Designed by Legendary Yacht Designer Philip L. Rhodes, these classic full keel yachts were built to survive the rigors of circumnavigations and yacht races through the stormy seas of the gulfstream current for competing in the Newport Bermuda race and other long distance ocean passage races. Philip Rhodes is a name that is ranked toward the top of every top ten list of the greatest naval engineers of the 20th century. His 12 meter class yacht design Weatherly won the America's Cup race in 1962, the world's most prestigious trans-oceanic blue water yacht race. He was inducted into the Yacht Designers Hall of Fame in 2005.In decent condition these sought after full keel vessels sell for between $25,000 to $45,000, and even at that price they are very hard to find because most owners have no interest in selling. This No Reserve Ebay Auction is your opportunity to get a Rhodes Seafarer 38 that is structurally in very good condition but which you can invest your own time and labor into rather than having to purchase one at full retail price. These are a perfect size global cruiser for couples wanting to sail the Caribbean and Mediterranean or South Pacific. The heavy, cast lead-filled full keel design makes for a very comfortable sea motion especially in stormy seas and on the anchor in exposed anchorages, unlike the much more bouncy and fragile hull styles of fin-keel modern racer-cruisers. The protected rudder and prop and extremely durable construction are what you want and need for global cruising where you and your boat are potentially hundreds or thousands of miles from the nearest boatyard or marine rescue service. These boats can run aground dozens of times and survive days upon days of relentless pounding seas during open ocean storms without any adverse structural damage, unlike the more flimsy coastal cruisers and lightweight construction modern yachts. Payment is due in full within 24 hours. Please see payment instructions for details. If you are the high bidder at the end of the auction, please call me right after the auction closes to discuss the details of the transaction. Also, feel free to call me (William) at 970 319-4361 if you have any questions you want to ask about the boat or to schedule a boat inspection. WHY A GOOD BOAT IN BAD CONDITION IS WORTH TWICE AS MUCH AS A BAD BOAT IN GOOD CONDITION...IF YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO CIRCLE THE GLOBE.Lets face it. Many sailors really just own boats to drink margaritas at the dock and occasionally go out for mild weather sailing on balmy weekends or run the bouys on casual Wednesday afternoon beer can races. To those sailors, a cheap pretty boat with all the conveniences is all that they need. However, if you actually want to go cruising and cross vast oceans and visit foreign countries you need a different sort of vessel.The magic of a true "Blue Water" vessel is in the keel and the hull. To built a boat the way this one is built, is much more expensive than your average Hunter or Catalina or Beneteau. The fiberglass is solid woven roving fiberglass laid down from continuous rolls from bow to stern, and below the waterline it is about three times thicker than your average modern fiberglass boat from the 1990s or 2000s. Excess resin is mopped out to produce a stronger hull with a proper resin to glass ratio of about 70% glass to 30% resin rather than the other way around as with cheaper modern boats. Since resin is about five times more cheaper than fiberglass cloth by both weight and volume you can understand why the modern boat-builders try to cut corners and use a lot more resin than glass. Also instead of a cast iron, bolt on keel, as on the cheaper boats, which is subject to corrosion of keel bolts and potentially breaking when (not if) you run aground--these were created using a single piece hull with the more expensive metal (lead) poured into the keel. At $2 per lb for the current spot price of lead ingots, just the 5500 pounds of lead in the keel alone on this boat is worth $10K even without the rest of the boat attached. Compare that to the cost of about $500 for the same amount of cast iron with a bolt-on-keel on a lighter displacement fin keel vessel and you see why it is so much harder to find a boat like this one for a cheap price. That heavy, full keel can take the abuse of the open ocean and give you a very "stiff" boat that rides smooth and stays upright even in very heavy weather and stormy seas, whereas a lighter boat made of cheaper materials will be bouncing and pounding and make for a completely miserable passage through the same conditions. Not to mention that the connection points for the rigging and the rigidity of the hull is so much stronger on a Seafarer (a boat considered a true Blue Water Cruiser) rather than on the other 90% of the sailboats available cheap, which are considered only coastal cruisers or lake boats. The protected rudder will keep your prop from getting caught in crab pot lines etc. and if you ever strike a coral head down in the islands or run aground on coral or gravel or dense mud you are about 3000% less likely to have your rudder or keel break off than with a spade rudder bolt-on keel as on Catalinas, Hunters, Beneteaus and other common spade rudder vessels. That can mean the difference between a major disaster and just an unpleasant grounding experience. Run aground in this boat during a vertical wave weather event, and you have a bit of bottom paint to touch up next time you haul out. Run aground in a fin keel, spade rudder boat made using the cheaper modern cheap style blown chipped fiberglass construction methods, and you are abandoning ship and waiting in your life-raft for the nearest rescue vessel to come and hopefully save you from a sad fate. When crossing oceans, you cannot always have the luxury of only sailing on days when their is a pleasant 12 knot breeze. Lighter displacement coastal cruisers will be heading back to the nearest protected harbor when the wind starts blowing above 15 or 20 knots. A boat like this one is just getting started. The heavier displacement and completely "capable" sail area to displacement ratio means that you won't be heeling over at 70 degrees and bouncing and "slapping" on every passing wave when the weather gets heavy on a true passage. The full keel, gives an incredible amount of keel resistance (low pressure vacuum) that enables you to have toward the wind sailing performance and relatively very fast hulls speeds toward the wind even while still having a shallow draft keel that enables you to get in close to shore in all those shallow anchorages down in the Keys and Bahamas. Look at the picture from the bow facing back toward the keel and look how fat and heavy it is compared to other skinny little flimsy bolt on keels. This boat will be as comfortable in 25 knots of wind as most coastal cruisers are in 10 knots and it can cruise down the front sides of the big ocean waves, exceeding its own theoretical hull speed and plunging straight through big swells rather than bouncing and pitching at every crest. This is what you pay for when you get a serious blue water cruiser, and it is what nearly every serious international cruiser looks for when they set out to purchase a boat. If you don't have $250,000 to purchase one of the few newer vessels still built this way, then you do like most serious middle class cruisers do, and you buy an older boat that needs some work and you invest your own sweat equity in the restoration.Boat is in the condition you see it in the photos. The Photos were just taken last weekend.Boat storage is paid current through May 12th 2017.

