At the age of 78, Ben Hall was excited to talk about racing his A Cat singlehanded multihull in an upcoming regatta in Europe.  Few sailors his age would be competing at such a high level against competitors many decades his junior.  He started sailing at the age of nine with inspiration from his two older brothers, Ned and Eric. The three boys raced together in the Thistle Class, achieving success against older sailors. (It should be noted that Ned would later crew for Bus Mosbacher aboard the 12 Meter Intrepid in the 1967 America’s Cup).  The Hall brother’s success in the Thistle gave them confidence that they could try a campaign for the 1964 Olympics in the International Flying Dutchman Class.  Ben and Eric won the Junior National Championship and gained valuable experience racing against Hall of Fame sailors Buddy Melges and Bill Bentsen, who would go on to win a Bronze Medal in the Games that year.  In 1971, the brothers won the Flying Dutchman Nationals.  In 1972 Ben defeated 50 boats to win the Essex frostbite championships in Blues Jays.

In 1963, at the age of 17, he raced aboard Carina in the Transatlantic Race and later Cowes Week and the grueling Fastnet Race.  The experience of racing across 5,000 miles of blue water inspired Ben Hall to compete in long distance races.  He graduated from the Deerfield Academy in 1963 and went on to the University of Wisconsin, earning a degree in 1967.  He served in the United States Coast Guard from 1967 through 1973.

Ben was a versatile sailor successfully campaigning ice boats and dinghies, and shifted to small offshore boats ultimately winning the Quarter Ton North Americans in 1973.  Ben was the manager of Kenyon Spars when his brother, Eric, created Hall Spars.  Ben moved over to Hall Spars in 1984.  They constantly strived to innovate their products and worked with advanced composite materials.  Their innovative work attracted orders from America’s Cup campaigns, the rejuvenated J Class sloops from the 1930s and many offshore racing yachts.  Notably, Hall Spars provided the rig for the Alinghi Challenge that won the America’s Cup in 2003.  In 2005, the boat Pirates of the Caribbean used a Hall Spar in the Volvo Ocean Race.  Hall Spars have supplied rigs to many classes, including Swans and J Boats.

His continuous racing was an asset as he looked for ever-advancing technology to make strong, but light masts.  In 2009, Ben was working on a wing mast concept for his A Cat.  Fellow A Cat sailor, Australia’s Glenn Ashby, was working for Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts’ 2010 America’s Cup challenge.  Ashby heard about the wing mast and asked Hall for a look.  Ashby liked the concept and convinced Ellison and Coutts to study the idea.  Years later Coutts admitted, “It was Ben’s mast that made us go for the big wing mast on Oracle.”

Hall Spars work with carbon fiber materials led the company to supply components to major industries outside of sailing, including Boeing, Zodiac Aerospace and SpaceX.  Ben Hall’s example of outstanding sportsmanship as a competitive sailor and his innovative work as a spar manufacturer has set a high standard.  He has retired from the Spar business, but at this writing, he has no plans to stop racing.

~ Gary Jobson