History + Rules
History
The Banshee is a very fast 13-foot fiberglass sailboat. It was designed by Richard L. Reid. It weighs 120 lbs., and carries 82 square feet of sail. It is very quick, responsive, and fun to sail. [The boat pictured (left), is a classic Banshee in its natural habitat, San Francisco Bay.] Richard Reid designed the Banshee in 1969. He had been building Flying Juniors which had been winning races. The Sunfish was out, and Richard thought that there was room for a mass-market boat a bit more substantial.
He was a retailer in Foster City, CA. He used the hull shape of the Flying Junior as his model, making a few minor modifications. The first fleets were in Foster City and at the San Jose Sailing Club. These boats were built by Richard Reid himself (his company was known as Marine Plastics.) He began to subcontract construction to Merrysville and Santa Cruz.
Barry Bruch raised venture capital to establish Banshee International, which took over production of the boats (with Richard Reid as VP). They built boats in Santa Cruz (from 1974) and Scotts Valley (from 1982).
An experimental variant, the Griffon, was built by Banshee International. It used very lightweight materials (e.g. carbon fiber), had the same deck, and basically the same hull (with some minor modifications - for example a slightly fuller bow). It weighed 80 lbs! Fifteen were made.
Abbott Boats of Ontario, Canada was licensed to make 500 boats. It isn't known how many they made, or what became of the molds.
The primary Portsmouth Number (D-PN) for the Banshee is 94.3 (now[2018] 93.7). This number represents the length of time boats take to sail a common but unspecified distance; the numbers are useful for comparing boats (The Laser is 91.3). A smaller number indicates a faster boat. This number was taken from the 1993 compilation of Portsmouth numbers by the United States Sailing Association, as quoted in "A Field Guide to Sailboats", by Richard M. Sherwood.
If your hull still has its Hull Identification Number ("HIN"), you can determine what it means here: http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/hin.htm.