This boat needs a lot of elbow grease to bring it back to its full potential, but by doing a lot of your own work you can save tens of thousands of dollars on the purchase price. Boat needs to be either launched and sailed to a new boatyard or marina or transported by truck no later than May 12th, because the boatyard is wanting to clear out the section of the boatyard where it is stored to accommodate summer parking. The good news is this means they are willing to launch it for you or load it on a trailer at no cost. This is the main reason why it is available at a No Reserve pennies-on-the-dollar Ebay auction. With just a weekend or so of work getting the sails sorted out and back up getting new jib sheets (ropes) on the genoa and bolting on an outboard motor bracket and getting a 9.9 horsepower outboard motor, you should be able to have this boat capable of being launched and sailed. After payment is received you will receive a notarized Bill of Sale. In order to ensure that boat is launched or moved on schedule before May 12th, the free and clear Maryland title will be signed over to you by the marina the day that the boat is loaded or launched. The upper Chesapeake Bay, where the boat is located is one of the best places in the world to restore a classic yacht. There are dozens upon dozens of affordable boat yards and marinas within a one-day sailing distance and every imaginable marine service is available. There are lots of safe anchorages for those who want to live on their boats while they restore them without breaking the bank as well as beautiful little beaches, islands to explore and places with hot tubs and swimming pools and nice restaurants, all close walking distance to safe, comfortable and friendly marinas or anchorages. There are boat supply stores for terrific deals on new equipment as well as stores like Bacon Sails which is probably the best used marine equipment and sails warehouse in the world to buy used gear and specific weird little parts and pieces. Please consider your purchase carefully. Boat needs a lot of work, but unlike some old sailboats, this is a boat that is large enough to cruise the world and truly worthy of the effort necessary to do a complete restoration. There are a ton of Youtube videos to show you step by step instructions for every possible repair and upgrade to restore a classic sailboat. Also there are dozens of great books on the topic available on Ebay or Amazaon. A great one is the Don Casey book that I showed in the photos but there are many others also. Restoring a classic yacht is a lot of hard work, but it is also a tremendous adventure and gives you a knowledge of every aspect of your vessel which many people do not possess who simply write a check and buy one that is "ready to sail." That intimate knowledge of all the boats systems is extremely valuable once you get out on the ocean and are visiting foreign ports where mechanics and service personnel are harder to find or if you ever have to fix something during a passage.Your bid is a legally binding contract to purchase this classic yacht. Please discuss your plans with your sailing partner or spouse etc. prior to clicking the bid button and bid only what you have on hand to spend and pay within 24 hours rather than what you "think you can borrow from Uncle Ed" or whatever. Since this is a NO RESERVE auction, the boat will sell to the highest bidder at the close of the auction, even if that means I take a loss and lose money on the sale. It also means you may not have another opportunity to buy a truly quality built world cruiser like this one for pennies on the dollar unless you are willing to hunt high and low for a long time. Don't confuse this for many of the other No Reserve auction boats that may not be worth the effort and expense to restore them even if someone gave them to you for free. Not all project yachts are created equal. Some are truly worthy of the effort and others just become a liability. If you truly want to win the auction, be sure to get your best bid in ahead of time or else set the alarm on your phone to tune in for the final few minutes of the auction. Sometimes, the final few minutes of the auction will determine who the actual winner is. Again if you have any questions feel free to call me. William 970 319-4361
Some info about Philip Rhodes from around the web:
Philip L. Rhodes is one of the best known American boat designers of the 20th century. His career spanned more than 50 years.
Rhodes had worked at a number of firms before joining Cox & Stevens, Inc., New York City in 1934. By 1947 this had become Philip L. Rhodes, Naval Architects and Marine Engineers.
Rhodes and his firm were pioneers in the development of fiberglass construction methods. The Bounty II for Coleman Plastics in 1956 became one of the earliest yachts built of fiberglass, and established the viability of the new material for larger production boats.
By the 1950's, Philip Rhodes spent most of his time as a manager of the firm. For many years, James McCurdy served as head of the Yacht Design Section. The actual designs of boats followed certain formula and guidelines Rhodes had developed earlier. Much of the later basic design work was done by his son Philip H. ("Bodie") Rhodes. Detailed layouts and drawings were done by Al Mason, Charles Jannace, and Dick Davis. Other designers worked on motor yachts, and commercial and military boats. In addition, Rhodes' other son Daniel Rhodes did brokerage work in the office.
Philip Rhodes retired in 1970.
Jim McCurdy and his son Bodie Rhodes had created their own yacht design company (McCurdy and Rhodes) in 1968.
Most of the Rhodes material is archived at the Daniel S. Gregory Ships Plans Library, (Philip L. Rhodes Collection) Mystic Seaport Museum.
Listed here are some of the better known, 'series built' designs.
Philip L. Rhodes was a pre-eminant sail boat designer for half of the past century, from 1920 to 1970.  Because he designed many boats for  ocean racing, especially to Bermuda, his boats had to be fast, but they also had to be strong, seaworthy, and comfortable to survive and keep racing through the gales that frequent the Gulf Stream and other race courses.  He also designed many other boats, from dinghies to huge luxury cruisers and commercial and military vessels. Whatever the boat, Rhodes knew how to make it work and feel just right.PHILIP RHODES inducted into North American Boat Designers Hall of Fame (Feb 2005)  RHODES DESIGNS SWEEP 2000 BERMUDA RACE!  The 2000 Bermuda Race was won by RESTLESS, an R41.  Second place was BANGALORE, a restored Rhodes design from 1929.  Truth is that the pattern of wind this year favored small boats, and these were two of the smallest in the fleet with the largest handicap corrections.  Class II was won by a McCurdy-Rhodes design.  In the Classic Class, KIRAWAN, a restored 53 foot Rhodes design from 1935, placed far lower in the fleet.  She won the 1936 Bermuda Race, so she has already proved her ablity.  The results prove the timeless qualities of Rhodes designs.  RHODES DESIGNS ARE TOUGH COMPETITORS IN 2002 BERMUDA RACE!
In 2002, against heavy winds that favored the big boats, RESTLESS and BANGALORE again showed their speed.  They finished 3 and 4 in their class of 19 boats and 10 and 24 overall in a fleet of 135.  Of course it took superb sailing to get this high in such a competitive fleet, but Rhodes can share a bit of the credit with the skippers.  Another Rhodes 41, Grenidlade, a 1965 model, placed first in class and fleet (125 boats in cruising
non-spinnaker) in the Harvest Moon Regatta (Galveston to Port Aransas) this fall. Not quite the Bermuda race, but still the largest event on the Gulf Coast.

The legacy of Philip Rhodes A pioneering designer of many early production fiberglass sailboats
by Ben Stavis

Philip Rhodes stands over a set of plans at his Lexington Avenue office in New York City.

Philip L. Rhodes (1895 -1974) was one of the most distinguished yacht designers of the past . Indicative of his importance, in February 2005 he and Olin Stephens became the first two yacht designers inducted into the North American Boat Designers Hall of Fame at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. A brilliant designer whose boats were beautiful, fast, seaworthy, and comfortable, Phil Rhodes was active for 50 years -- from 1920 to 1970. And he was prolific; a listing of his yacht designs totals 386, most of which are sailboats. Phil was a graduate of MIT's program in naval architecture and (1918), so he had unusually strong academic credentials. Moreover, he was active on professional committees that reached into the boating world. These included the Motor Boat and Yacht Advisory Panel of the U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Marine Council, the American Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC), and the Measurement Rule Committee of the Cruising Club of America (CCA). Over the decades the list of people who worked in his office and later became distinguished designers or boating industry professionals in their own right, is its own hall of fame: Frederick Bates, R. P. Cook, Roger Cook, Richard Davis, Devereaux, Mark Ellis, Weston Farmer, Ralph Jackson, Charles Jannace, Francis Kinney, Roger Long, Al Mason, James McCurdy, Joseph Reinhardt, Olin Stephens, Robert Steward, William Tripp, Bob Wallstrom, Winthrop Warner, and Charles Wittholz. It is easy to see why Phil Rhodes' influence was so pervasive. Philip Rhodes was born in 1895 in Southern Ohio. From childhood he was enchanted by boats on the Ohio River: paddlewheelers, barges, and speedboats. His father was a manufacturer of wooden wheels, wagons, and carriages. After his father died his mother married a master carpenter. So Phil learned from an early age about crafting wood.

