1973 – 1975

A Rolling Stone is born

Between 1973-75 Rolling Stone was designed by pen on vellum on the drawing board of naval architect Chuck Burns. The pictures below are one-to-one copies of the original alteration plans. Luckily Robby had conserved these documents and gave them to us. More info about the design of Rolling Stone you’ll find in the design section.

Rolling Stone was built at the Stone Boatyard in Alameda, California as hull #125 under official number 569182 and launched in Sept. 1975. The Stone Boatyard was established in 1853 by William I. Stone from Dartsmouth, England in the Hunter’s Point area of San Francisco (see here for more details – external link). It was one of the oldest and longest running businesses on the Pacific Coast. A very personal description of the yard, the boats and the people working there you’ll find here at the web pages of Peter Burrowes. A special part is dedicated to Rolling Stone. A general and historical essay about the boatyard can be found in the Online Archives of California (O.A.C.) under this external link. There is also free access to the ‚Jack Ehrhorn Collection of Stone Boat Yard‘, which shows many photographs of boats under construction including Rolling Stone. Jack Ehrhorn was the master shipwright at the yard and built the boat for his boss John Whitsett. To get access to these historic photos you unfortunately need to appear in person, but neither Frank nor me had ever been in California. However, thanks to Gina Bardi, the reference librarian at the Maritime Research Center, California, we got a small glimpse of the treasures which are still tucked in the archives. Below are some photos of photos & negatives  she took with her smartphone camera and which she sent me 2015 (please apologize for the quality). Once again many thanks Gina!