vintage sailfish sailing

HT: Northeast Territory Tumblr

sailfish sailing video

after posting the question earlier: a 1960 Corvette or (2) Sailfish, I was looking up some information on the Sailfish sailboat, and I stumbled on this video of a Sailfish sailing.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a sail rigged up quite that high!

here’s another great page – with highlights from the 1949 issue of LIFE magazine that showcased the Sailfish sailboat, and a restoration project to clean up an old Sailfish.

a 1960 corvette or (2) sailfish?

an interesting question posed over at the Sunfish Forum: would you rather have (2) Sailfish sailboats or the 1960 Corvette?

Alcort Catfish sailboat vintage ads

here’s another odd sailboat that was produced for a while by Alcort, in addition to their Sailfish and Sunfish lines.  it looks like the date shown on this first picture is 1965.  that is about how old I figure my green Sunfish is, so there’s a good chance that someone has one of these in their garage or at a cottage on a lake and might even still be using it.

Wayne (he’s since passed away) posted about this little sailboat on the Sunfish Forum:

Pre-dates the production HobieCat. Designed by George W. Patterson, built and sold by Alcort, Inc. from about 1964 to 1969 at which time Alcort sold its whole sailboat business to AMF. AMF dropped the Catfish in favor of the more Hobie-like Trac Cat (Windrush) licensed from an Austrailian builder.

thanks again to blackbelair for sharing these vintage ads with me.

I also previously posted these vintage ads:

AMF/Alcort vintage sailboat ads

AMF/Alcort Hilu sailboat vintage ads

AMF/Alcort vintage sailboat ads

here are some pretty cool brochures from 1973 showing off the Sunfish sailboat, as well as some of it’s siblings that were offered at the time by the manufacturer AMF Alcort.  there is the slightly smaller Minifish and Sailfish, as well as the Puffer, Force 5, and Flying Fish, and 2 oddballs – the Hilu and the SeaMoth II. (click on the pictures for larger versions of each picture.)

thanks to blackbelair from over at the Yahoo Sunfish Sailor Group for permission to post these vintage brochures.  I think that the Sunfish is the only one of these sailboats still in production (although now being manufactured by Laser Performance).  and the current price is $4220, just a bit more than the 1973 price of $599.