Santa Evita was designed by Ed Dubois and built for local businessman Richard Riggs in 1979. She won an award for the best designed racing boat to be built that year. At the time, Richard owned Girdlestone Pumps and later founded Girdlestone Winches, a plastic winch manufacturing company that supplied the winches for Santa Evita when originally built.
Santa Evita’s hull is cold-moulded using 3mm cedar veneers which were glued using a Resorcinol glue, and laminated frames which were traditionally copper clenched. The boat was designed with a fibreglass cockpit moulding fitted to laminated deck beams on a plywood laminated deck, which were then covered with epoxy scrim cloth.
Santa Evita was raced extensively on the east coast by several local owners, her best result a creditable fourth place in the World Half Ton Cup. After various changes of ownership she was relocated to Wales.
Santa Evita returned to the east coast in 2014 and recently Fox’s has carried out some repainting work to the veneers around the keel. Apart from being slightly damp, the hull was as good as the day it was built.