Baltar — A Sparkman & Stephens born in Río de la Plata

The boat

A Bermudan sloop built of Paraguayan cedar in Argentina, to a design by Sparkman & Stephens. Light, quick and easy to handle, the Baltar is a fine-lined, full-keeled racer-cruiser, faithful to the spirit of the early wooden Sparkman & Stephens yachts.

Her secrets

The Baltar was built to Sparkman & Stephens design no. 1219, from the legendary New York studio of Olin and Rod Stephens. She is the wooden version of the celebrated Pilot — a full-keeled racer-cruiser conceived in the wake of the RORC — predating the fibreglass series that would later make the model famous as the Pilot 35. Drawn in the second half of the 1950s, the no. 1219 plans sailed to Río de la Plata.

In Argentina they reached the Astillero Sarmiento, a yard that had launched countless wooden boats — among them designs by German Frers and by Sparkman & Stephens themselves. By then its founder, Don José Sarmiento Baltar, had handed the business to his son, who had turned the yard toward fibreglass construction. Edward R. Greef persuaded the old master to sign off on one last wooden hull. Don José agreed, and ten years later, in 1967, the boat was complete. In gratitude, Greef named her after the builder's second surname. So the Baltar was born.

Built largely of Paraguayan cedar — a remarkably light timber — over a Burmese teak deck, the Baltar is a lively, fast boat, true to the character of the racer-cruisers of her day. Designed with a wooden mast, she ended up stepping a Kenyon aluminium spar: aluminium sections did not become common until well into the 1960s, more than five years after her design.

In 1995 the Baltar arrived in Palma de Mallorca, and she has sailed Mediterranean waters ever since — keeping alive the functional elegance of the wooden Sparkman & Stephens and the memory of a River Plate yard that, in her, spoke its last word on traditional boatbuilding.

Technical specifications – Baltar

• Name: Baltar

• Class: Classic

• Rig type: Bermudan sloop

• Designer: Sparkman & Stephens (design no. 1219)

• Shipyard: Astillero Sarmiento (Argentina)

• Year launched: 1967 (1957 design)

• Length overall: 10.71 m

• Waterline length: 7.39 m

• Beam: 2.90 m

• Moulded depth: 1.70 m

• Draught: 1.44 m

• Hull: Paraguayan cedar

• Deck: Burmese teak

• Spar: Kenyon aluminium mast

• Home port: Palma de Mallorca (since 1995)

Highlights

• Sparkman & Stephens design no. 1219, the wooden version of the celebrated Pilot (forerunner of the Pilot 35)

• Built in lightweight Paraguayan cedar — agile and responsive, a racer-cruiser of true RORC spirit

• Launched in 1967 at the Astillero Sarmiento in Argentina, named in honour of her builder

• Sailing the Mediterranean since her arrival in Palma de Mallorca in 1995

• A living testament to the golden age of wooden Sparkman & Stephens yachts