, to designs by the world's top marine architects - Sparkman & Stevens, William Garden, Nat Herreshoff, Ray Hunt and others.
That year they commissioned Kenneth Smith, another well-known marine architect, to design a 36 foot, diesel-powered cruising boat. Spray was launched in 1963 and a year later the Newtons abandoned their custom yacht building to focus on producing the first of a line of boats that would be known as Grand Banks.
Even before Spray, however, there was the Chantyman that American Marine built of wood in its Hong Kong yard. Diesel-powered, the 34' 6" boat had a raised pilothouse, high bulwarks and softer hull lines (no hard chines). It was unlike Spray or the 36GBs that would follow, but Chantyman certainly was a design that introduced the concept of a production trawler-type yacht to the boating world.
A few of the Chantyman line are still cruising, and every time one shows up at a Grand Banks rendezvous, everyone again asks, "What the heck is that?"
Spray was the prototype of the line that would succeed. With some changes, such as a larger saloon and the addition of a flying bridge, its successor became the craft that sold the world's boaters on a finely built, eight-knot trawler (although today's GBs may be fitted with engines that make them run much, much faster).
The general styling of the GB was seized by a score of other builders for fleets of look-alike yachts sold under dozens of names, but which could not match the quality of construction for which American Marine was famed.
Since 1965, the first model year, 1,124 of the 36GBs have been built by American Marine, first in wood at the Junk Bay yard and then, beginning in 1974, of fiberglass at a new factory in Singapore. (A footnote for history: American Marine made the switch from wood to fiberglass without telling its dealers or the public. It came as one big surprise to a boating world still somewhat suspicious of fiberglass.)
The GB36 is not being built this year, partly because of market demand for larger boats, which yield better profits. But American Marine says GB36 production will resume in 1999 and that the company is considering several improvements to the classic yacht, as well as "production steps" that will make it more profitable.
The 32GB, of which 861 were built, is out of production for similar reasons. Don't expect it to come back, however. |
