Star Class Honoring the Past, Leading the Future
The history of Mader Star Boats began when the Tempest was dropped from the Olympic program and the Star Boat was added in the fall of 1976. Leonhard Mader, Sr. with the help of Eckart Wagner contacted Bill Buchan. At that time Buchan boats were considered to be the fastest and it was very important for Mader to secure an agreement to build Buchan designed Stars in Europe. In the fall of 1976 Leonhard Mader, Sr. flew to Seattle and met with Mr. Buchan to sign an agreement. Bill Buchan then shipped the first set of Star molds including the hull, deck, cockpit, keel, rudder and skeg. From these molds were built the first Mader Star Boats.
April, 1977 saw the first Mader Star Boat built. A successful Finn Dinghy sailor from the Netherlands, Kees Douze, received the first boat. Many more Star Boats were to be built in a short period of time including boats for Valentin Mankin, Eckart Wagner and also Dennis Conner. This is the boat that Dennis won the World Championship in Keil, Germany with five first place finishes, a record that still stands to this day. In this same event Uwe VonBelow finished third overall. For Mader this was a break that they needed to put them on top of the Star Class. Other sailors have also won championships with Mader Star Boats including Alex Hagen with Vincent Hoesch in 1981, Carl Buchan with Hugo Schreiner in 1992, Ross MacDonald with Eric Jesperson in 1994 and Eric Doyle with Tom Olsen in 1999 won the largest Worlds Championship on record in Punta Ala, Italy.
Now that you know some of the history of our company, we would like to give you some idea on how we build our boats. Our first boats were built with polyester resin and foam core sandwich construction. From 1986 our boats have been built with epoxy resin. The following is how our new boats are constructed. We start by spraying gel coat in the mold. Next we laminate a thin fiberglass roving followed by more roving and finally a biaxial roving. Then we fit a foam core and laminate that in with a biaxial roving and finish with normal roving. The deck is laminated the same as the hull. The cockpit liner is laminated with two layers of roving and has a thinner foam core and finally one thin layer of roving. To prepare the hull for the cockpit a "U" shaped keelson is glued to the floor of the hull. Together with this the cockpit is glued onto the hull with a precise fixture to insure proper fit. While the hull and cockpit are curing, the deck is removed from the mold and prepared to be installed on the hull.
After the deck is installed the boat goes into a large oven to cure. After the hull comes out of the oven, then the completed hull comes out of the mold. In certain areas we reinforce the hull to deck joint with laminate. Also at this time the underside of the deck is sealed. The hull will be placed in the oven for a second time for curing. Once the hull is completed the prepared keel is placed into a fixture to insure proper placement. After gluing and bolting the keel to the hull we fit the skeg and rudder. The final step before the fittings are mounted the hull, keel, rudder and skeg are highly polished. As to the fitting out of the boat, it is all done custom to the boat owners wishes and suggestions. We have found our process creates a very fast boat with a long life expectancy. Our boats have won many Worlds, Europeans, North American and Olympic Championships.
