Tartan Marine and Douglas & McLeod History from Joe Palmer

The lineage of Tartan sailboats begins in 1960 with a young, recently discharged, naval officer named Charles S. Britton. After sailing with some navy buddies from Japan to Florida via a long and varied route he became convinced that many things could be improved upon in the vessel they had sailed across the Pacific on.
Upon arriving back in the States he commissioned Sparkman & Stephens, one of the top yacht designers in the USA, to design a 27 foot auxiliary, to be made out of a new "at the time" construction method, called fiberglass reinforced plastics lamination (frp).

He brought this design to Douglass & Mcleod's-- Ray Mcleod, Sr., who at the time had been building Thistle's, Highlander's and other smaller sailboats out of wood since 1946 and more recently FRP, at the boatyard here in Grand River, Ohio. Douglass & Mcleod (DM) was commissioned to construct the 27 footer. Out of this original and successful effort, the two men formed a partnership called Douglass & Mcleod Plastics Corp. to build and market this 27 foot auxiliary sailboat.

The original design was a successful one, with 648 hulls built in one form or another, so the partnership and business thrived. In fact the riverfront office from which I am typing this was originally the deck layup room for the Tartan 27. The smell of resin has been removed but the ghosts remain :)

As with most anything, I guess, if something is good, more of it must be better. Owners wanted bigger boats as they outgrew their 27 footer. The two men approached Ted Hood who had designed and built a boat he called "Robin II". As a development out of that design, D&M built a 37 foot auxiliary which they named "Blackwatch" ( to remain consistent with their Scottish marketing slant). They built this boat from "stem to stern" as they say.

The Company went on to commission S&S Design to fill in the gap in their product line. First off the boards in 1967 was a 34 footer (T-34 classic), a design they built 525 boats from.

In the winter of 1971-2, while at the New York Boat show, the hull lamination building caught fire destroying most of the tooling employed at the time to produce the Tartan line and a lot of the records I rely on, I am sorry to report. To get back in business a substantial reinvestment was made. It also provided the Mcleod's, Ray Sr. & Ray Jr. an opportunity to divest themselves of the larger auxiliary business and concentrate on their smaller boat business (thistle's, highlanders, c-larks). 1972 and 1973 were the production years of the D&M 22. Many of these 1/4 ton MORC boats raced in a one design class in Grand River.

Part of the separation agreement called for a name change, hence "Tartan Marine Co." was born and the rest is "the history" of which we all are familiar with.

Tartan Marine Co., during the 70's, was the largest builder of FRP sailboats in the country and probably the world. Their boats ranged in size from the original 27 to the largest, a 48 footer. You can find their boats all over the world (I have shipped parts as far as Australia and New Zealand many times), but especially on the East Coast and on the Great Lakes.
I hope this gives you a little background on our favorite subject "Tartans". I also hope I didn't ramble off too much, but the story does seem to get lost over the years.

Joe Palmer

Above copied from web page at http://hometown.aol.com/T30SAILOR/indexold.html on 10/22/99