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Old 04-13-2013, 03:02 PM   #21
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Nice 5 minute video interview with Mr DeFever (May 2010) at youtube produced by PassageMaker mag.



Mike

Hmm, how come that shows up as a video and not a link. Don't mean to add to TF bandwidth.
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Old 04-13-2013, 03:13 PM   #22
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Just as an aside, for any divers: Art's father was the first commercial diver on the West Coast. There is a book that talks a lot about him, and it's a very interesting read:
20, 000 Jobs Under the Sea: A History of Diving and Underwater Engineering: Torrance R. Parker, William Lee: 9780965782333: Amazon.com: Books

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Old 04-13-2013, 03:19 PM   #23
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Links to a discussion on here about Galatea:
http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s...wler-3595.html
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Old 04-13-2013, 03:35 PM   #24
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The warranty costs on the first two boats exceeded the selling price, so DeFever and Jensen cut a deal, and Jensen produced the tooling. Mr DeFever sued in the Taiwan court system to have the molds destroyed but, sunrise, surprise, the Taiwanese builder won.
I've just had a look at the information I have on file. According to Art, the same design (70-38) was "officially" produced by Oriental Boat Company, Miracle Boat Co., Formosa, Sea Chief, Universal Boat Co. (successor to O.B.C.) and CTF Marine.

I'm sure there were others too...

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Old 04-13-2013, 04:01 PM   #25
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Scott, those are DeFever 41's. Of course I don't know if they were all called that.

The DeFever 40 as built by Jensen, DownEast, and Baja, is a round bilge boat without a chine. Rolly!

I have rafted with 41's. It's the exact same size in length as my 40 - 38 feet

When I had my bottom soda blasted, you could clearly see a rabbet line where the forefoot, and keel joined the fairbody. In addition, the fake plank lines are in slightly different places from side to side on the hull. Consistent with wood construction - no two boards are exactly alike.

I did not ask the production guy this question but I have often wondered if Jensen splashed the DF 40 hull mold off a OBC 38. I did ask about the one piece female mold for the cabin, cabin roof, trunk cabins, and deck mold. He said they built the plug from newly delivered drawings from DeFever.

Come on, write that book - I'll buy 10 copies and give them to my DeFever buddies.

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Old 04-13-2013, 07:12 PM   #26
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Scott - I may have this wrong but the CTF yard is the current DeFever build site? My 48 is hull # 168 and built at CTF. The 48s took a 6 year or so hiatus in the 90s as builders in Taiwan were fussing over the molds until Art stepped in to help pick up the pieces. Is Pocta the town and CTF the yard?

Art's last boat is a gem and for the right buyer (GG you missed one!) would be a very nice live aboard with serious sea keeping chops. I believe this boat was built in the same yard as are Outer Reefs today.
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Old 04-13-2013, 07:17 PM   #27
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I just ran 28 hours in the last two days in Art's 30 ton boat and I've burned 50 gallons. The man new his craft!!
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Old 04-13-2013, 08:01 PM   #28
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I've admired his designs since before I knew they where his. I saw a 49 RPH at a dock in the Delta well over 30 years ago and fell in love with the idea of large cabin cruiser boats. Took a while before those early seeds germinated to our first cruiser. Hard to say but without that dockside encounter with that beautiful monster in my early childhood I may have never caught the boating bug at all.

Thank you all, because of this thread I've learned more about the man than ever before. And thank you Art De Fever for lighting a fire that never went out in me. May his soul rest in peace.
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Old 04-13-2013, 09:46 PM   #29
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The kudos that I heard about Art as a person and his great timeless designs was one of the reasons we bought our 49RPH, I am just sorry that I never had the chance to meet him in person but I do send my sincere condolences to his family.

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Old 04-14-2013, 01:03 AM   #30
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Wow, this thread is obviously sad for the passing of Art DeFever, but it also has been fascinating reading and learning even more about him from everyone here. I did not really know his boats until moving the PNW 15 years ago. I am old-fashioned about boats,I really appreciate beautiful lines, nice proportions and a good "look". His many designs have certainly been that for many, many years, but in highly functional boats. Quite an achievement in my mind! One of the only other designers who consistently met that standard for me was Bill Crealock who died a few years ago.

Thanks to everyone.
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Old 04-14-2013, 10:07 AM   #31
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Scott - I may have this wrong but the CTF yard is the current DeFever build site? My 48 is hull # 168 and built at CTF. The 48s took a 6 year or so hiatus in the 90s as builders in Taiwan were fussing over the molds until Art stepped in to help pick up the pieces. Is Pocta the town and CTF the yard?

Art's last boat is a gem and for the right buyer (GG you missed one!) would be a very nice live aboard with serious sea keeping chops. I believe this boat was built in the same yard as are Outer Reefs today.
No, POCTA is the "Pacific Ocean Countries Trading Association", one of the yards that built DeFevers.

