In 1956 George D. O’Day’s day job was selling insurance in Boston. At night he was importing sailboats designed by Uffa Fox, the famous British designer who had earned a worldwide reputation for innovative dinghy designs including those for the developmental International 14 class. O’Day, who was an enthusiastic International 14 sailor, had met Fox a year or so earlier and the two had started a friendship and a collaboration that would last for many years.

Not long after the two had met O’Day told Fox about his concept for a 17-foot fiberglass boat that would appeal to the emerging family market in America. O’Day envisioned a centerboarder that would have a beam of about 6 feet, flotation fore and aft, a small cuddy cabin, and an aluminum mast and boom. The two traded ideas and plans back and forth across the Atlantic and then, early in 1958, the two finally agreed on the lines and the general layout for the boat that O’Day would call the Day Sailer.

The boats were built in a small facility in Fall River, Massachusetts, and O’Day marketed them from his office in Boston. Even though Fox never did accept O’Day’s cuddy, O’Day was equally adamant that it was a crucial part of whatever success the boat would have. “That enclosure was the perfect answer for cold kids and new sailors,” O’Day would say later.

But there were other features, many of them revolutionary at the time, that helped make the boat an immediate success. It had an outboard bracket, a spinnaker and reasonably comfortable sleeping arrangements for two. O’Day also placed the boom almost three feet above deck, which made it possible to put a canvas tent over the boom and create even more living space.

The Day Sailer was built for more than 20 years by the O’Day Corporation, and is currently being produced by Cape Cod Shipbuilding Co. And even though there were minor modifications along the way and a name change from Day Sailer 1 to Day Sailer 2, the planning hull that Fox had created and the cuddy cabin and special features that O’Day had insisted upon remained essentially unchanged.

More than 13,000 Day Sailers have been built since hull number one rolled out of the Fall River plant almost 45 years ago, and today there are more than 60 active Day Sailer fleets in North America. Each year, the class hosts more than 30 regional and national regattas that emphasize family participation for the boat’s two-person racing crews. The Day Sailer has more than delivered on the promises put forth by its creators so many years ago. It is a boat that is spirited but also forgiving enough so that it can be sailed easily by beginners of almost any age. And it has been a favorite for generations of families who want to experience the pleasure that comes when a design is matched perfectly to the wind that brings it to life.

- Charles Mason