A Rare O’Day Day Sailer Movie Review
Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation - A 1962 Movie Featuring an O’Day Day Sailer
Randy Dickson - A tired Marscot DS 368, 12/8/2019
Staring James Stewart, Maureen O’Hara, and Fabian, and many others … but those are the big names you would know.
Music by Henri Mancini, but not his most notable work of course. It includes a catchy, granted 1960s bubblegum, song by Johny Mercer and Henri Mancini - called “Cream Puff” - Short Cake, Sweet Stuff, Jelly Roll.
It’s got the typical 1960’s Walt Disney family situational comedy, or pitfalls which ever way you look at it. It’s more than a tad on the silly side with a lot of water pressure problems at the kitchen sink, but this movie did come out in 1962 - remember? You see a classic white Studebaker sedan, and a cool green Dodge Station Wagon. It could still be a family movie today, but mostly for the young sailers among us, if they could sit through it.
On the deeper side of the plot, the film is trying to entertain young and old, be a comedy and tell a deeper story of family all at the same time, from the fathers point of view. Featuring a mother and father (James Stewart & Maureen O’Hara), like the earlier James Stewart movie, when he discovers “It’s a Wonderfull Family Sailing Life” - with one’s own family on vacation, that he only discovers with true emotional work and daily struggle. And some candid looks at three (if we don’t count the young love story) couples with all the trials and tribulations, of relationships many ups and downs. With happy plot twists at the end - of course.
Going Movie Sailing in the O’Day Day Sailer -
The sail on the water is couched in the assumption James Stewart’s character is taking his son out on a sailing adventure while on vacation at the sea shore, and he doesn’t know how to sail! The Day Sailer is introduced as a “Spatterbox”. I’m assuming that is movie term, so please let me know if it’s a true term from early Day Sailer (DS) history? In the movie - the DS has the typical light blue deck, with white hull. The name on the DS is “Dashaway” (I like that!) with some not so typical blue and white sails, with “DS” logo, and a class number of “973”. Who has that class number DS now (#973)!
You see many boats in the background at the dock - including a light blue topped O’Day (could be an O’Day Ospray, #66?), and a blue Thistle on a trailer. And there’s a R19, #240 in the background at the dock, having a light blue top w/ a dark blue hull. And many twelve meter class boats of the day.
Note - This harbor could be Newport, RI., or who knows? But, that is my guess - Newport. And it could of ben filmed in several places. Plus some shots in a move studio pool, with a movie screen in the background, plus a fog machine working in some shots.
With warning that the boat has a lot of “weather helm”, they take off from the dock like a rocket - I’m assuming it’s being towed, but I don’t see a wire. Then you notice some water jetting from the far side (starboard) of the boat - an underwater electric propeller, borrowed from Jacques Cousteau no doubt!
The rest of the Jerry Lewis style “almost hits” (alert the Coast Guard we can assume were filmed in a studio with a movie screen in the background. Several close-calls with mored motor boats, powered boats, while he figures out the centerboard. Plus an almost collision with a beige topped R19 sailing across the bow. A very scared James Stewart at the tiller, a verbally excited sun, and another close call for a water skier, as they head out of the harbor. A visual note from watching the DS at sea - showing it’s not truly at sea at all. I don’t think we ever see the boat truly heel over on a tack, beside a long shot or two (of which Jimmy Stewart may not be the sailer in the boat).
They get them selves lost in the fog at sea, have a close call with a tanker (more back screen shots in a studio), do some crop circles in the ocean - but some how Jimmy Stewart brings them back. Well of course he does, he navigated the “Spirit of St.Louis” across the Atlantic didn’t he? … sorry, couldn’t resist that one. And of course, they were NOT wearing life jackets. Maybe because they never were at sea in the movie filming, or the visuals of the life jackets of the day would not play so good for the movie.
Onto the real aqua star of the movie, the O’Day Day Sailer #973
The number one point is that it may not be an O’Day boat. Well - yes, it’s an O’Day Company DS, but it was not manufactured by O’Day, is the point. It was the years just previous to the George O’Day company manufacturing their own boats, that Marscot Plastics of Fall River, MA. produced them for the O’Day Company. This movie DS (Day Sailer) is class number 973, which would put it at the last of the Marscot Manufactured Day Sailers, is my guess. And to add to the DS sea of movie mystery - it may not be class number 973 boat at all, as we only see the Main Sail number, and we never see the HIN (Hull Identification Number) tag.
The Featured DS in the Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation movie has two running rigging traits of a Marscot produced O’Day DS of that decade. Number one; 1) the Jib sheeting through the wood coming, and number two 2) no cam cleat for the main sheet - look at poor Jimmy just pulling on the main sheet - pulling it down from the boom, not up from a cleat (note - you do see it cleated down later). And the boat would had a simulated wood deck imprinted into the blue fiberglass top, not the knurled fiberglass deck that O’Day featured later. The Boston Whaler company did the same deck “wood look” on it’s early nineteen foot fiberglass deck design.
Pic. Below - HIN tag for DS #368, an example of a 1960 Marscot produced O’Day Day Sailer.