As I mentioned in the GG thread, I was aboard Art's boat for several nights and it's very nice. One thing I really like about his bigger designs is that the master cabin is always separated from the guest cabins by the ER, which gives great privacy.

As for the Outer Reefs, I have always wondered exactly where they came from. To my eye, their hulls look very much like the DeFever hulls. But beyond that I have no further information. Knowing Art, I find it very hard to believe that he would have allowed this without a royalty and mention of the DeFever brand. This was actually a bone of contention with the Grand Alaskan brand as well, he was unhappy that the DeFever brand was not more prominent and I believe that he took legal action against the then-importer (Oviatt Marine, I think).

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Old 04-14-2013, 10:18 AM   #32
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Scott, those are DeFever 41's. Of course I don't know if they were all called that.
I have a rough database of Art's designs and who produced them, and all of those boats are shown as design "70-38". Maybe there were two different hulls? The one person who would probably know is Doug Sharp, Art's (estranged) former partner and son-in-law, now in solo practice.

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Old 04-14-2013, 02:22 PM   #33
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In the meantime, American Marine wanted some larger Alaskans, but since they did not want to pay royalties to Art, they turned to another naval architect, Dair Long, for the Alaskan 49 and 53. Art successfully sued them, but by the time he won American Marine had gone belly up. Art emerged with the name Alaskan and the rights to the boats, which was one of the reasons that the new Grand Banks stopped producing the Alaskan series.

As for Tony Flemming, I was told by Art that Tony build his first Flemming for an owner of a Defever 52, a pilothouse trawler built by Oriental Boat Company (OBC) in Japan. According to Art, this was one of the first boats Tony had designed, and Art claimed that Tony copied the 52 basically down to the inch.
I'm not sure about Dair Long, but Robert (Bob) Dorris (American Marine) was involved as well as a guy named Larry Drake(Flemming). Certainly De Fever influenced many. And the design world is full of, "He copied my stuff!" claims.
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Old 04-14-2013, 03:04 PM   #34
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I'm not sure about Dair Long, but Robert (Bob) Dorris (American Marine) was involved as well as a guy named Larry Drake(Flemming). Certainly De Fever influenced many. And the design world is full of, "He copied my stuff!" claims.
Hi Tad, well, it was Art who told me that Dair did the Alaskan 49 and 53, but I've also heard that it was Bob Dorris. We'll probably never know at this point. As for the Flemming, that one definitely bugged Art, because (so Art told me) the Flemming client was moving up from one of Art's boats and actually invited Tony aboard the DeFever to let him measure it. Now personally, if I was the client, I'd do the same thing too. But in any event, Art definitely took umbrage.

And of course the DeFever 46 was definitely directly influenced by Bill Garden's Blue Heron series. And then there was the Nordhaven 46 and Al Mason's earlier cruiser, and and and...

So it goes.

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Old 04-14-2013, 04:30 PM   #35
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Looking randomly through a pile here I found the Alaskan 46 built by American Marine advertized in April of 1968, and another ad for the Alaskan 55 by American Marine in Yachting of November, 1971, design credit to Robert Doris.

And yes, the A46 is clearly a compressed version of Blue Heron.....

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Old 04-14-2013, 04:39 PM   #36
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another ad for the Alaskan 55 by American Marine in Yachting of November, 1971, design credit to Robert Doris.
Yes, looks like you are right, it was Bob Dorris and not Dair Long.

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Old 04-14-2013, 04:47 PM   #37
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And in September of 1973, the Alaskan 49 built by American Marine and designed by Robert Dorris. I'm sorry but that is identical to the 46 except for additional length and 17,800 additional pounds of displacement......

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Old 04-14-2013, 04:56 PM   #38
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And in September of 1973, the Alaskan 49 built by American Marine and designed by Robert Dorris. I'm sorry but that is identical to the 46 except for additional length and 17,800 additional pounds of displacement....
Exactly. And in any event, according to the contract Art was supposed to design any additional Alaskans. I'm assuming that the trial was pretty open-and-shut.

It's interesting to note that after this Art never again allowed his boats to be sold under another brand. They were always DeFevers.

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Old 04-14-2013, 10:38 PM   #39
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Having just spent time on a Defever 49 this week that we came within 1/2" of making an offer on, I am sorry to hear of Art's passing. His designs are timeless and will withstand the test of time.
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Old 04-14-2013, 10:57 PM   #40
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And in September of 1973, the Alaskan 49 built by American Marine and designed by Robert Dorris. I'm sorry but that is identical to the 46 except for additional length and 17,800 additional pounds of displacement......

Attachment 18029
This past summer I met some folks who had recently finished a major rebuild of an Alaskan 49. As I was walking the docks at Sullivan Bay I commented that it was an interesting DeFever. We had a lot of fun talking about their high quality rebuild and work, much of it done by some of the ex-Sunfjord people out of the SeaTac area.
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