Gary Mull grew up sailing El Toros on San Francisco Bay.  One of his longtime friends was Hall of Fame sailor Tom Blackaller, who playfully nicknamed his pal Gary “Dull.”  Being on a boat with the two-fun loving and yet highly competitive sailors was like watching a ping pong game as they volleyed back and forth with one clever remark after another.  Both sailors were graduates of the University of California, Berkeley with degrees in engineering.  Mull minored in Naval Architecture.  According to an article by Daniel B. MacNaughton in the Encyclopedia of Yacht Designers. Mull initially planned to study English at Pomona College and become a poet.  In his form selecting a major, Mull use the abbreviation “ENG” for English and somehow was assigned to engineering classes instead.  A year later Mull transferred to UC Berkeley and pursued a career in mechanical engineering.  After college he served in the U.S. Coast Guard.

His professional career started at the Lockheed and Pacific Engineering Company.  On the side, he started tinkering with yacht design.  Like many aspiring naval architects, he spent some time working for Sparkman & Stephens in New York City before creating his own firm.  His first design success was the Santana 22, a groundbreaking boat built by W.D. Schock.  Mull’s next boat, the Ranger 22, lead to a series of fast and fun one-design keelboats which he referred to as “nice little boats.”  His 37-foot Ranger was the last production boat to win the Southern Ocean Racing Conference.  Mull’s design philosophy was to create light displacement boats that were well-built.   Blackaller commissioned Mull to stray from his ultra-light hulls, to designing a Six Meter.  Mull’s time with Sparkman & Stephens, the epicenter of heavy displacement Six Meters and Twelve Meters, undoubtedly helped him create a series of fast Six Meters.  In 1979, Mull designed a Six Meter for Ted Turner built by Goetz Custom Yachts.  Tom Blackaller challenged for the America’s Cup for the 1987 match and engaged Mull to design a Twelve Meter, “USA 49.”

Mull’s boats were ubiquitous around the waterfront.  His designs included the Catalina 22 (more than 800 boats sold), a series of Freedom Yachts ranging from 28- to 45- feet in length, and several 30-foot variations for Newport Yachts.  Some of his famous ocean racers included La Forza del Destino, Improbable, Sorcery, and Pocket Rocket.   Gary Mull Yacht Design is credited with 57 production boat designs.

Mull served as Chair of the International Technical Committee of the Offshore Racing Council. He worked to improve the American Bureau of Shipping scantlings for ocean racing yachts.  Gary Mull was a strong advocate of proper construction and engineering for boats that sailed offshore.  Sadly, he passed away at the age 55 in 1993 from lung cancer.  Among the many up-and-coming naval architects who worked for him included Carl Schumacher, Jim Antrim, Ron Holland and Phil Kaiko.

~ Gary Jobson