LOA.............................. 32'6" LWL............................... 25' Beam............................. 6'3" Draft.............................. 4'4" Displ.......................4,500 lbs Ballast....................2,800 lbs Sail Area................ 312 sq ft
remember the first time I laid my eyes on a Columbia 5.5. A friend had called me over to see his new toy at Alameda Marina. Unfortunately for my friend and his Ericson yacht, there was a beautiful, Corvette-red sloop resting in the slip opposite, her bow rising from the water with the elegant arc of a calligraphic stroke. From the fresh gloss of her flush deck and teardrop-shaped hull, I could see that she was adored. "What a beautiful… Folkboat!" I exclaimed, enthralled, admiring and not entirely sure what I was looking at. While my mistake didn't come to light until much later, what was obvious then was my friend's irritation as I hovered, cooed and pointed. Yes, the debut of his burly daysailer had been completely upstaged, and by nothing less than a skinny, 32.5-ft Nordic supermodel of a boat. This is the moment I found a desire to learn more about the Columbia 5.5 — not to mention, the origins of this onedesign keelboat class. When Columbia Yachts of Costa Mesa introduced the Columbia 5.5 Meter back in 1963, it was to democratize access to the International 5.5 Meter Class. At the time, the International 5.5 Meter was an Olympic class, whose boats' custom wood construction placed them at a price point well out of reach of most competitive sailors. By mass-producing the boats using a then-new material called "fiberglass," Columbia Yachts had an opportunity to bring to market not just a more affordable 5.5 Meter boat, but one that was considerably lighter than its contemporaries. To stay true to the design, Columbia bought a successful 5.5 Meter, Carina, from Alexander (Sasha) Von Wetter. Carina was built by Sigurd Herburn in Norway for the 1956 Olympics; her claim to fame was winning the 1958 Scandinavian Games Gold Cup. In the years that followed, she changed hands, and had remarkably made her way to the West Coast, where, by Sasha's account, "The only organized racing I could do was PHRF, and that was not what a one-design racer like myself, or a thoroughbred like Carina was particularly adept at." Page 64 •
Latitude 38
• March, 2021
BAADS
I
COLUMBIA 5.5
Columbia Yachts approached Von Wetter in regards to striking a mold for their own one-design boat, albeit with modifications made in resemblance to George O'Day's 5.5 Meter Minotaur. O'Day and Minotaur had won both a world championship and a gold medal at the 1960 Olympic Games. Columbia had initially wanted to buy this design, but according to Von Wetter, the builder and the former Olympian could not come to terms. According to a 1966 Columbia brochure, the boats produced
