VELELLA was launched in San Diego in 1979. She was built by her original owner, Michael Butler, as a strong and capable blue water cruiser. Butler had worked for C&B Marine in Santa Cruz, California building a larger Tom Wylie designed sistership named WILD SPIRIT. Her hull was built using cedar strip planking with two diagonal veneers on the exterior and additional veneers in way of the bilge. Her deck is two layers of mahogany plywood. Her interior planking is mostly bright finished with Herreschoff style white painted bulkheads and mahogany trim. Her cabin sides and ceiling are beautiful varnished fir. She is relatively light for her size, displacing about 8,000 pounds. Her underwater configuration is a fin keel with lead ballast and stern hung rudder with full skeg. She’s sloop rigged with a removable inner forestay for a staysail and a track for a storm trysail.
After completion, he sailed her to the South Pacific. After a series of owners in the Pacific Northwest, she was purchased by Garth Wilcox and Wendy Hinman and sailed 34,000 miles over 7 years in the Pacific, chronicled in Wendy’s book Tightwads on the Loose. Ryan and Autumn Helling have owned and lived aboard her since 2012 and race and cruise in Pacific Northwest waters. She’s proven to be a fantastic all-around boat, winning many beer can races, comfortably circumnavigating Vancouver Island and providing a comfortable home.