About Us
Kidder Racing, Inc.
The Hoot sailboat is a product of Kidder Racing, Inc., a sailboat manufacturer based in Richmond, California. We are very skilled at making lightweight composite boats using techniques borrowed and refined from manufacturing competition rowing shells. Our strengths are our attention to detail, manufacturing techniques and innovative design.
Management Team
Doug Kidder has a Masters in Naval Architecture from UC Berkeley and a Bachelors from Amherst College in Mathematics and English. Small, fast sailboats have been his passion for years so starting Kidder Racing seems like a good idea. Doug's favorite moment in developing the Hoot was getting a call from Chris one day after a test sail and hearing Hey Doug, I saw the bottom of your Whaler.
Billy Service is an all around mechanical genius and is responsible
for the operations of Kidder Racing. Billy has been building composite boats
professionally for more than ten years. Before moving into boat-building,
Billy was a car guy. The biggest adjustment for him in sailing the Hoot is
realizing that, unlike a car, you want to keep the shiny side down.
Deborah Service is responsible for the office operations of Kidder Racing. She is a very accomplished artist and lends her keen esthetic eye to everything we do particularly when the boys are trying to pick colors.
Designers
Chris Maas is the chief designer of the Hoot. Chris is the founder of the Maas Boat Company and a long time sailor. Chris's sailing experience started with being US singlehanded youth champion and time spent racing International Canoes, Lasers and a few painful years in Finns. After burning out young as a sailor and turning to boat building as a career, Chris has returned to competitive sailing as the current Hoot World Champion after beating Doug soundly in a couple of races.
Bill Hansen is the founder and chief designer for Windwing sails -- a leading sailboard and kite sail company. Bill has been designing sails since the early days of windsurfers and was the leader in such innovations as the fully battened windsurfer sail (that was a while ago) and the power head. Bill is continually innovating both windsurfer and kite sails.