"In those days, among his clients, a yacht seems to have been more for racing and adventure at sea."

He designed and built his first hydrofoil speedboat at the age of 18 and soon was publishing articles in Motor Boating . He graduated from high school in 1914 and from MIT in 1918, largely converted to the challenge of designing sailboats. His first job was a training position for naval construction at the Boston Navy Yard, followed by a job at the American Shipbuilding Company on Lake Erie, where he helped build ore carriers and became a practical shipfitter. His later design work was strengthened by his understanding of shipbuilding techniques. But sailboats were his love. His first sailboat design was a prizewinner in Motor Boating's Ideal Series in 1919. He married his high-school sweetheart, Mary Jones, in 1920. Around 1925 he set up his own office in New York, and in 1932 he became associated with Cox & Stevens, a prestigious yacht- and commercial-design firm. In 1935 the head designer died, and Phil succeeded him as chief designer. Over the course of his career Phil designed sailboats of all types, for all kinds of sailing needs. He introduced countless sailors to the water with his small boats, such as the 11-foot Penguin and the Rhodes 19. His coastal and ocean-racing boats, generally in the 40- to 70-foot range, were always serious competitors. A Rhodes-designed gaff cutter, Skal, was second in the 1931 transatlantic race (which was won by Olin Stephens' Dorade ). Kirawan , a 53-foot Rhodes sloop, won the Bermuda Race on her first outing in 1936 against fierce headwinds. Her sistership, Senta , carried her owner on a world cruise from 1969 to 1980. His 12-Meter, Weatherly , won the America's Cup in 1962. In 2000, a 40-year-old Rhodes 41 won the Bermuda Race, and Bengalore , a wooden cutter designed by Rhodes in 1928, was second. His narrow one-design club racers (33 to 36 feet) are quick and agile. His family cruising boats (26 to 50 feet) are prized for their beautiful lines, comfort, and sailing ability. His trailersailer, the Rhodes 22, is popular on inland lakes. And his large ketches and motorsailers in the 70- to 150-foot range carry their owners and guests in style and comfort as they circle the Atlantic from the Caribbean to Maine to the Mediterranean and back. His range is amply illustrated by two consecutive designs in 1966 -- a 122-foot three-master for a Rockefeller and a 12-foot aluminum sailing dinghy for . Phil designed a wide range of hull forms. Early in his career, he emulated Colin Archer's double-ended boats. One of these 1930 designs was converted into fiberglass in 1970 as the Traveller 32. When Alden were popular in the 1930s, Phil designed schooners. When Baltimore clients liked the bugeye ketch, he designed elegant ones, not unlike the beautiful Cherubini 44. He had no problem drawing clipper bows when clients liked them. Phil also designed light-displacement, fin-keel boats in 1932, 1944, 1946, and 1957 -- all before the Cal 40 made fin keels popular.

While working for Phil Rhodes, Charles Wittholz drew the lines of this 9-foot Dyer Dhow, one of the most popular sailing dinghies of all time.

One of his major contributions was the shoal-draft, keel-centerboard form. Phil developed this hull form in 1932 and used it often through the 1960s in his custom-designed racers and cruisers in the 40- to 55-foot range. They were a little beamier than his normal designs, to increase form stability, but are still narrow by contemporary standards. Of course they had a bit less draft. This configuration gave them less wetted surface area, so they were fast as well as roomier below. Phil's famous 1955 transatlantic race winner, Carina II , was a superb example of this hull form. These keel-centerboard designs were the inspiration for the famous centerboarder, Finisterre , designed by Olin Stephens for Carleton Mitchell, who had asked Olin to make Finisterre similar to his previous Rhodes-designed centerboarder, Caribbee . In shaping hulls, Phil was eager to test small-scale models. As a child, he had tested models of hulls in an . When the Stevens Institute of Technology's tank testing facility was built in 1935, he began using it immediately. His test boat was . Her design was highly praised, and her test data provided the standards by which other performance-prediction methods were gauged. Phil was thoughtful in designing accommodations. Whether on a 26- or a 76-footer, he designed cockpits, bunks, lockers, passageways, doors, and lockers that were ergonomically sensible. He was also creative and experimental. On different designs he tried putting the galley forward, midships, aft, and along one side opposite a dinette. On some boats he located the main cabin near the back of the boat. He had several ways of creating a real aft owner's cabin in moderately sized boats. Apart from those boats with the dinette that converts to a double berth, exceedingly few Rhodes boats have a double berth. No matter how large and elegant the cabins, even if they were double cabins, they had two (distantly) separated beds, and not very wide ones at that. On his boats in the 70- to more than 100-foot range, there is room for a bathtub in the owner's cabin and two narrow bunks ... almost 20 feet apart. On Copperhead , he came close to having a near double berth, but deliberately made it narrower and put in a "stowage bin" instead. Obviously the constraint was not space. According to Charles Jannace, a draftsman in Phil's office in the 1950s and '60s, the reason for the absence of double beds was simple: clients didn't ask for them. In those days, among his clients, a yacht seems to have been more for racing and adventure at sea. It wasn't the place for family togetherness or marital bliss. Phil designed boats for sailing, with narrow, secure berths at sea. While each design was individually developed, when one looks at his overall output of designs, the connections between boats are clear. Each design is an iteration of a previous work. When Phil designed a keel boat, sooner or later the design would be tweaked into a centerboarder. This is clear in the pairs of keel and centerboard 33-foot, 42-foot, and 45-foot designs. Phil himself pointed out the connections between his designs when he wrote to a prospective client that a 45-foot centerboarder was essentially a smaller version of the 53-foot centerboarder, Carina II . One also can see a recurring pattern in interior layouts. For example, in the 45-foot Olsching , drawn in 1953, Phil drew a dinette on one side of the boat and a linear galley on the other. This approach shows up in a late 1950s boat, in the 1963 Reliant, and in the Rhodes 22.

While most Bounty IIs were rigged as sloops, a few were yawls, such as hull #37, Tiara , above left, built in 1959, and long a familiar in Hawaiian waters. The 33-foot Rhodes-designed Swiftsure, above right, launched in 1958, was commissioned by Brian Acworth, who founded Seafarer Yachts in Huntington, Long Island; he had the boat built by G. DeVries Lentsch in Amsterdam, Holland.

