Bar Harbor Wooden Boat
About Spray





Drawing from Yachting magazine, June 1963
Spray was commissioned by Robert Adams of Madison, Connecticut, and designed by naval architect Kenneth Smith of Fairfield, Connecticut, to be a sea-worthy hard-chined power cruiser capable of extended travel.  She was built in 1962 by the Wharton Shipyard in Jamestown, Rhode Island, now known as the Jamestown Boat Yard.  She is built of Philippine mahogany planking on oak frames and is powered by a single 270-hp D333 Caterpillar diesel engine turning a 24-inch propeller through a 2-speed transmission.  Her length overall is 36' 4", waterline length is 35', beam is 12' 2", and draft 3' 11".
Spray is considered to be the prototype for the first Grand Banks 36' trawlers built by American Marine starting in the 1960s until 1973.  In particular, her Kenneth Smith-designed hull was faithfully duplicated with modifications to cabin layouts and addition of a flybridge.  She has been designated by Grand Banks as hull number GB36-000 in honor of her historic ancestry.  Spray remains an integral part of the Grand Banks legacy and is the namesake of the corporate magazine. 
Spray was purchased from Robert Adams in 1970 by Philip and Marcela Faustman of Kalamazoo, Michigan, who took Spray from Long Island Sound up the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers to Lake Ontario.  The Faustmans cruised each summer on the Great Lakes until 1997 when the boat was sold to Donald and Wendy Moeller of DesPlaines, Illinois, who enjoyed Spray mainly on Lake Michigan.
After Spray came on the market in 2008, a survey conducted in May 2009 by Michael Tock SAMS-SA of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, identified numerous areas requiring repair, particularly in the stern.  At the same time, the surveyor concluded that Spray's historic value made her a good candidate for renovation and would likely make the overland trip from Kenosha, Wisconsin, to Bar Harbor, Maine, successfully.  After a period of initial discouragement but hearing from a local boat builder that "wooden boat restoration is just labor", we decided to take the challenge.  On July 13, 2009 (luckily not a Friday!), Murphy Yacht Transport of Trenton, Maine, delivered Spray to our property in Bar Harbor and construction began on a barn to shelter her during repair.
Drawing of Spray's layout and hull plan from Yachting magazine, June 1963