Kialoa I
Kialoa I built approximately 1948.
Kialoa I raced by Jim Kilroy and crew from: 1956 – 1962
Excerpt from Jim Kilroy in the Kialoa US-1 Dare to Win on the Kialoa I:
“A few years later, in 1956, as I was beginning to broaden my threshold and learn what I was doing, my friend Freddy Schenck, a yacht broker and former Snipe class world champion, called and said, “Have I deal for you!” Tom Shorts’ Tasco II, a 50-foot sailboat designed by Sparkman & Stephens, was for sale. Tasco II was a fractional-rigged yawl, about eight-years-old, which exhibited substantial speeds but lacked consistency.
Tom Short was a San Francisco-based sailor, a yachting ship chandler, who loved to sail and cruise. He enjoyed the biennial race from Los Angeles to Honolulu called the Transpac; however, he also felt that carrying a spinnacker at night was an imposition upon enjoyable sailing and cruising. With so much power from the downwind sail, you ca go much faster, but you can also lose control. Tom loved to display his latest chandlery store items aboard the yacht, adding tremendous weight to an already heavy yacht. Fred Schenck, some friends, and I all sailed the yacht and felt there was strong potential for improvement. I bought the boat for a favorable price.
We immediately commenced surgery on the new yacht, which I renamed KIALOA. I’d heard the name before, liked the sound of it and did some research. Roughly translated, in native Hawaiian it meant ‘long, white canoe.’ There would be many other long white canoes to follow…”