Performance Cruising Inc. (Tony Smith)

Tony Smith built his first trimaran, a 24 ft (7.3 m) plywood Piver design, at the age of 19. After single-handing this boat for over 1000 miles he entered the first Round Britain Race in 1966, and finished fourth out of 24 boats. He started designing his own boats, and in 1970 built the 26 ft (7.9 m) prototype in GRP-foam sandwich for what was to become the Telstar series trimarans. 300 boats were sold.

In 1980 he founded Performance Cruising Inc and moved production from the UK to the USA, but output was soon curtailed through a serious fire in his factory. Rather than rebuilding moulds for the Telstar, he drew a new family cruiser, the Gemini, which is patterned after the Aristocat designed by Ken Shaw. The economically priced Gemini series catamarans are very popular; more than 800 have been sold.

The Telstar design was thoroughly revamped and the model was reintroduced in 2003. Beside the Gemini and Telstar models, Tony Smith produced several custom designs early in his career, including monohulls and a proa.

Profile of Tony Smith in Blue Water Sailing