Ontario Yachts was founded by Dirk Kneulman Sr. and Maria Kneulman. Dirk Kneulman Sr. was born in 1922 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where he grew up learning to build wooden boats. He immigrated to Canada in 1950 and shortly after built his first Snipe. By 1961 Kneulman was building boats, mostly kayaks and dinghies, including Snipes and 5.5 metre boats, and Sitka sprucespars, and sail battens – all made from wood. After only a few years in the business, Ontario Yachts established a reputation for high-quality workmanship and soon Kneulman’s Snipes were sought after by North America’s top one-design racing sailors. Next, Dirk established a world-wide market for his dinghy, 6 Metre and Dragon masts. As Kneulman’s reputation as a boat builder grew, he began to build Olympic-class boats. In 1968, his penultimate year building Olympic boats, nine of his shop’s 5.5 Metreyachtsraced in the Mexico Olympics. Kneulman accompanied his fleet at these Olympics as a shipwrighton the shore support team to ensure his boats were properly tuned and repaired. One of these 5.5’s, owned by media magnateTed Turner, won a world championship in 1972. Kneulman was the Canadian Olympic Sailing Team shipwright in 1972 as well. In 1975, Kneulman began to build Etchells. Kneulman went to Dwyer Boats in Barrington, Rhode Island to learn fiberglass boat construction during a one week course. During the late 1960s and on through the mid 1980s, Ontario Yachts gained a reputation as a builder of quality fiberglass production boats. The first designs produced were the Viking 22 keelboat and the Albacore dinghy. Later designs intended for the cruising market included the C&C Yachts-designed Viking 28, Viking 33 and Ontario 32. The Bruce Kirby-designed Sonar was intended for the racing sailboat market. The company survived the early 1980s recession and the downturn in the fibreglass boat market by diversifying into other lines of fibreglass work. The company was noted as having built the fibreglass support for the pitcher's mound for the Toronto Skydome. Ontario Yachts is now run by Kneulman’s son, Dirk. The company continued in business through 2018 as a boat repair and refurbisher, as well as the North American manufacturer of the Etchells racing keelboat, a boat Ontario Yachts has been constructing as a licensed builder since 1975.
