DeFever, Lindwall and Collbohm

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Although Tonina is a custom, one-off yacht, she is still technically a DeFever. Many of the yachts built by Lindwall were designed by Art DeFever. 

After Defever started to remove his company from designing the commercial fishing fleets of of the West coast, he started to design yachts. The first of these yachts were built at Lindwall Boatworks. 

It is rumored that Sugar and Art didn't always see eye-to-eye when it came to how a boat was either designed or built. Defever had his ideas and Lindwall has his own. As a result, several of the boats that came out of Lindwall Boatworks didn't exactly match the plans, Tonina was one of these boats. 

Sugar gave Tonina a more traditional wheelhouse, full beam chariot bridge and modified the interior layout here and there creating features that make Tonina's design timeless. 

Rick and Merrie Fricke hosted Art and his wife aboard Tonina before Art's passing and were able to get a first-hand account of the 'old days' at DeFever and the designing of the original DeFever yachts.

There are several articles about Art hosted on this website.

Lindwall Boatworks was started in 1929 by Charlie Lindwall and operated on Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara, Calif. The yard was taken over by Charlie's son, Paul (Sugar) Lindwall. In 1946 after Sugar's returned from WWII, he moved the boatyard to Micheltorena St. and Highway 101 (before it became the 101 freeway), this is where Tonina was built. 

On launch day, Tonina and the other Lindwall yachts, were 'trailered' to the water and launched at the launch ramp in Santa Barbara Harbor that still exists today. 

Sugar moved the yard again before settling on it's final location in 1972 at what is now the only boatyard in Santa Barbara, now called "Harbor Marineworks". 

Rick and Merrie Fricke hosted Sugar and his wife Lucy aboard Tonina many times on their trips to Santa Barbara. When Sugar passed away in 2011, Lucy laid Sugar's ashes to rest from Tonina's  aft deck off of Santa Barbara Harbor with his family aboard. 

There are several articles about Sugar hosted on this website. 

Tonina was commissioned by Frank Collbohm, the RAND Corporation's first president and founder. Frank had Tonina built for his retirement, he intended to cruise with his wife. Frank remained president of RAND until 1967 when he  retired. Until then, however he intended to utilize Tonina as his floating office, entertaining RANDites and high ranking military officials to discuss matters of war of which the US was fully engaged in Vietnam.

"One day Frank invited a few RAND newcomers for lunch aboard his newly acquired boat....But lunch, despite its nautical setting, was focused on RAND issues—in a relaxed and leisurely manner. I was steering into a discussion of how social science at RAND could best function in two widely dispersed locales—'here' in Santa Monica and

'there' in Washington."

" He loved the water and the sun and had a very good tan. He went to Catalina at the isthmus every weekend that the weather permitted and his work allowed him to operate his motorboat. His wife, Kitty, served as his copilot; they also occasionally went to Mexico in that boat."

Tonina was well know at the Rand Corporation as well as McDonald Douglass Aircraft (the Rand Corporation having originated there). Even Donald Douglass himself was a frequent visitor aboard.  Douglass died on February 1, 1981 at the age of 88. In keeping with his lifelong love for the sea, he was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea from Tonina's aft deck.