Who designed the Avance 36?

A Baltic sailing enthusiast's account credits Peter Norlin, who is said to have drawn the hull with Six Metre yachts in mind and aimed for a boat with half its displacement in the keel and enough sail area to glide through the wind shadows of the Swedish and Finnish archipelago islands.

What happened to the Advance Sailboat Corporation?

After growing through Ralph Kuppersmith's salesmanship in the early and mid-1970s, the Missouri dinghy builder moved into larger cruising boats in the late 1970s without the resources to sustain the expansion. Its dinghy sales declined as a result, and the company collapsed in 1980; its tooling was later bought at auction by the Sweet Sixteen National Association.

Is the Demon related to the Flying Junior?

Yes. Uffa van Essen's monohedral planing hull, originally designed for the Flying Dutchman, carried over into the Flying Junior, and the company's designer Charlie Teeter then extended that hull into the Demon by adding two feet to the Flying Junior's stern and retooling its top deck.

Was the Avance 36 built as an offshore racer?

By one account relaying a Båtnytt magazine report, no -- the Avance 36 wasn't influenced by the offshore IOR racing scene, though testers reportedly found it a pleasant sailer with speed nearly on par with 39-foot IOR boats.

Avance Sailboats | Listings Port

Q: Are all boats sold under the Avance name from the same builder?

No. This catalog holds two unrelated builders under names spelled a letter apart. The Demon and US1 are small one-design dinghies from the Advance Sailboat Corporation (spelled with a d) of Independence, Missouri; the 245, 33, 36, 40, and 40 DH are Nordic cruising yachts sold as Avance. They share no ownership or design lineage -- only the coincidental spelling.

Explore Avance sailboats and the details behind each model. If you are shopping for a Avance sailboat, we keep an eye out for Used Avance Sailboats.

Model ↕	Listings ↓	Year Built ↕	LOA (ft) ↕	Beam (ft) ↕	Draft (ft) ↕	Disp. (lbs) ↕	Hull ↕	Designer ↕	Rig ↕	Keel ↕
Avance 36	3 for sale	1980	35.42 ft	9 ft	5.83 ft	11,000 lbs	Monohull	Peter Norlin	Fractional Sloop	Fin
Avance 40	1 for sale	1982	40 ft	12.6 ft	8.83 ft	19,600 lbs	Monohull	Sparkman & Stephens	Fractional Sloop	Centerboard
Avance Demon	—	1961	15.25 ft	5.25 ft	3.16 ft	275 lbs	Monohull	U. van Essen / Charles Teeter	Fractional Sloop	Centerboard
Avance US1	—	1973	15.42 ft	4.58 ft	2.5 ft	190 lbs	Monohull	Ralph Kuppersmith/C. Mills	Cat Rig	Centerboard
Avance 245	—	1972	24.54 ft	8.33 ft	4.67 ft	3,858 lbs	Monohull	Peter Norlin	Fractional Sloop	Fin
Avance 33	—	1980	33.79 ft	8.75 ft	5.48 ft	8,818 lbs	Monohull	Peter Norlin	Fractional Sloop	Fin
Avance 40 DH	—	1982	40 ft	12.6 ft	8.83 ft	19,600 lbs	Monohull	Sparkman & Stephens	Cutter	Centerboard

Avance sailboats: two builders, one coincidental letter apart

"Avance" in this catalog names two unconnected builders on two continents whose names differ by a single letter. The Demon and US1 are small American one-design dinghies from the Advance Sailboat Corporation (spelled with a d) of Independence, Missouri. The 245, 33, 36, 40, and 40 DH are Nordic cruising yachts sold under the Avance name in Scandinavia. They share no ownership, no geography, and no design lineage -- only the near-identical spelling that landed them in the same file.

Origins and ownership

In 1962, the Advance Sailboat Corporation of Independence, Missouri, under Ralph Kuppersmith, was a profitable, active manufacturer of one-design dinghies; its line included the Flying Dutchman, Flying Junior, US1, Windmill, and the Demon. Kuppersmith's active salesmanship drove the company's best growth years in the early and mid-1970s, after which he sold it. In the late 1970s the company moved into building larger cruising boats, a program it didn't have the resources to sustain, and the strain dragged down its dinghy sales as it went. In 1980, Advance Sailboat Corporation collapsed. Two years later, on July 17, 1982, representatives of the Sweet Sixteen National Association bought the company's tooling -- the plugs, molds, and fixtures -- at auction. The class association's own history recorded that, since 1962, 537 Sweet Sixteens had been produced, roughly a third of them in the Kansas City and Topeka area, a reflection of the weak, regional-only marketing that had limited the company's reach even in its strongest years.

The designers

Charlie Teeter was Advance Sailboat Corporation's designer and toolmaker. Kuppersmith directed him to develop a dinghy that was stable, roomy enough for family and friends, lightweight, and easy to rig and trailer, yet competitive enough to race one-design. The hull he worked from traces through three boats: Uffa van Essen's monohedral planing hull, drawn for the Flying Dutchman, carried into the Flying Junior, and Teeter then stretched that hull into the Demon by adding two feet to the Flying Junior's stern and retooling its top deck. From the Demon, Teeter went on to develop the Sweet Sixteen -- the design that outlived the company itself.

On the Nordic side, a Baltic sailing enthusiast's account credits Peter Norlin as the Avance 36's designer, saying the boat "first hit the water" in 1977. Norlin reportedly drew the hull with Six Metre yachts in mind, and Båtnytt magazine, relayed through that account, said the resulting hull form resembles Norlin's modern Six Metres, with a relatively high ratio of wetted surface to sail area. Norlin's aim, by the same account, was a boat with half its displacement in the keel, an easily driven hull, and enough sail area to glide through the wind shadows of the Swedish and Finnish archipelago islands. The account also offers a commercial explanation: Norlin's main client, Albin Marine, reportedly didn't allow him to design boats that would compete directly with Albin's own lineup -- a possible reason, by that telling, that the Avance 36 exists as a line of its own.

Lines and generations

The Nordic Avance range beyond the 36 includes the 245, 33, 40, and 40 DH, spanning roughly from the 245's 24 and a half feet up to the 40 and 40 DH's 40 feet. No designer, builder, or origin is established for any of them. On the American side, the catalog holds two one-designs from Advance Sailboat Corporation's dinghy years: the 15-foot Demon, dating to 1961, and the similarly sized US1, from 1973 -- both from the company's earlier, focused one-design era, before the cruising-boat expansion that preceded its 1980 close.

Who Avance is for

The split runs straight through who each boat suits. A buyer of the Demon or US1 wants a small, trailerable one-design dinghy with a hull lineage traced through Uffa van Essen and Charlie Teeter, and a class association that preserved the tooling after the original builder folded. A buyer of a Nordic 245 through 40 DH wants an archipelago-oriented cruising yacht in the 25-to-40-foot range, with -- at least for the 36 -- a documented Peter Norlin pedigree drawn from Six Metre lines. Nothing beyond the coincidental spelling connects the two, and neither should be assumed to explain the other.