Tondelayo

Very good Dave,Great memories!

Great deal:) Love the background:)

Beautiful boat, She is better than sex!

I have had the Pleasure of being on board Tondelayo many times, I have sailed in Jervis Bay and from Jervis Bay to Kiama, also had the Great Pleasure of Snorkeling as we check the Moorings, scraping clean the Prop and Hull, and while the Owners , Dave & Sandy have been away, I still have been on board, cleaned and Polished the Brass Compass Housing. Some Wonderful Memories ! Thanks Dave & Sandy

Aaaarrrg! very creative good stuff Gilly

 http://ww2aircraft.net/.../stories/25d-tondelayo-31856.html

When WW II was done and dusted the B25 Bomber Tondelayo was stripped down and converted to a 38 foot Downeaster Sail Boat of which the Gill Family are now the proud owners... Tondelayo the Sail Boat to this day lives up to the reputation that Tondelayo the B25 Bomber had during WW II... the most photographed Military Aircraft in its time...I know this to be true as I have at least 50 million photos of Tondelayo the Sail Boat in my own personal collection and thats just what I have taken since 2009....

Hi David,

Glad to see you are enjoying the boat. Unfortunately, i do not have any info on the previous owner.  I believe that paperwork was in a plastic folder on the boat.  There would have been the old copies of the California registration.  In the US, it is possible to have a vessel with the Dept of Motor Vehicles registration, rather then Coast Guard Documentation, that's what it had when I bought it.  I got it "Documented" with the US #.

 

From what I recall, I was the 3rd owner.  She was probably originally purchased from the DE yachts dealer in Ventura, CA and that's where I bought her 24 years later.  (Ventura, not the long gone dealership)  She was named Vixen II when I bought her, I changed her name to Tondelayo.  She had original sails, and engine, which are what I used on my travels, so I'm pretty sure that she had not seen much use beyond the local Channel Islands, about 15nm away.  There were very few modifications to the boat, it was pretty much stock.  The only exception I can think of is the big bow platform.  The broker said the prior owner was an aircraft mechanic from the midwest US, that would stay on the boat when in LA.  He passed away, and I bought the boat from his widow. 

 

The name comes from my grandfather, who named his boat Tondelayo, he was a big Hedy Lamarr fan, and Tondelayo was a part that she played in a movie or something.  She is the girl on the Tondelayo bomber.  I never heard any translation for it while going through Polynesia, so I believe that name is totally fictitious.  Also have heard references that it means, "white whore" but never could verify that in either Polynesia, or any reliable source.  Interestingly, Hedy Lamarr invented spread spectrum, which is how CDMA cell phones work.  When I bought the boat, www.tondelayo.com was owned and maintained by Raytheon, who must have bought her original patents or something.   It forwarded directly to a Raytheon page on Hedy Lamarr's development of spread spectrum.  Anyway, Im glad you were able to acquire it. There are a few other Tondelayos out there , including one very large power yacht.

 

This guy has a registry, I wonder if he has records back to 2001?  I submitted something to this registry when I bought it, so there might be something, somewhere.

http://jasonrose.com/downeastyachts/owners/owner_list.html

 

If I suddenly remember something, I'll let you know.

 

Best of luck.  Cheers,

 

Andrew