England has produced many good sailors, boat builders and designers. Derek Kelsall, on the other hand, was born in 1933 as the son of a farm labourer and initially grew up in the most humble of circumstances, far removed from the sport of sailing. He was unable to complete his degree in mechanical engineering because he ran out of money. He switched to the oil business and worked for BP in Kenya for a while before moving to Texas. There in the USA, and particularly on the west coast, the construction of multihulls was much more popular than in Europe. In 1967, YACHT portrayed the four most important designers in California (Dr Hugo Myers, Ralph Flood, Norman A. Cross, Rudy Choy) in an entire series. It was the heyday of multihull construction - and it was during this time that Derek Kelsall must have made the decision to switch from the oil industry to a field that had always interested him: the construction and design of multihulls.
In 1964, Kelsall signed up for the second Observer Singlehanded Transatlantic Race (OSTAR) and quickly ordered a 35-foot Arthur Piver trimaran, which he named "Folatre". Two months after ordering the boat, he was already leading the race field out of Plymouth harbour and sailed far ahead for five days, right behind Eric Tabarly, until a collision with a floating object forced him to abandon and return. After repairing the boat, Kelsall set sail again from Plymouth and reached Newport in Rhode Island without any problems after 34 days at sea.
His piver-trimaran was an unusual boat in the OSTAR, built entirely from plywood, rigged as a ketch and equipped with a wind self-steering system. In addition, "Folatre" was the first multihull to start without any ballast, which was unusual at the time. There were two catamarans at the start of the same race that had ballast keels.
The "Toria" set standards
During his single-handed Atlantic crossing, Kelsall gained a lot of experience that he would later incorporate into the design of his own trimarans. The 45-foot trimaran "Toria", which Kelsall designed himself and named after his daughter, was launched in 1966. The ship set standards for the construction of racing trimarans that have endured to this day. In addition, "Toria" was the first boat to be built using the new technology developed by Kelsall: With a core made of Airex foam, the hull could be built stable but light as a feather. Kelsall named the technology after the place where his shipyard was located: the small town of "Sandwich" in the county of Kent.
"Toria" easily won the Round Britain and Ireland double-handed race in 1966, and Kelsall's success story began. The following year, Kelsall introduced the French sailing legend Eric Tabarly to trimaran sailing on a transfer of "Toria". But instead of giving Kelsall the order for a new tri, he had his compatriot André Allègre design a 68-foot aluminium trimaran ("Pen Duick IV"), which was far too heavy and, to make matters worse, was damaged in a collision during the 1968 OSTAR race. But Kelsall had no reason to mourn the loss of the commission, because instead he was given the task of building the 57-foot monohull "Sir Thomas Lipton" for Geoffrey Williams. In Sandwich. From Sandwich. The boat won the race with 17 hours to spare.
After many other regatta boats and successes, Derek Kelsall began to design mainly fast cruising catamarans in the early 1980s, which could also be built by boatbuilding amateurs themselves using the KSS system (Kelsall Swiftsure Sandwich). He developed a vacuum technology that enabled even self-builders to produce stiff and light hulls with the simplest of means.
"Derek Kelsall made it possible for me to start building modern boats," says Burkhard Bader. Since 1985, he has been THE contact person in this country when it comes to building a Kelsall catamaran. "By 2006, I had passed on over 100 of his construction plans to German self-builders and built and supervised around 35 new builds in my workshops."
Many Kelsall boats are still on the water today
Almost all of the boats are still sailing today. "Like Paul Maier's 'Matangi', for example," says Bader. He was the first person Bader worked with in 1985. "He built his Tonga 40 with and for me in Kiel, then transferred it to the Moselle as a hull on his own keels in December to do the interior work." Maier then sailed around the world with his family for years and, after many years at home, is now sailing around the world again. "His boat is now 37 years old and even sailed from Germany via Greenland to the South Seas in 2022, mostly single-handed."
According to Bader, the success of Kelsall's ships is not least due to the comprehensible construction plans. "Although he was English, Kelsall used the metric system," he says. The lightweight construction method was also considered revolutionary at the time: "Vacuum bonding was Derek Kelsall's idea," says Bader, "nobody in German boatbuilding was familiar with the technology at the time." Due to a lack of professional systems, the boat builder only needed several hoovers as a tool to generate the vacuum. "More precisely: the negative pressure," Bader clarifies, "because a complete vacuum is not achieved. Later, I used a pasture milking pump, which also worked."
In the mid-90s, Derek Kelsall emigrated to New Zealand and found his new home there, where he continued to draw boats until the end of his life.
- Further information on the page of Derek Kelsall
