Working for Ron Jones

[Daryl Stoneham]

Sir

      My main reason for contacting your organization is to comment that I am the guy who physically built the two Pride of Pay ‘n Pac’s back in the early 70’s while working for Ron Jones when he had his manufacturing facility on 17th st in Costa Mesa CA.  I worked for Ron for about 4yrs as a carpenter and during that time I also built Notre Dame, several 7litres, racing tunnel hulls, a  pleasure tunnel hull he was trying to develop as a commercial project with Phil Anthony of Anthony Pools and I also physically built the offshore race boat Kudu that revolutionized offshore racing and Betty Cook took to become World Champion. I’m not sure that Ron got the recognition deserved for how he revolutionized tunnel hull racing, of which the Italians adopted, and how Kudu revolutionized offshore racing. I was a carpenter but he had me build Pay n Pac and Kudu out of the honeycomb aluminum that was so ahead of its time, what a brilliant man. I delivered boats all over the country when they were finished, Ogden Utah, Seafair, etc. I left his employment as he was moving his operation back to Seatle and as I had just gotten married I needed to stay in southern cal.  After leaving Ron I went back to building and became a contractor and developer here in Orange County. I still say after all these yrs that the greatest and most fun time I’ve ever had working were those few years I spent with Ron. To get to know Ted, who became somewhat of a mentor to me during that time was a great honor and he is probably the finest gentleman I’ve ever met. To this day I still thank Ron for those days as the best and at times talk about them as they were just yesterday. 

                                  Anyway just a bit of trivia.  Regards Daryl Stoneham.