About SailInfo

We have began collecting brochures 20 years ago when my dad drug me through brokerages around the Chesapeake Bay, Texas and Florida looking for his perfect sailboat; those stops required reading material. When we wanted to upgrade from our aging Ericson 23 [picked up at the factory] my dad bought a Kenner built Herreshoff Rozinante H28 Ketch. The boat was stuck in the mud with a dead raccoon in the fore peak on Lake Dallas but my dad saw so much more potential. Eventually the boat was restored to perfect condition christened as DogStar and docked on Lake Texoma. We sailed [rowed when wind died in the summer] before the itch to move to a bigger boat bit. The marina I grew up in sold Islander, Pearson, C&C, Hunter, Boston Whaler and later built Valiant sailboats, but my dad hated reverse transoms and finally found a William Garden designed fore staysail ketch, which meant a lot more boat brochures tracking her down. I got good with a Makita sander and 100 foot of caprail on that boat.

Today those brochures and another 50,000 brochures are in my personal collection spanning the past 50 years of production fiberglass boat building. While the collection has moved towards power [60%], sail is still my passion. What do I like about boat brochures? The boat companies and associated stories behind them.

If there is such a thing as 'world's largest', this collection has to be close.