The Gaff-Rigged 40' Ketch, Jubilee

[ardenlester00]

Hello,

Back in the middle 70's I re-built (using Ferro-lite) the Gaff-Rigged Ketch, the Jubilee. She was a design of, and the personal Chesapeake Bay boat of builder, Joel vanSant.

I lived/sailed on her for several years in Florida waters. I sold her a few years later.

I have been looking for the Jubilee for several years. I last knew of her in the Florida Keys where an elderly couple lived aboard down near Big Pine/Little Torch Key in the Florida Keys.

Does anyone know where the Jubilee is at this point in time? I'd love to hear about/from her owners. She was the highlite of my life - the result of a couple full years of taking her off the junk-heap and making an awesome sailing vessel.

She was a beamy boat - 16' beam, yet I could sail her in 3' of water.
Thank you,

Dennis A. Hooker

[skipmac]

If the boat is USCG documented and still has the same name you might try a search here. Office of Science and Technology

I found about 100 boats named Jubilee but you can narrow that down by length and the year the boat was built.

[ardenlester00]

Hello,

Thank you for your reference to that site of Documentation. Unfortunately, I do not find my Jubilee there. She was built in 1946 - the month WWII ended. Joel vanSant (creator of the Moth class) had built wooden sailing vessels for patrolling the Chesapeak Bay for German submarines (their sonar couldn't detect wood).

He kept his crew at Elizabeth City to build his own boat, the Jubilee.

I discovered her in the boatyard in Titusville, Fl (sitting on land for 7 years), fell in love with her and ended up putting about 300 gallons of resin trowed over a wire matrix (like ferro-cement only a mash potato-like substance called "Ferro-lite" - a mixture of polester salt-like, fiberglass chop and, at the time, allowed, asbestos fibers).

Last I heard Jubilee was in the Keys - on an out-island from Big Pine - the home of an elderly couple.

Any info is greatly appreciated. (I thought for sure I'd find her in that Registration you sent me. They changed her name?)

Thank you,

Dennis