Bob Seidelmann was a sailmaker and one designsailor, winning championships in Lightnings, Comets and Dusters, as well as several other one-design racing classes. He founded a sailmaking business, Seidelmann Sails, with his father, Joe Seidelmann, in the early 1960s. He was co-designer of the 1972 Hunter 25 with John Cherubini, which became Hunter Marine's first production boat. He began designing his own boats and started Seidelmann Yachts to produce them.[1][2][5][6]
The first designs produced were the Seidelmann 25, Seidelmann 30 and the Seidelmann 30-T, all in 1977. Reviewer Steve Henkel reports in The Sailor's Book of Small Cruising Sailboats that some Seidelmann 25s suffered from poor construction quality.[1][2][6]
Aside from building Bob Seidelmann's own designs, in 1980, the company became the first builder of the Sonar, which had been designed by Canadiannaval architectBruce Kirby, designer of the Laser. The boat sold 60 copies the first month after it was introduced.[1][2][7][8][9][10]
Seidelmann also collaborated with Kirby on the 1981 design of the Seidelmann 24 racer-cruiser.[11][12]
