DESIGN COMMENTS: What makes the Herreshoff S-Boat unique? It's the oldest one-design class still actively racing and sailing in its original boats, now in their 86th season.
S-Boat owners make up a roster of the best-known yachting names of their time: Nathaniel F. Ayer, Paul Hammond (who was the ringleader in getting them designed), Charles Francis Adams, Philip J. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the brothers H.S. and J.S. Morgan, Ralph Ellis, Swede Whiton and, more recently, Bob Bavier, Warner Wilcox, Bob McCullough, Everett Pearson, Milton Ernstoff, Geoff Spranger and Halsey Herreshoff. There's also one non-yachting but crusty name--General George Patton, who owned Spinddrift from 1931-1935. His wife raced it with the Manchester YC at Marblehead, Mass. Patton is said never to have set foot in it.
The look of the S-Boat under sail is pure Herreshoff--fine, almost elegantly refined, hard-driving and powerful. She builds up speed quickly; five knots close-hauled in a 10-knot breeze is common. In many ways, the S-Boat anticipated modern yacht design. The rig looks old-fashioned, with running backstays, a boom extending beyond the transom, and 426 sq. ft. of sail. But the high ratio of sail area to wetted surface, the short, deep, heavy keel (3,350 lb.), the slack bilges, the mast curvature, an advanced hull shape--particularly the cropped stern and spoon bow--are features much in tune with the present.
Captain Nat's grandson, Halsey Herreshoff, himself a designer and builder of yachts, and a former S-Boat owner is reported to have said this some time ago::
"I'm sure that Capt.. Nat wanted to make the s-boat both easily driven and powerful. They have the great big rigs to make them good for light air, yet they have a lot of keel and a hull shape to make them very stable in heavy air. They've worked out to be great for the strong southwest wind we get in Narragansett Bay and for Long Island Sound's relatively lighter air."
The only change to the design was a slight ballast touch-up after the first 1920 season. Capt. Nat added slightly to the bottom of the keel, which made it a trifle deeper and begin a little more forward than originally."
The short, deep, efficiently-shaped keel gives the S-Boat good stability and good lateral force in the water, without a particularly large wetted surface. Halsey considers this choice of keel for the S-Boat somewhat early for the time. "She was designed in an era when the underbodies of the boats were typically longer fore and aft, with much more area," he says. "In that way, as in many others, she was an advanced boat."
If Halsey Herreshoff were to redesign the S-Boat today, what would he change? Says he: "I don't think I'd change a thing! The best thing you could do would be to leave it alone."
(The foregoing is an excerpt from "The S Boat at 60" By Susan Buck, A tribute to a one-design class whose original boats are still racing.)
In addition to our new "S" boat, we offer the Beetle and Marshall 18 catboats, the Schooner Bluenose in two sizes, the three masted schooner Wawona, the Herreshoff 12.5 Doughboy, a Friendship sloop, Schooners America, and Adventuress, two Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks, J Class Rainbow, Endeavour, Shamrock and Enterprise, the also S & S DORADE and the New Odyssey, a classic 1920 Motor Yacht, and the New Garwood Speedster. Please inquire about our half-hull collection or tell us which ones you'd like to see at auction.
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