A NICE GIFT!

A good friend of many years asked if I would like to have a 19' sailboat that was sitting in his yard. It belonged to his son, who was willing to give it to me. He had no pictures but said he thought it was built in Sweden and that the title said it was a "Lofano" sailboat. I Googled that information but found nothing.

I explained that I normally don't mess with boats longer than 15 feet and even had to pay the landfill to get rid of two boats of 15 and 16 feet. I offered them on Craigslist free, but there were no takers!

A few days later, my friend had a visitor with a digital camera. He took pictures and sent them to me. The boat was nice looking and sitting on a decent trailer. When my friend said that a small Honda outboard came with the boat, I decided to accept the gift. My brother volunteered to go along to help with loading and driving. After a delicious meal, we returned to New Jersey. It rained for much of the seven-hour round trip but my brother did most of the driving. Thanks Dave!

I discovered that the boat had been re-titled in 1986, but it was probably built in the early to mid 60s. They used to build fiberglass boats of laminated material but today they spray it in a mold. These boats are tough! The boat measured only 17 feet instead of 19 and according to a hardly legible tag on the transom, It was built by Lofland Sailcraft Inc. (not Losano).

Armed with this information, I started another web search and my real adventures began. There was almost no information about Lofland Boats on the web, but I found a couple of people asking about a Lofland Picnic on www.boatus.com/forum.htm/.  One person gave a link to the Rhodes website where there was a photo of a Picnic. When I followed the link, there was no doubt that the boat I had hauled home was a Picnic.

A man named Nils Lucander also got into the forum discussion, saying his father designed the boat in 1959. I wrote Nils, asking for information and he sent me a scan of the boat's design (below).The keel was different in the original drawings. The Picnic has a shoal / swing keel.

I Googled the words "Lofland" and "Wichita" to see what I could find, and came across a Lofland family website which contained several sailboat graphics. I wrote an email to the address given under "Contact" and received a very nice letter from Allen E. Lofland. His father manufactured boats including the Snipe, Flying Scott and Picnic. He gave me much information about the boat and also mentioned that it would be nice to own a Picnic. Mr. Lofland said that Stan Spitzer had sold the Lofland line of boats through General Boats Inc. of New York. The company had since moved to North Carolina and now sells the popular Rhodes.  http://www.rhodes22.com/home.html

I wrote to Mr. Spitzer and he replied, saying that some 350 Picnics were produced by several companies, including one in Nova Scotia. Most of the Picnics were built by Lofland Sail-Craft, Inc. of Wichita, Kansas. Francis Lofland and Stan Spitzer worked together building and selling boats until 1972, when Lofland retired for medical reasons. 

The Picnic is a pocket cruiser rigged as a Sloop with furling jib and a shoal draft swing keel. It was an innovative craft, easily identified by its flared sides. The fiberglass transom was strengthened with 1 ½ inch plywood and could be equipped with a 40-hp outboard engine for water-skiing! Some Picnics, including mine, were delivered with a small inboard motor. According to Spitzer, it was a Briggs & Stratton typically used on lawnmowers. The cabin has room for two persons to sleep plus space for a Porta-Potty and other items.

I was told by a friend that he remembers seeing several Picnics on Harvey’s Lake in Pennsylvania about 20 years ago. I have no connection to the lake in spite of the name similarity.  At least one of those Picnics had a small inboard motor.

My boat was re-titled in 1986, so I don’t know its age, but another Picnic owner in Florida said his sail number is just one digit different from mine. His was inspected in 1972 in the Lofland Sail Craft Boat Works. A sticker on the cabin of my Picnic shows that the boat was registered in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1978. The most recent registration was 2005 on Lake Wallenpaupack in the Pocono region of Pennsylvania.

Specifications (sail measurements my own):

Hull material: fiberglass

LOA: 17.25 feet

Beam: 78 inches

Shoal Draft: 2 feet 2 inches with centerboard raised; approximately 4 feet lowered

Displacement: approximately 800 lbs

Mast length from step (located on top of cabin): 24 feet

Total sail area: 187 ft.²

Mainsail: Area 114 ft.²; Luff 20' 6" (247"); Leech 23' (276"); Foot 9' 6" (114")

Jib (furling): Area 73 ft.²; Luff 16' (192"); Leech 15' 4" (184"); Foot 10' 6" (126")

Spinnaker: unknown

A “Captain Jim” made a trip on the Erie Canal with his MacGreggor and visited a maritime museum in Oneida on the Erie Canal. He wrote, "Outside there was ,on a trailer, a rare boat, the "Picnic 17" which was an early small powersailer built in the '70's by General Boat Co., makers of the Rhodes 22. It was ahead of its time, but could probably be marketed successfully today, with water ballast modifications.”  http://www.a1sailboats.com/erie2.htm

The museum mentioned is probably the H. Lee White Marine Museum of Oneida.

(Click on photos below to enlarge and click "Return" to close)

The rare (Holsclaw?) galvanized trailer is in very good condition and has coil springs and shock absorbers!

I will sell the boat and trailer for $2000

(Titles for both)

Here are pictures of other known Picnics, a few of which are in sailing condition

The next two pictures show a nicely restored Picnic for sale in Florida.

This old Picnic is now a planter in front of a New Jersey home

Here is another Picnic in good condition in Illinois

Below is a Picnic with a nice trailer that sold on eBay in Iowa, July 11, 2008 for only $159.50 plus a $149 Boat-Angel processing fee! It needs some TLC, but that was a steal!





I found this Picnic on the Rhodes website.