I have unique evidence of this continuity. The owner of Piera , a beautifully restored sistership of Olsching , visited my boat, a Rhodes Reliant. He examined my dinette table and spotted a specially fabricated hinge that enables the table to drop. His boat, built about a decade earlier on a different continent, had exactly the same hinge. All of Phil's designs follow a set of underlying design principles. The boats are beautifully shaped and proportioned. The Rhodes sheerline is distinctive, rising to a fairly high , dropping aft of amidships, and rising modestly to the stern. Medium overhangs give the bow and the stern plenty of buoyancy and increase the waterline under sail. The construction was strong. He did not cut corners. Phil wanted his boats to be driven hard in Gulf Stream storms, and he used large safety factors to cover the unpredictable stresses of driving into headseas as well as the realities of long-term deterioration of materials. For these reasons a surprising number of old wooden Rhodes boats, as well as 30- to 40-year-old fiberglass boats, are still in commission. Compared to more the Rhodes hulls are narrow and heavy with slack bilges. They have less interior volume than the flat, wide, modern boats. Yet the Rhodes boats have a much more comfortable motion. They roll more slowly and pound less. Expressed mathematically, their comfort ratio is very high. People accustomed to modern, lightweight saucer hulls are astounded by the difference when they get on a classic Rhodes.

Windward is a 36-foot cutter designed in 1928. In this boat Phil Rhodes pretty much defined the hull shape that he used for the next 40 years -- gorgeous sheerline and moderate, balanced ends. A sistership built in 1937 is still sailing.

Phil Rhodes played a crucial role in the transition from the wooden era into the fiberglass era. In the mid-1950s, as Dan Spurr has chronicled in his book, Heart of Glass , dozens of individual and corporate boatbuilders and navies in the United States and Europe were experimenting with fiberglass. Dinghies, skiffs, and daysailers were being successfully built of the new material. In 1948 the Cape Cod Shipbuilding Company of Warham, Massachusetts, started producing the Rhodes 18 in fiberglass. The next year, Palmer Scott   of New Bedford, Massachusetts, built the Rhodes-designed Wood ***** in fiberglass. And that same year Bill Dyer's shop, called the Anchorage, in Warren, Rhode Island, commenced fiberglass production of the 9-foot Dyer Dhow, also a Rhodes design (though drawn by his draftsman Charles Wittholz). Larger, auxiliary sailboats were next. In 1951 Dyer launched the 42-foot fiberglass ketch, Arion , and in 1955 a group of yacht club members in Oregon started building the 34-foot Chinook class. Phil was clearly involved in the earliest fiberglass experiments. For his own initiation into large fiberglass boats, Phil found the perfect collaborator in Fred Coleman. In 1939, Phil had drawn the Bounty class (39 feet) for Fred, a Sausalito, California, builder who had pioneered inexpensive mass-production techniques in wood. Fiberglass had even more potential for , so in 1956 Phil drew up the enlarged 41-foot Bounty II in fiberglass for Fred. Fred also asked William Garden, another naval architect, to provide structural details, such as the layup and tooling, including the deck mold -- sort of getting a "second opinion." At this earliest stage of the fiberglass revolution, the ultimate strength of fiberglass was not fully understood. Phil figured that fiberglass was at least as strong as wood so wood scantlings would be sufficient. On this basis, the first boat was massively overbuilt. When the showed in the New York Boat Show in January 1957, it was evident that this top designer trusted fiberglass. The fiberglass era for large sailboats had begun. The molds were later used to make the slightly revised and very popular Pearson Rhodes 41. A number of other fiberglass auxiliary sailboats popular in the United States actually were built in Europe. In 1958, Brian Acworth, an Englishman living in Long Island, New York, set up Seafarer Yachts in Huntington. He asked Phil to design a 33-foot centerboarder for fiberglass production, which he called the . Brian had her built by G. DeVries Lentsch in Amsterdam, Holland, a major yacht builder in wood and steel, obviously eager to start in fiberglass. At about the same time, George Walton, a Maryland yacht broker, commissioned Phil to design a narrower, keel version of the to be called the Chesapeake 32. She was built by Danboats and Sanderson in Denmark.

The 49-foot Thunderhead , designed in 1961, had an unusual interior. Her main cabin, with table and two berths, is aft. Amidships are the head, galley, chart table, and additional berths for the off-watch crew. A large cabin forward would be a particularly comfortable owner's cabin in port. Access to the cabin is through a companionway from the cabintop.

These four Rhodes designs were among the very first fiberglass boats in (Bounty II was the first series-produced auxiliary sailboat in fiberglass) and provided a large portion of the early testing and demonstration that fiberglass was suitable for building medium-sized sailboats. They also demonstrated that fiberglass hulls could be made thinner, though more flexible, thereby necessitating internal bulkheads and stringers to make the fiberglass structures sufficiently rigid. The original idea of making spars for the Bounty II of fiberglass was scrapped; fiberglass was too flexible. In fact, after Bounty II, scantlings for some of Rhodes' designs were not as heavy or strong. The first few Chesapeake 32s suffered from oilcanning and had to be reinforced with longitudinal stringers.

The 39-foot wooden, pre-war Bounty was updated after the war as the 40-foot . Launched in 1956, it was the first series-built fiberglass auxiliary sailboat. The design predates fin keels, spade rudders, and short overhangs. Phil Rhodes was noted for drawing beautiful sheerlines.

The next year, 1959, Phil designed the Ranger, a 28-footer, also for Seafarer. By then several other ground-breaking fiberglass boats were launched -- the 25-foot New Horizon, designed by Sparkman & Stephens and built by Ray Greene; the 28-foot Pearson Triton, designed by Carl Alberg; and the Bill Tripp-designed, Hinckley-built Bermuda 40. In 1960, industry standards for fiberglass production were published in The Marine Design Manual for Fiberglass Reinforced Plastics , written by the naval architecture firm of Gibbs & Cox. Now many designers and builders felt they could build fiberglass boats to established standards. The field blossomed with boats and designers, and Phil remained an active contributor to the revolution. He designed the Meridian (26 feet), Vanguard (32 feet 6 inches), Reliant (41 feet), Tempest (23 feet), and Outlaw (26 feet). He also designed the popular micro-cruiser, the Rhodes 22, in 1968, as he approached the end of his career. That boat is still in production by General Boats of Edenton, North Carolina (see the article in Good Old Boat , May 2005). The Reliant (1963) exposed Phil to some of the new risks of the new materials -- piracy. The Reliant, a unique three-cabin layout in a 41-foot boat, was brokered by Lion Yachts in Connecticut and built by Cheoy Lee in Hong Kong. Phil was dismayed when he discovered that Cheoy Lee was soon marketing a virtual sistership, the Offshore 40. The plug used to make the Reliant mold had been altered slightly, the deck mold was mirrored, and iron ballast replaced lead ballast. Phil considered litigation but ultimately decided that only the lawyers would benefit from that approach. Similarly, a Danboat 33 appeared that obviously was based on his Chesapeake 32 design. These experiences soured Phil. He designed no more large boats for offshore fiberglass production. As a result, no centerboarders larger than the 33-foot were built in fiberglass. They exist now only as rare, treasured wooden boats, some of which have been restored to pristine condition. Phil was never any company's "house designer," but he worked very closely with a number of builders. For Palmer Scott, a fellow MIT graduate, he designed eight boats. Bill Dyer's Anchorage commissioned eight designs. These two builders did some of the earliest experimental work with small fiberglass boats and must have given Phil confidence to take on the much larger Bounty II. Other clients included the South Coast Boat Building Company of Long Beach, California, which purchased nine designs, and Brian Acworth got five designs for Seafarer Yachts. Many individual clients purchased more than one design from him. Phil's design work ranged well beyond sailboats. He continued his early interest in motorboats and designed several large ones. More importantly, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, his administrative activities expanded at Cox & Stevens, and he had more responsibility for commercial and military work. When World War II broke out, the military portion of the firm's work skyrocketed. For a while Phil had 498 men under his direction, working on myriad aspects of a two-ocean war that required fighting ships, troop movements, and .

