Shark 24

George Hinterhoeller grew up in Austria where he sailed the light displacement fin keel sailboats that were common there. By 1959 he had emigrated to Canada and was working for a boat builder in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. Hinterhoeller decided to design and build a sailboat for himself that was similar to what he had sailed in his youth in Austria. The result was a 22 ft (6.7 m) plywood boat he named Teeter Totter. Other sailors saw the resulting boat, and how fast it sailed compared to the heavy displacement boats common on the Great Lakes at the time and asked Hinterhoeller to build similar boats for them. Hinterhoeller modified the design, stretching it out to 24 ft (7.3 m) and started production of what he then called the Shark. The customer who commissioned the fifth hull requested it be built in fibreglass and offered to help Hinterhoeller build it using this new material.