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Jensen Marine/Cal Boats

1956-1989

Founded by Jack Jensen and originally located at Costa Mesa, CA. The company first sold the centerboard LAPWORTH 24 designed by Bill Lapworth. The Lapworth’s 24 sold well. The name was first changed to CALIFORNIA 24 and then CAL 24. The name Cal stuck with the company until it closed in 1986.
The 24 was a success and Jensen hired Lapworth to design several more yachts including a 27 foot pop-top racer/cruiser. (there would ultimately be 3 Cal 27’s)
The CAL 40 was introduced in 1963. These yachts became one of the most celebrated production racings yachts of all time.
Bangor Punta purchased Jensen Marine in 1965*.
Boats were still listed as being built by Jensen Marine for a number of years after this date. Jensen Marine also built RV/Motor homes for few years at the Costa Mesa plant.
The Cal Yacht factory was moved to Tampa, Florida in January of 1981. The factory remained in Tampa until March of 1985. It was then moved to Fall River, Massachusetts and was managed by Jim Hunt, son of yacht designer C. Raymond Hunt. Bangor Punta also owned O’Day Yachts and Prindle Catamarans.
Later there was Siegler Marine, Starcraft Sailboat Products, and then finally just Cal Boats. If all the later takeovers are included, Cal boats continued to be built until 1989.(Eds. note: An attempt was made to list the boats as they were named by the manufacturer. For example, the second version of the CAL 30 was called the CAL 2-30. In cases where a later model used the same name as an ealier one, the boat is listed here with a unique identifier in parenthisis, such as CAL 24 (HUNT)to designate it as a separate model.)
Together, Lapworth and Jensen produced thousands of boats including the Cal 20 (the most successful with more than 1,900 boats produced from 1961 to 1972), 24, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 36, 39, 40, and 46. The Lapworth/Jensen association continued until the Jensen’s death in 1980.
In is later years Lapworth kept his own Cal 46 which he said was the favorite of all his designs.

C. William Lapworth

1919-2006

Excerpts from an interview conducted in 2004:William “Bill” Lapworth was perhaps the foremost West Coast Naval Architect in the post World War II period. Born in Detroit, Michigan, he attended and graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in marine engineering and naval architecture. After serving in the navy during World War II, Lapworth settled on the west coast and became partners with Merle Davis who had a yacht design office in Los Angeles. Davis died less than a year later.
At first, Lapworth paid the bills by doing surveying work.
Soon he was designing a series of light displacement racing sailboats that began to win or place highly on the East and West Coasts, beginning with Flying Scotsman and Nalu II, 46′ — a four time Class C Transpac race winner and first overall in 1959. Next came the 50′ sloop Ichiban, second overall in the 1961 Transpac. By 1958, more than 70 of the wooden L-36′ sloops had been built; but, by then fiberglass was becoming the material of choice.
All this attracted the attention of boat builder Jack Jensen who, one day walked in to Lapworths office and, with a handshake, was to form one of the most successful relationships in yachting history.
The first boat boat for Jensen was a 24 footer which Jensen proposed to be called the Lapworth 24. But Lapworth felt that since he had previously designed a 24 footer for someone else, a new name was called for.
According to Lapworth, this is when they decided on the name ‘Cal’ boats.
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