The Rhodes 77 was a large centerboarder drawing only 6 feet 6 inches with the board up. She has a nicely divided . The interior provided three double cabins for the owner and guests aft of the deckhouse. Forward was space for a crew of three. A 97-foot stretched version had larger cabins and space for a crew of six (skipper, mate, cook, steward, engineer, and deckhand).

After the war, in 1947, Cox & Stevens was renamed Philip L. Rhodes Naval Architects and Marine Engineers and continued to do a great deal of commercial and military work. Phil designed many boats for the U.S. Navy, including 172-foot wooden ocean minesweepers in the 1950s. He designed a fleet of police boats for New York Harbor. These won the praise of policemen for speed, stability, and comfort. He also penned garbage and sewage barges for New York City as well as cargo vessels, fireboats, dredges, and steam-turbo-propelled vessels for service on the . In short, if it could float, he could design it. Given these very broad professional obligations, the yacht-design section had its own leadership and staff. Phil discussed plans with clients and settled the basic parameters for new designs, but converting these ideas into drawings was the job of his talented staff. For many years Jim McCurdy was the head of the yacht-design section and had major responsibility for overseeing the drawings and engineering calculations. From 1952 to 1966 Phil's son, Bodie Rhodes, who in 1952 had earned a degree in naval architecture and from the University of Michigan, was one of several designers in the office. Another son, Dan, was involved in brokerage. For all his brilliance as a designer, Phil was not a profoundly expert sailor. He sailed in three Bermuda Races, was in many other races, and certainly was a fine sailor, but he was hardly a world-class tactician or helmsman. His personal boat was the 25-foot, light-displacement Nixie, designed in 1933, deliberately a modest boat for a modest person raising three children during the years of the Great Depression.

Carina II , a 53-foot centerboarder and big sister to Olsching , was designed in 1955 and immediately after launching won the 1955 transatlantic race. She continued winning for the next decade. Sadly, she deteriorated and sank at a mooring, damaged beyond restoration, in 2004.

Later, in 1957, he owned a 52-foot aluminum twin-screw diesel express cruiser, adapted from a design to service offshore oil drilling . The boat was used for weekend cruising as well as for hosting clients and guests and for observing America's Cup trials. By the late 1960s Phil had slowed down. In 1966 Jim McCurdy and Bodie Rhodes formally left the Rhodes office and established their own company, McCurdy and Rhodes, in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. The last sailboat from the Philip Rhodes office was dated 1970. After that he continued to work in his office, did some commercial work, and continued to correspond with owners of his yachts, advise them, and share their adventures of racing or circumnavigation. He died in 1974, a year after Mary, his wife of 53 years.

The 41-foot Reliant had a breakthrough interior design in 1963. She offered three separate two-person cabins. This unique layout was accomplished by an offset companionway a few feet forward of the bridge deck, providing access directly to the main cabin and leaving the aft cabin private. The dinette/double bunk to port and linear galley to starboard saved enough space so there could be a comfortable forward cabin with a sink, hanging locker, and other lockers.

Phil's yacht archives, with hundreds of designs, were donated to the Museum, where they remain accessible to the public. The design files that the Mystic Seaport has are labeled "for research only," but they are wonderfully detailed plans for construction. The Reliant file, for example, has 25 sheets, including construction specifications for both wood and fiberglass, plans for wood or aluminum spars, and alternative layouts. There are many small sheets with plans showing exactly how to make mast hardware -- tangs, special fittings, and chainplates -- how many bolt holes, what diameter, and where to place them. They specify exactly how to position the top hole and how much metal must surround the hole. The aerodynamic shape and orientation of spreaders is also shown. Whatever affected the structural integrity of hull or was carefully specified and not left to the whim of builders. The McCurdy and Rhodes company continued for about 30 years, obviously rooted in the Philip Rhodes yacht tradition but adapting to new ideas of design. They continued to provide designs for Seafarer Yachts. In the late 1990s, both Jim McCurdy and Bodie Rhodes died. Jim McCurdy's son, Ian, continues the corporate name and .

The Meridian was designed in 1961 and built of fiberglass. She is Phil Rhodes' pocket cruiser, only 25 feet long, sleeping four with 6 feet of headroom. With a full keel and jaunty sheerline, she is a little sister in the Rhodes family.	Olsching is a 45-foot centerboarder, designed in 1953. Several were built from her plans. They have been highly competitive racers and very comfortable cruisers. Sisterships are in Nantucket, England, and Australia.	Skal , 48 feet overall, was designed in 1930, primarily as a seagoing cruiser, but she also was fast. In the 1930 Bermuda Race she finished 11th out of 42 and weathered an 80-knot blow on her return. The next year she competed in the transatlantic race. Dorade became famous for winning that race, but Skal did very well, coming in second. She is currently undergoing a complete restoration in France.

An excellent collection of Phil Rhodes designs is Richard Henderson's book, Philip L. Rhodes and his Yacht Designs, 1981, with additional printings in 1993. This book is now out of print and hard to locate. The simple way to get it is to ask a library to order it from inter-library loan. Occasionally it shows up in the used-book market at a high price. On the web, check Ben Stavis' website which can be considered an updating of Richard Henderson's book with photos and links for many Rhodes boats. The site includes photos of major restoration projects of classic Rhodes boats. Plans for most of the original Rhodes designs are available at nominal prices from the Ship Plans Collection , shipsplans@mysticseaport.org , phone 860-572-5360. Philip L. Rhodes Analytical Biography Philip L. Rhodes, born in 1895,  was a prolific and versatile boat designer, whose career spanned more than five decades from 1919 until his death in 1974.  His range of design was amazing, from 123'  motorsailers to 7' dinghies, from hydrofoil racers to giant motor yachts.  His clients ranged from Rockefellers to Sears and Roebuck.  His 12 Meter Weatherly won the America's Cup in 1962.  And, in addition, he designed a wide range of commercial craft. His biographer Richard Henderson emphasizes that Rhodes was not only an excellent engineer but also a true artist.  "Whatever kind of vessel he produced, it invariably had the look of rightness about it.  His sailing yachts in particular, with their beautifully proportioned hulls and graceful sheerlines, are works of true design harmony.  Not only are Rhodes yachts handsome; they somehow appear to be uniquely suited to their purpose… Phil will be remembered best for this distinguished thoroughbred yachts.  They are not only superbly functional, but they also have an elegance and ageless beauty that is all to rare in yacht design today." Henderson concludes his book with this generalization:  "It is difficult to pigeonhole Rhodes, because his designs are so varied, but in general his work in the field of seagoing sailing yachts seems to fall somewhere between Alden and Stephens.  A Rhodes boat might be described as being a bit heavier, more comfortable, often more graceful, and not quite as racy as one by Stephens.  On the other hand, a Rhodes boat may be thought of as being lighter, yachtier, more expensively built, and a better all-round performer than the kind of boat one associates with Alden.  Of course, these are gross generalizations, and there are many individual exceptions."   (Richard Henderson, Philip L. Rhodes and his Yacht Designs.  Camden: International Marine, 1981.)

