The Santander 30 is the British version of an American design, the Tripp 30. It was originally designed by Bill Tripp in the mid to late fifties. Originally the boat was built and marketed as the Tripp 30 in the early sixties in either sloop or yawl guises. The hulls for the Tripp 30 were moulded in Utrecht and then shipped back to the US to be finished by Seafarer Yachts. It would seem that the Americans were utilising the expertise of the Dutch in the production of fibreglass yachts at that time. We believe there were some 30 to 40 Tripp 30's constructed in this way. The Tripp 30 preceeded the Tripp Lentsch 29, another American/Dutch collaboration. (Tripp Lentsch 29 pictured below with a yawl rigged Tripp 30 and also a picture of Windrose, Tripp 30 hull #1, owned by M Voller from NY).

At some point in the early sixties, it would seem that Seafarers production of the Tripp 30 was switched to Mechans Ltd on the Clyde in Scotland. I have been contacted by Adam Eickholt from Michigan USA, who has a Tripp 30, hull number 35. His boat is from 1963, and bears the Mechans build plate. Mechans yard folded shortly after this and it seems the moulds moved on to a new owner. That new owner presumably began the Santander 30 production run in the UK shortly after this. We have line drawings of the 'new' Santander 30 from 1963 under a comany name of 'Sailaway'

A handful of UK yards seem to have moulded the boat from the mid sixties into the early seventies. We're not sure how many, or where some of the boats were constructed during this period, but we do know that Duet was moulded in 1971 by Dock Plastics in Teeside. Construction was overseen by Teeside Yacht Services . I have been lucky enough to track down Malcolm Goodhall, who ran TYS. He leased the moulds from a company in Sunderland (the company who took the moulds over from Mechans in Glasgow?) and built half a dozen Santander 30's in the north east before the project proved uneconomic. Duet appears to be the second boat produced by TYS, the first boat being retained by Malcolm who subsequently modified his boat from the original long keel/rudder hull profile to a fin and skeg design.

To run the story of Duet full circle as it were, Duets original owners have been in touch after the boat appeared in the Sailing Today Jan.09 issue. They took the boat as a hull and deck moulding from TYS and spent two years fitting her out before her eventual launch at Ardrossan in 1973.


Santander 28.
Adam Eickholt ( Tripp 30 # 35) is pretty sure that Seafarer ceased production of the Tripp 30 and their 28ft model at around the same time. The 28 was a Philip Rhodes design, the 'Rhodes Ranger'. After Mechans folded, it seems the 28ft boat joined the new Santander 30 stable and was marketed as the Santander 28.


Yawl rigged Tripp 30


Tripp Lentsch


Windrose. Tripp 30 Hull # 1