Kialoa II was built in 1963 by naval architects Sparkman and Stevens.
Kialoa II was raced by Jim Kilroy and crew from: 1964 – 1973.
Kialoa II was donated to the US Coast Guard for training purposes in 1973. It was bought in 1999 by Jos Fruytier, who had it refurbished and restored. In 2016, the Kialoa II was bought and is now raced by Patrick and Keith Broughton.
One of the biggest differences between Kialoa II, built in 1963, and many earlier or similar vintage classics, was her construction—aluminum instead of wood. Kilroy worked with sailors experienced in airplane construction and helped them launch a new company, Yacht Dynamics, to build the boat of a corrosion-resistant aircraft grade of aluminum called Duralium in San Pedro, Calif. The hull was computer-lofted, also a first in yacht construction.
In 1973, after a decade of non-stop offshore racing, Kialoa II sailed from Miami to Jamaica in her last race under the command of Jim Kilroy, the L.A. businessman who built and campaigned her on the West Coast. Over the years, he had raced her to Mexico, Hawaii, Hobart, Bermuda, and across the Atlantic to four different destinations in Europe. While he cruised her in Mexico, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific, racing was Kialoa’s primary purpose, and the cruises occurred en route to or from the racecourse. The 72-footer, rigged sometimes as a sloop and sometimes, a yawl, won one of every four races she sailed, and finished on the podium in more than half of them. – John Burnham, Yacht World, 2015