Philip Rhodes, on right, makes a point. Photo from family collection of Dan Rhodes (grandson), with many thanks.

Hull Forms This discussion, drawing on material in Henderson's book, will emphasize his designs of racing cruising sailboats from roughly the 1930's through the 1960's in the 25-90 foot range.  His boats in this range won numerous ocean races (Bermuda, Trans-Atlantic) and short races and cruised successfully on lakes, coasts, and oceans.  They have high, nicely curved bows, well defined sheers dropping  fairly low in the mid-ships to after third, and rising gracefully  to a  buoyant stern.  The profiles of the boats are distinctive and similar enough to be big and little sister ships.  By today's standards, the hulls are relatively narrow and heavy, resulting in a more comfortable motion in a seaway than the light, wide, high  modern boats.  Rhodes' boats have a good turn of speed, easily reaching their hull speeds with modest breezes. While the boats are quite similar in profile, the Rhodes boats are different.  With a great deal of oversimplification, overlooking questions of displacement, keel shape, and rig, the boats fall into five groups: 1. Rhodes' basic hull form was remarkably stable from the late 1920's to the early 1960s.  It was a fairly narrow hull, with the lwl roughly 2.7 to 3 times the beam.  (The bigger boats in this series generally are relatively narrower, gaining stability from greater weight.).   The Rhodes 27 designed in 1938 had a beam of 9'8" for a 27 foot waterline.  Caper, one of Rhodes' favorite boats, was only 12' wide for a lwl of 38' (and a loa of 56').  In the smaller size boats, this hull form is seen in the Ranger and Chesapeake 32.  (green marks on the chart) 2. Rhodes designed a few boats that were quite a bit narrower, mainly for inland lake racing, day sailing, and overnight cruising.  The Great Lakes 30 was a little over 29' on the water line but only 7'9" in beam. The Rhodes 33, developed for Southern California, falls in this group.  (red marks on the chart) 3. Rhodes also designed a series of centerboarders with somewhat more beam than his standard hull form.   Generally the lwl was 2.5 to 2.8 times the beam.  This model was well defined with Ayesha (1932) and refined in Alondra (1936).   The model had enough of a keel for ocean-going stability, but still were shoal draft boats. Alondra played a key role in popularizing the keel-centerboard concept in a strange way.  Alondra was purchased by Carleton Mitchell in 1947 and renamed Caribbee.  She was raced very successfully and cruised extensively.  For a variety of reasons, more related to racing and rigging than hull form, Mitchell went to Sparkman and Stephens for his next boat, Finisterre. Olin Stephens based Finisterre's centerboard hull very much on the Rhodes Alondra model that had so satisfied Mitchell. Rhodes developed the centerboard in a full range of sizes.  Perhaps the most famous in this series was Carina II, with a waterline of 36'3", 2.79 times its 13' beam.  A smaller version of Carina II was Design No. 618, with a water line of  32' and beam of 11'9', for a ratio of 2.72.  Several boats were built to this design.   Rhodes carried this theme to Erewhon, with a 29' waterline and 11'3" beam.  In fiberglass, the Swiftsure was an even smaller version of the Rhodes centerboarder concept.  Swiftsure had a waterline of 22'11" and a beam of 10'.  These beamier boats were not fat.  On a 29 foot water line, Rhodes gave the narrow version (Altair) a 10'6" beam; the centerboarder (Erewhon) had a beam of 11'3", just 9 inches more.   (purple marks on the chart) 4. Over the years and decades, Rhodes seemed to give boats slightly more beam, an inch or two here or there.  By the 1960's, he had a boat that might be considered a new design.  It was noticeably beamier than his earlier models, but not quite as beamy as the centerboarders.  The Rhodes Reliant, designed in 1963,  defined this new, "medium"  model.   The gradual increase in the beam for the Reliant can be seen in his evolution of the 28' waterline.   In the 1930s, Rhodes gave a 28' waterline boat a  9'8" beam on Surf Bird and a 9'10" beam on a Rhodes Cutter;  Bounty II had a beam of 10'3" (in 1956); Copacetic in 1962 had 10'6" beam.  The Reliant, in 1963, had a 10'9" beam. This medium hull form also was evident in the smaller Vanguard. (blue marks on the chart) 5. Another, quite different design breakthrough of Rhodes was the large, full powered, cruising, centerboard ketch, made of steel.  These vessels are in the 60' to 100' range.  Drawing only 5 to 6 1/2 feet, they can get into shallow habors but are secure in ocean passages.  Needless to say, they have very comfortable accomodations.  The first of these boats was Tamaris (1937).  After the War Rhodes designed a 77 footer, and then both smaller and larger vessels of this concept, some with twin screws. In the "Classic Resotrations" portion of this website, this design is illustrated by: Tamaris (design #423)
Kanaloa (design #712)
Rainbow (design #744)
Cacilque (design #785) While the large ocean racers and huge cruising boats captured headlines, Rhodes designed several small day sailers, which have captured thousands of sailors for generations.  The 11 1/2' Penguin, designed in 1933, remains a vigorous class today. Close to 10,000 have been built.  He also designed the Wood Pussy and the Rhodes 18, one of the first fiberglass boats.  Perhaps the most popular was the Rhodes 19, designed in 1945, with either a centerboard or fin keel.  About 3,200 have been built, and they are actively raced in 16 fleets around the United States.  The Rhodes 22 trailorable cruiser doesn't look like a classic Rhodes boat; it has some inspiration from the flared-bow 505. He also designed light displacement fin keel sailboats, very large cruising ketches, motorsailers, medium and high speed motorboats, racing hydrofoils, etc.  Interiors Over the years, Rhodes experimented with the interiors of his sailboat designs. Often the galley was forward, sometimes aft.  Likewise, the head, sometimes forward, sometimes aft.  On some boats both head and galley are amidships. One of his persistent themes was to have an aft cabin, with quarter-berths.  These were comfortable sea berths and didn't take too much space under the cabin top.  To provide privacy, the companionway was forward a bit, on the cabin top, or as in the Rhodes Reliant, on a deck passageway to a somewhat forward companionway. This aft cabin idea shows up in Copperhead, Kirawan, and later in the Reliant and Thunderhead, among many others. Many of his boats had what became a "conventional" interior, with galley and nav station aft, a commodious main cabin, usually including pilot berths, head and hanging lockers forward, and a forward cabin with Vee berths forward of that. One peculiarity of Rhodes designs is that exceedingly few has a double bed!  No matter how large and elegant the cabins, even if they were double cabins, they had two (distantly) separated beds, and not very wide at that.  On the boats in the 70 to 100+ foot range, there is room for a bath tub in the owner's cabin and two narrow bunks almost 20 feet apart!  On Copperhead, he came close to having a near double bed, but deliberately made it narrower and put in a "stowage bin" instead.  Obviously the constraint was not space.  According to Charles Jannace, the reason for no double beds was simple: clients didn't ask for them.  In those days, among his clients, a yacht seems to have been more for racing and adventure at sea.  It wasn't the place for family togetherness or sexual exploits.  Rhodes designed boats for sailing, with narrow, secure beds at sea.  His clients had other places for their families and rendezvous. Rhodes did put in a double bed in a few boats as part of a distinctive interior, with a linear galley to starboard and a dinette to port in which the table can drop down and form a double bed.  This design first shows up in Olsching and some of her sisterships including Piera and Masker  (design 618) built in 1953-56 and later in Firande, 1957 (design 666).  This inteior enabled the Reliant, 1963 (design 753), to have three separate cabins and a double bed.  This same idea of dinette to port and linear galley to starboard is carried into the 45' cruising ketch Meltemi (designed the year after the Reliant) and  the micro cruiser, the Rhodes 22, which also has a small dinette/double bed to port and a galley to starboard.  Design #618, also, has a double bed in the tiny fore peak. The early Rhodes boats had very simple (and light) mechanical systems.  They  used kerosene lamps and rudimentary plumbing.   As the decades went by, all the systems and equipment on the boats became more elaborate and heavier, but the hull remained rather static, without additional bouyancy.   The boats set deeper and deeper on their waterlines.  Nevertheless, they still sail well. Fiberglass Rhodes played an important role in the transition to fiberglass boats from the wooden era into the fiberglass era.  In the mid 1940s, as Dan Spurr has chronicled in Heart of Glass, dozens of individual and corporate boat builders and navies in the United States and Europe were experimenting with fiberglass.  Dinghies, skiffs, and day sailers were successfully built of the new material.  Cape Cod Shipbuilding Company (Warham MA) started producing the Rhodes 18 in fiberglass in 1948.  The next year, Palmer Scott (New Bedford MA) built the Rhodes designed Wood Pussy in fiberglass.   In 1949, Bill Dyer’s firm commenced fiberglass production of the 9 foot Dyer Dhow, also a Rhodes design.   Rhodes was not the only designer involved in these early stages of fiberglass production but he clearly was directly involved at the earliest stages. Charles Jannace, who was a draftsman in the Rhodes office in that time period, recalled that by the eary and mid 1950s, there was already some experience with fiberglass for larger boats.   Jannace's father was building a 32 foot boat out of fiberglass, catalyzed by sunlight, at that time, and Rhodes came out to take a look.  At that time, the lay-ups were all based on fiberglass cloth; woven roving wasn't around yet. In the mid 1950s, the Coleman Plastics Company in Sausalito CA gauged that the market was ready for a fiberglass followup to its mass produced wooden Rhodes Bounty, which it had been building in the 1940s.  