Whitby Boat Works Ltd

Whitby Boat Works Limited was located in Ajax, Ontario, Canada.

Whitby was owned by Kurt and Doris Hansen. Before forming Whitby Boat Works, the couple had been building wooden sailing dinghies such as the ALBACORE since 1958. In 1961, a small group of Toronto sailors approached Kurt Hansen, then of Continental Yacht Sales, with an idea of a 30-foot fiberglass boat for class racing and Mr. Hansen contacted Carl Alberg later that year and commissioned him to design a 30-footer. Whitby Boat Works came into being.

The design Alberg penned for Whitby was based on an earlier design of his, the “Odyssey,” of which fifteen had been built in San Francisco in 1959. Intended for the heavy weather of the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean, the Odyssey had a heavy displacement and a 7/8ths rig. The original Alberg-30 drawings followed this design with 2000 pounds less displacement and 3 inches less draft. Kurt Hansen changed the ballast from the designed lead to cast iron to hold down the production costs. In some of the early boats, the weight was insufficient and internal ballast had to be fixed in the bilge.

Then, after the molds had been made, the syndicate of sailors who had ordered the boats decided they wanted a masthead rig. It was too late to move the mast step aft the 24 inches that was required, so, instead, the mast was shortened and the jib stay was raised. Carl Alberg wasn’t pleased with the decision, but later admitted, “It seems to have worked out ok.”

In 1963 the new Alberg 30 built by Whitby was selected by a Washington, DC, area group of 15 sailors headed by Bud Tomlin, Saul Serota, and Boyce Beville. Jack Martin assembled a group of 10 Annapolis area sailors who independently selected the same beautiful craft in 1964. As the boats were delivered during 1965, Martin organized the two groups into a one-design racing-cruising fleet. They wrote bylaws, and the Chesapeake Bay Alberg 30 One-Design Association was born.

In the mid-1960s the Hansen’s had Alberg draw up a larger, bluewater take on the 35-footer he did for Pearson, and the Alberg 37 was born.

Although Alberg was one of Whitby’s critical designers, they worked with other marine architects as well.

One of their fastest boats was designed by George Cuthbertson, one half of the founding pair of the design house Cuthbertson & Cassian Ltd. (later C&C Yachts). Cuthbertson began his sailing career at Toronto's Royal Canadian Yacht Club and penned the Whitby 45 for the Hansens. The 45 was drawn up during a transitional era in racing sailboat design. The shift was away from Cruising Club of America racing rule (fully outfitted, heavy displacement cruising boats that were supposed to perform on the course, such as the A37) and the IOR (purpose-built, lighter-displacement racing machines with little regard for interior amenities) rule.

The inspiration for Cuthbertson’s Whitby 45 was the Alberg 37. Folks loved the Alberg 37 but wanted more room, less than 20 Whitby 45s were built, but they were fast and sea-kindly.  On July 24 1971 Jack Hirsch's Dynamite, a Whiby‐45 from the Sheldrake Yacht Club, won over‐all honors today in Knickerbocker Yacht Club's 10th annual 25‐mile day race on Long Island Sound.

The Hansens later commissioned Edward S. Brewer & Associates to design a 42 foot full keel blue water ketch in 1972. The first Whitby 42 splashed out of their yard in 1973. The Hansens went on to build over 200 hulls from 1973 to somewhere around 1990. Previous to this, Whitby Boat Works had built the Alberg 30 and Alberg 37. In around 1980, the Hansens commissioned Fort Myers Yacht and Shipbuilding Inc on the west coast of Florida to build Whibys because they could not meet the exceptional demand. They trucked an old mold from Canada. The Fort Myers Whitbys were casually called Florida Whibys.

The yard closed in 1988.