John G. Hanna

Who is John G. Hanna?

John Griffin Hanna was a sailboat designer, famous for designing the Tahiti ketch. Hanna was born in Galveston, Texas, on October 12, 1889. During his childhood he was afflicted with deafness following scarlet fever, and lost a foot in a traffic accident. Around 1917, he settled in Dunedin, Florida, and was greatly influenced by the Greek double-ended sponge boats found in nearby Tarpon Springs, Florida. Shortly after his move to Dunedin, Hanna purchased a double-ended ketch-rigged sponge boat that had been built in Apalachicola, Florida by a Greek-American shipwright named Demo George. This vessel, and others that Hanna studied, would inspire the design of Hanna's famous Tahiti ketch. Hanna died in 1948.

At least two boats of Hanna's design have circumnavigated the world twice. Jean Gau in the Atom; and Tom Steele in the Adios..

Hanna originally wrote of his Tahiti ketch as a 30-foot deap-sea auxiliary cruiser. The design is described and illustrated in detail in the 1935 new edition of How to build 20 boats, pp. 118–133.

Hanna also designed and built the "Wyomi" in 1925 in Dunedin.