In 1956, Rhodes took the Rhodes 29 (waterline), and shrank it a bit to a 28' waterline.  The smaller design might have been called a R28, but instead it was named the Bounty II (40'10" loa).  It was slightly larger than the original Bounty.  The Bounty II would become the first large production sailboat out of fiberglass.  In the absence of engineering manuals based on empirical testing of samples, Rhodes took a simple, conservative approach.  Earlier experience made it clear that fiberglass was stronger than wood.  Hence, if they used roughly the same dimensions for fiberglass as they had used for wood, the fiberglass structures would certainly be strong enough.  And once a mold had been built, it was not particularly costly to keep adding fiberglass into the mold to build up the thickness.  According to Henderson, the Coleman company, out on the West Coast, also asked William Garden, another naval architect, to provide structural details, such as the lay-up and the tooling, including the deck mold -- sort of getting a "second opinion." In point of fact, the hull layup for the Bounty was probably were 3 to 4 times stronger than necessary.   The extra material added to both weight and cost.  It also became apparent that fiberglass was too flexible for the mast on the Bounty.  To make it stiff enough, it ended up too heavy.  That idea was dropped quickly.  Whatever the teething problems, the Bounty II established the viability of fiberglass as a material for large production sailboats boats.   (I remember seeing her introduced at the New York Boat Show; even the mast was fiberglass.) The Coleman company later became Aeromarine Plastics, and then in the 1960s the molds were  bought by Pearson and were used to build the slightly modified  R41.  Some unfinished hulls were sold to Palmer Johnson, so there are also some Palmer Johnson Bounty II, with perhaps a higher quality finish. Over the next four years, the Rhodes office designed five boats for Seafarer Yachts, which imported boats from Holland.  These were the Swiftsure (33' centerboarder, 1958), a 35' motor sailor (1959), Ranger (28', 1959), Meridian (24', 1961), and a sailing dinghy (7', 1961).  He also designed the Chesapeake 32 (1958, built in Denmark).  In the early 1960s, he designed several fiberglass boats;   Vanguard (33' for Pearson, 1962),  Reliant (41' for Cheoy Lee, 1963), and Tempest and Outlaw (23' and 26' for O'Day - both 1963).   Rhodes tried to give the these early fiberglass boats the appearance of traditional wood boats.  They had wooden toe rails and rail caps, coamings, and mouldings around the cabin. After "over-building" the Bounty, there may have been an over-correction on the next fiberglass boats, Swiftsure (1958), Chesapeake 32 (1959), and Ranger (1959).  There was some oil canning in heavy seas at the beginning of the production run, and it was difficult to prevent the hard spots of the hull, such as the bulkheads and longitudinal stringers from printing through the hull.  It took some experimentation to get the right combination of hull thickness and internal structural reinforcements.   Moreover, the hulls themselves were flexible and bent a little as the loads on the headstay increased, resulting in headstay sag.   For cruising, this was not too important, but it did affect racing potential.  Builders did not want to spend the extra money to build into the hull a grid that could prevent flexing.  The other problem was that in some cases simply builders did not follow the designer's specifications and skimped on materials.  In one case, the design called for solid fiberglass under a deck stepped mast.  The builder made a cored structure of a balsa sandwich.  When water penetrated, the balsa deteriorated.  In at least once case the mast came right down through the deck and stopped on the top of the keel.  Luckily, no one was injured. By 1960, there was more knowledge and less uncertainty about design of fiberglass hulls.  The Gibbs and Cox book Marine Design Manual for Fiberglass Reinforced Plastics was published, and Rhodes and all other designers were past the early stages of experimentation. Generally speaking, these early fiberglass laminates have held up well and these old boats can be restored. Of course, even if the basic fiberglass parts are structurally sound, their gel coat surfaces have degraded and there are problems with plywood bulkheads, porthole leaks, water penetration of cored decks, etc. etc.  These boats are not only examples of Rhodes' overall design, but also of his early mastery of the new fiberglass material. Business By the 1950's, Philip Rhodes was was not actually designing, but was overseeing a large firm which had extensive commerical work as well as yachts. He was  meeting clients and developing contracts for various projects.  In the sailboat portion of the office, James McCurdy, a  very talented designer, served as head of the Yacht Design Section.  The actual designs of boats followed certain formula and guidelines Rhodes had developed earlier.  Much of the basic design work was done by his son Philip H. ("Bodie") Rhodes ().  Detailed layouts and drawings were done by Al Mason, Charles Jannace, and Dick Davis.  Other designers worked on motor yachts, and commercial and military boats.   In addition,  Rhodes' other son Daniel Rhodes did brokerage work in the office. How did Rhodes conduct business and earn a living?  In 1956, an Australian negotiated with Rhodes about building one of his designs.  The correspondence is available and describes some of the business practices of Rhodes.  Typically, at this time (1956) the fees for the naval architect were 10 percent of the completed cost of the boat.  A designer would know this price if he could supervise the construction.  The cost of construction in places outside the USA was less (e.g. Aberking and Rassmussen in Germany), so  Rhodes asked more, 12.5%, of the completed construction cost for boats built outside the USA.  Philip Rhodes didn't know the costs in Australia, so there were some quotes prepared that must have been sent to Rhodes.  In the end he suggested buying a completed design (#618) rather than a new commission for a 5% rate of the USA building cost - the same price to buy these plans in the USA. Bob Wallstrom recalls that Rhodes was meticulous in replying to all letters.  He always assumed that any enquirer might eventually become a customer. The Reliant project brought Rhodes some special stress.  Cheoy Lee made a knock-off from the Rhodes design, marketed as the Offshore 40, and refused to pay design royalties to Rhodes.  Rhodes considered suing, but finally decided that the lawyers would end up with the money, not him.  Perhaps this soured Rhodes on fiberglass mass production; he did not provide any other designs for fiberglass production classes.  Thus the Bounty II-R41-Reliant were his largest mass produced fiberglass boat. Rhodes began to phase out his office in the late 1960s.  In 1966, Jim McCurdy and his son Bodie Rhodes left to set up a their own yacht design company (McCurdy and Rhodes).  Mark Ellis came into the gap and worked  for Philip Rhodes for a year.  McCurdy and Rhodes, among other things, continued the Rhodes design work for Seafarer Yachts.  Jim McCurdy died in 1996, and Bodie Rhodes died in 1998.  Jim's son Ian McCurdy continues the family tradition of superb boat design. 
(Link here to )
(Link to Facebook page for Seafarer Yachts --     ) After 50 years of work, Rhodes penned no more sailing yachts after 1970.  He did retain his office, stationary, a small staff and some commercial work.  In his correspondence with an owner in late September, 1973, he  was gracious and attentive.  He wrote, "I would like to know where you are going to keep the boat and whether or not you are going to retain the name.  I try awfully hard to keep in touch with my owners.  There are a few more weekends left this season and I hope you will be able to take advantage of them."  When the owners replied to him, Rhodes wrote, "I cannot remember ever receiving a more pleasant, enjoyable and informative and welcome letter as yours of October 4.  You certainly brought me up-to-date on a great many things that are always of interest to a designer who wants to know who is sailing his boats, and far more of the owner's background than one usually gets... I hope that you achieve those plans and eventually take that trip around the world. One of our boats of the same waterline length is now being prepared for such a  trip and I know that she will be a very good boat for it.  We have had several larger boats make the voyage and it must be a great experience....It has been a pleasure ot write you this letter and to tell you about the good ship but I want to conclude by telling you once again how much I appreciate all the nice things you had to say about her.  Anytime I can be of help, please let me know."   Interspersed between these gracious words were suggestions on controlling rust, minimizing electrolysis, trim and ballast, coupled with a detailed explanation of the relationship between length and displacement.  While this review has emphasized Rhodes' racing/cruising sailboats, his design firm had a great deal of commercial and naval business as well.  According to Henderson, during World War II, he had responsibilities for Navy auxiliaries, patrol craft, minelayers and sweepers, resesarch vessels, school ships, salvage vessels, tugs, barges, and subchasers.  He supervised conversion of large liners into troopships and worked on hospital ships.  Later he worked on a  large line of cargo vessels, fire boats, dredges, steam turbo-propelled patrool boats for the Yangtze River.  The Yangtze River patrol boats had stainless steel bottoms because the Yangze River is so filled with silt (it is also called the Yellow River) that it was abrasive on boats' bottoms.  The Rhodes office took on a major project to design minesweepers during the Korean War, in anticipation of Cold War needs.   The boats, 172 feet long,  were built of wood, so they would not trigger magnetic mines.  Designing and building a wooden boat of this size represented a major challenge for the Navy.  Rhodes got the contract, presumably because of his extensive experience with wooden design and construction. 
 

