ANNAPOLIS, Md — Tony Smith, designer and builder of the 28-foot Telstar trimaran and the 35-foot Gemini catamaran, has retired and has hit the road — as promised — traveling the countryside with his wife, Sue. The couple are hauling a modified Telstar to the Pacific Northwest, according to an article “Three Hulls on the Road” by Peter Nielsen of Sailing Magazine.
Read the article here and watch an interesting video of Tony Smith and the Telstar: http://www.sailmagazine.com/three-hulls-road
We met Tony Smith one afternoon in March 2005. It wasn’t planned; we were in Annapolis and poking around marinas and boat shops, and stopped by Performance Cruising. He gave us a tour of the Gemini Catamaran, the one boat that has held our interest throughout the years we’ve considered buying a sailboat.t was a rainy day, but the cockpit was snug with its plastic enclosure. We sat at the dinette and talked with Mr. Smith for an hour, discussing sailboats, politics, economics and history. He recommend we read “A Voyage for Madmen,” (and we did) and talked about sailing in general and his boat designs. Considering that we were not customers at that point, having the designer meet us and give us a personal tour meant a lot.
He confided that he planned to retire and when he did, he planned to hitch the Telstar to his van and spend his free time exploring. It’s been six years long years but he finally has achieved that goal. For a man who’s achieved a lot of goals — including selling more than 1,000 production multi hulls, that’s not a grand one, but in his heart, it is.
