John G. Hanna

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For other people named John Hanna, see John Hanna (disambiguation).

John Griffin Hanna (1889–1948) was a sailboat designer, famous for designing the .

Hanna was born in Galveston, Texas, on October 12, 1889. During his childhood he was afflicted with deafness following scarlet fever, and lost a foot in a traffic accident. Around 1917, he settled in Dunedin, Florida, and was greatly influenced by the Greek double-ended sponge boats found in nearby Tarpon Springs, Florida. Shortly after his move to Dunedin, Hanna purchased a double-ended ketch-rigged sponge boat that had been built in Apalachicola, Florida by a Greek-American shipwright named Demo George. This vessel, and others that Hanna studied, would inspire the design of Hanna's famous Tahiti ketch.[1] Hanna died in 1948.

Hanna originally wrote of his Tahiti ketch as a 30-foot deep-sea auxiliary cruiser. The design is described and illustrated in detail in the 1935 new edition of How to build 20 boats, pp. 118–133.[2]

Hannah designed a seventy-foot research vessel, Iorano, for amphibian tractor inventor Donald Roebling, which was constructed on Roebling's own property, and which took part in a Smithsonian-connected scientific expedition led by Paul Bartsch in 1937.[3] His 1926 Story-built ketch Faith was later purchased by director John Ford and renamed Araner. Ford, a naval reservist, used the boat both for personal recreation, and for naval intelligence. The boat was later taken into US Navy service directly as USS Araner (IX-57) during World War II.[4]

At least two boats of Hanna's design have circumnavigated the world twice. Jean Gau in the Atom; and Tom Steele in the Adios. (Don Holm, The Circumnavigators page 355).

Hannah was a gifted small vessel designer, but perhaps his greatest strength -and weakness- was as a writer and critic of other's designs. He was let go by the Rudder after a drawn-out feud with L. Francis Herreshoff, who was also a columnist there, and debated acerbically with Thomas C. Gillmer over Tahiti's design antecedents, as well as with Philip Rhodes, and Howard Chapelle.[5]

References[]

  1. ^ John Stephen Doherty, A Ketch Called Tahiti: John G. Hanna and His Yacht Designs, International Marine, 1987.
  2. ^ "How to build 20 boats, Modern Mechanix Publishing Co., 1935". Naval Marine Archive. Retrieved 2013-08-24.
  3. ^ "Roebling Yacht Soon to Start Scientific Trip". Sarasota Herald-Tribume. March 28, 1937. p. 8.
  4. ^ "Araner I (IX-57)". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 31 October 2015.
  5. ^ Doherty, John Stephen (1987). A Ketch called Tahiti. International Marine.
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