Rhodes designed 12 different classes of minesweepers, with slighly different dimensions, from the 1950's well into the 1960s. Altogether, 101 vessels were built for the U.S. Navy as well as for six NATO allies.  Many were built at the Luders yard in Stamford CT.  (The Rhodes designed America's Cup contender and winner Weatherly was also built by Luders.)  The wooden minesweepers were considered very successful by the navy.  They played a significant role in the Vietnam war as well as the first Persian Gulf war (1991).  They were retired in the late 1990s

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Some portion of the Rhodes firm's income came from contracts with the City of New York to design police boats, garbage and sewage barges, etc. Rhodes designed a 53 foot patrol/rescue launch for the New York City police aournd 1965. Ten were built to this design.  and is again saving lives.

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One employed recalled walking with Rhodes along Manhattan's river front.  As he saw one of his sewage barges being towed to sea, he said, "Some people think that's a load of shit, but to me it is bread and butter." Rhodes at one time or other employed (and certainly influenced) many naval architects who are well known, including John D. Ammerman, Frederick Bates, Paul Coble, R.B. Cook, Roger Cook, Richard O. Davis, Henry Devereaux, Mark Ellis, Ralph Jackson, Charles J. Jannace, Francis Kinney, Roger W. Long, Albert A.  Mason,  James McCurdy, Joseph J. Reinhardt, Philip H. (Bodie) Rhodes, Olin J. Stephens,  Robert M. Steward, William Tripp, Bob Wallstrom, Winthrop Warner, and Charles Wittholz.  Philip L. Rhodes died in 1974. Archives and Resources Rhodes donated his yacht design archives to Ship Plans Collection at the   http://www.mysticseaport.org/library/collections/ships.cfm and are available inexpensively plus shipping and handling.  To inquire about the availability of specific plans, please send e-mail to or call 860-572-5367.  The site for ordering is:
Much  information about Rhodes' designs is available in Richard Henderson's book Philip L. Rhodes and his Yacht Designs, Camden: International Marine Publishing Co, 1981, with additional printings by International Marine/McGraw Hill in 1993.  This book is now out of print and hard to locate.  The simple way to get it is to ask a library to order it from inter-library loan.  Occasionally, it shows up in the used book market.  I got a used copy from the SeaOcean Book Berth in Seattle, seaoceanbooks"at"seanet.com.