Design and Early History
The Sailfish trade name first appeared on a board boat in 1945. The design came from Alcort, Inc., whose name combined those of founders Alex Bryan and Cortlandt Heyniger.
Early Sailfish boats were available either as plans for backyard builders or fully assembled from the Alcort shop. In the first years, do-it-yourself builders made every component, formed the hardware from raw stock, and even sewed their own sails. Shop-built boats received sails made through Old Town Canoe Co. by Ratsey & Lapthorn. Alcort later had Ratsey & Lapthorn produce a Sailfish-specific sail and kept the sailmaker as its provider until 1979.
Not long after introducing the boat, Alcort widened its appeal with a kit containing pre-cut pieces, a sail, and hardware.
Construction and Models
The range included two lengths: the 11' 7½" Standard Sailfish and the 13' 7" Super Sailfish. Wooden hulls were planked with either A-A exterior Douglas fir plywood or Harborite marine plywood. Harborite was a plastic-surfaced fir plywood developed as an improvement over plain plywood.
In 1959, Alcort carried the hollow-body concept into fiberglass with the Super Sailfish MK-II. It became the most popular version and the model most sailors simply remember as the “Sailfish.” The MK-II measured 13' 8"; its extra inch came from the flange that bonded the deck and hull bottom into one unit.
The MK-II also added an aluminum mast and spars. Decks came in red, white, blue, green, and yellow, paired with five-panel Dacron sails in alternating matching colors. Alcort stopped producing factory-assembled wooden models soon after the fiberglass boat arrived.
Rig and Sailing Character
The Sailfish has a shallow-draft, sit-upon hull and a distinctive low-aspect-ratio lateen sail set on an unstayed mast. Beside a modern Bermuda-rigged boat, the rig looks squat. The lateen rig shifts the advantage to light air and also gives the boat good downwind characteristics.
With a single lateen sail and only two rigging lines, the Sailfish was one of the easiest boats on which to learn the fundamentals. Early boats used Sitka spruce spars and silk sails. Historic photographs show sails with as many as ten panels and small battens, secured with marlin hitches rather than the plastic clips used later. By the late 1950s, buyers could choose nylon or Dacron sails in red or blue as well as white.
A patented rudder release automatically moved the blade into a horizontal position for beaching.
Accommodations and Use
The Sailfish has no cabin or berths. It’s a sit-upon board boat with minimal freeboard, intended as a single-sailor trainer and day boat rather than a cruiser. That low freeboard also earns it the label “wet boat,” since spray moving across the water often splashes the sailor. Its simplicity is the point.
Later Changes and Discontinuation
Little changed during the six years after the MK-II, apart from a 1972 reshaping of the rudder blade to the streamlined Sunfish profile. The waning Sailfish retained its earlier bronze rudder hardware, while the Sunfish received new hardware.
AMF bought Alcort in 1969 and retained the Alcort name for its boat division. It discontinued the Sailfish in 1975.
The Verdict
The Sailfish is a pure expression of learn-to-sail simplicity: a lateen-rigged board boat whose light-air and downwind manners, two-line rigging, and automatic beaching rudder made it a benchmark trainer. Its wooden and fiberglass variants trace a neat progression from backyard plans and kits to molded, color-matched production boats.
Pros
- Unstayed lateen rig with a two-line setup, ideal for beginners
- Strong light-air and downwind performance for a board boat
- Patented rudder release makes beaching easier
- Available as plans, a kit, or an assembled boat during its early years
Cons
- Minimal freeboard leaves the sailor exposed to spray
- Bronze rudder hardware wasn’t updated when the blade was reshaped in 1972
- No accommodations; strictly a sit-upon day boat
