Earlier this year, when I was launching my boat in Gig Harbor, I glanced over and saw another T-Bird in the yard. “Cool”, I thought, but I’d seen other T-Birds here. Then I took a second look, and realized that this was NOT a T-Bird.
The 40′ Diosa was built by Ed Hoppen, builder of the first Thunderbirds, at Eddon Boatyard in Gig Harbor. His son, the current owner, was in the yard that day, and I got to talk with him for a bit.
He told me a story about his dad being visited by Sir Tom Clark while the hull was still upside-down. Clark offered to buy the boat, but Hoppen turned him down, and offered to build a second for Clark. That wasn’t good enough for him, so inspired by the hull design he saw there, went home to Austrailia and commissioned John Spencer to design Infidel, a plywood race boat later renamed Ragtime, and was one of the fastest yachts of the 70s.
Hoppen claims that due to the flatter aft section of Diosa compared with a Thunderbird, it can plane in a good downwind breeze.
