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ABOUT THE LATE DENIS GANLEY
(Reprinted from the website of Ganley Boat Plans North American Agent)
Denis Ganley specialized in designing steel yachts in Auckland New Zealand. Denis also designed a number of successful wooden boats. His successful career spanned 25 years until 1997 when he and his wife were tragically killed in an automobile accident.
This was a significant loss to the many amateur builders of New Zealand and a growing number of builders in the UK and other parts of the world. Plan sales stopped as his only daughter, Denise, struggled with the loss ending her close involvement with her parents' business. It was Denise who was the editor of the newsletter until she went off to college. Her own struggle with muscular dystrophy was likely another reason she was so close to her dad. Understandably, it has taken five years for her to start Ganley Yachts (Plans) Limited again. Now the wonderful collection of Ganley plans is available to builders in North and Central America through their agent, FairMetal Boats, Inc., of Ann Arbor, Michigan and the wooden boat designs in New Zealand from woodenboat.net.nz.
Ganley was a natural sailor and engineer who in his school years was one of those quick learners that were easily bored. Growing up sailing and racing, he would rather be out on the water than in school, which was cause for a bit of trouble in high school. Growing up in New Zealand means near the water, for no Kiwi is far from a beautiful place to sail. It also means racing, as surely the Kiwi's are keen competitors on the water as well as in all sports. Ganley was an adept athlete and racing sailor from an early age. His propensity for hands-on involvement in what he enjoyed led him to the UK at the age of 16 to enroll in an engineering apprenticeship where he learned the basics of marine engineering and naval architecture. Back in New Zealand at the age of 22, he found himself employed as the house designer in a local boat yard. By 25, he had designed a few plywood cruising boats with an interest in sailing home waters. It was not long in this new working life before boredom kicked in and it was time to test his design ideas. Denis answered this call by building the 26' plywood Lone Gull to his design and took his young family for a wonderful year of live-aboard sailing.
Denis in his Shoal Bay Drifter
There's nothing like the lessons of the sea that helped teach Denis the makings of a good cruising boat. Combined with his continuous research with every opportunity during his year sailing, he strove to find the best in cruising design and construction. Soon Denis discovered steel as the most durable and practical boat building material. His experience with plywood sheets helped in understanding development of sheet material. He wasted no time and built a number of his first steel designs with the drive to prove his ideas with that hands-on, got-to know approach to life.. He tested developable plate shapes and framing systems for ease of construction. He worked to maximize section curve for both shape strength and aesthetics and came to a well based understanding of the limits with steel. This brought him to his early goal as Ganley Designs, in his own words, "to design well balanced, easy to build cruising yachts mainly for construction in steel" and "to sell stock plans to the amateur and professional builders worldwide".
Steel became Denis's passion in his career as he learned of its success for blue water boats. New Zealander's being quite isolated, with challenging sailing once they choose to head off to the beautiful islands of the South Pacific or over to Australia. Those open ocean waters and the islands offer their share of challenges with some pretty tough sailing conditions and coral reefs to be negotiated for each safe anchorage. Because of its strength and security steel has become the material of choice for the serious cruiser in New Zealand as well as over most of the world. Ganley saw early on the benefits of all welded construction that offers the greatest structural strength and watertight integrity.Ê
Through his combined design and building experience he was able to prove the ease of building his curved developed sections that became a trademark of what a chine hull should look like. His development of the single "soft chine" and proven hull shapes was tremendously successful with amateur builders for their good looks and simplicity. Ganley's hulls having so much curve naturally, led to his working in the constant radius developed hull form. Here his design work, with direct experience in building and testing, allowed him to engineer his radius chine hulls maximizing structure while minimizing weight. These aesthetically pleasing designs are considered indistinguishable from typical round bottom boats.
Steel, as a material, need not be limited to heavy designs as Ganley also proved. In 1986 he won the "Steel Award" for the best consumer product with his Pacemaker 40 design. The Pacemaker showed that he had the ability to design both in classic and traditional style as well as performance sail design. In fact there is an extensive list of Ganley boats placing in many ocean races. In 1991 there were more Ganley boats than any other designer in the Auckland to Tonga race. One of Denis's major concerns with amateur builders became the strict adherence to the design scantlings. The quickest way to sacrifice a boats' performance is to unnecessarily add extra weight during construction. It was in this area that Denis hounded his customers to respect his work and stick to the plans!
The Ganley collection of steel sail designs shows his unique ability to design a wide range of styles. He was able to create designs as small as 22' with the use of timber decks to maintain proper weight balance. The smallest all steel design is his 25' Hitch Hiker, a classic heavy double ender in the Colin Archer style. There are a number of clipper bows throughout the collection as well as contemporary performance designs up to 60'.
In the late 80's, Ganley could no longer hold off the many customers that wanted him to work on steel powerboats. He took on the goal to design power like he did all of his work, with good performance and proven design parameters. Denis spent much of his last ten years on power designs, putting together a varied collection of trawlers and semi-displacement sport fishing and express cruisers, to workboat and character styles. His collection of nine designs ranges from 28' to 58'
Ganley kept on designing in plywood as a creative outlet for traditional designs and found plywood to be a great material to design and build in. He enjoyed the economy and ease of building it offered. One of his favorites was the 15' Shoal Bay Drifter with standing lug rig, he built one for himself. Denis would take relaxing day trips exploring the upper reaches of Auckland's Waitemata Harbour and often dreamt of extended adventures aboard this able craft. The plywood collection includes 10 plans from the 10' Wild Duck, a simple flat bottom sailing dingy, to the 40' Black Rose, a double-ended centerboarder. One of his all time most popular designs is the 26' Caique II, a 7/8 sloop with fin keel, designed shortly after the New Zealand government imposed a new tax on boats. His goal was to create a small cruiser that could be built for under $1500. Typical of Ganley, he built one for $1352.00 from start to finish in only 10 weeks to prove his ideas. Many of the keels and skegs on these designs incorporate fabricated steel along with complete detailing of steel rigging hardware.
His many customers and friends that he cultivated over his years designing have missed Denis Ganley. The new availability of the plans by Ganley Plans Limited required the ability and commitment from FAIRMETAL BOATS to follow the tradition Denis had - of great support to the amateur builder. If you are dreaming of building a proven design, be it a small plywood day sailor to a world cruising power vessel, you'll want to take a closer look at the Ganley collection.
(All North American sales are through FAIRMETAL BOATS)
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