Life
Myron Spaulding was well known on the Sausalito waterfront in the mid and late 1900s, and exerted a strong influence on San Francisco Bay sailors during the days when boats were made of wood and built locally by expert craftsmen. An accomplished concert violinist, Myron Spaulding performed professionally for many years, including with the San Francisco Symphony. It was, however, as a sailboat designer, builder and sailor, that Spaulding left his mark on the Bay Area.
Spaulding moved to San Francisco, California as a boy in 1915. He received his credential in naval architecture and boatbuilding from the Polytechnic High School in San Francisco in 1923, and designed and built his first small boat while in school. It was there that he earned an additional degree in music, playing the violin. Following graduation, Spaulding played violin in the Fox Theatre's vaudeville orchestra, for silent movie houses, for the ballet, and eventually earned a seat with the San Francisco Symphony and performed with them until 1957. At the same time, he was racing and winning several class championships in the Bird class, Stars and 6-Meters. He also participated in six TransPacific races from San Francisco to Honolulu. The highlight of his racing career was winning the 1936 TransPac as skipper of the famous Sparkman & Stephens-designed 52-foot (16 m) yawl Dorade. Spaulding opened a naval architecture office in San Francisco before World War II. His first significant design was the 20-foot (6.1 m) Clipper. In addition to the Clipper class, he created the Spaulding 33, which can still be seen on San Francisco Bay, as well as notable custom boats, including the 50-foot (15 m) yawl Suomi and the 45-foot (14 m) yawl Chrysopyle.
During World War II, he worked at the Madden & Lewis shipyard in Sausalito building 60-foot (18 m) tow boats and 110-foot (34 m) subchasers, then spent a couple of years as a marine surveyor before leasing property near McNear’s Beach in the late 1940s, where he repaired boats, continued with survey work and designed and built the 36-foot (11 m) Buoyant Girl. After losing his lease to make way for development, he returned to Sausalito in 1951 and bought the present waterfront site of Spaulding Boatworks at the foot of Gate Five Road.
Myron Spaulding died in the fall of 2000 at the age of 94. Myron Spaulding’s widow, Gladys, died a little more than a year and a half later and left the Spaulding Boatworks in charitable trust, with instructions for the trustees to form a non-profit corporation, named the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center (SWBC). Today, the SWBC is a working and living museum, with the mission to restore and return to active use significant, historic wooden sailing vessels; preserve and enhance its working boatyard; create a place where people can gather to use, enjoy, and learn about wooden boats; and educate others about wooden boat building skills, traditions and values.
Myron Spaulding's design collection is at the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park.
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