Master designer – Part I


John Rousmaniere, New York Yacht Club historian, offers insights into Nat Herreshoff’s accolade as ‘the world’s most successful yacht designer... ever’


Of all the sailors and designers and boat- builders and riggers, and all the other leaders in the long history of our pastime – from King Charles II, winner of the first yacht race in 1661, all the way to Pete Burling – has any sailor been as widely known and honoured as Nathanael Greene Herreshoff? Known both as ‘Captain Nat’ for his


38 SEAHORSE


commanding presence and ‘the Wizard of Bristol’ for his brains and his lifelong home town in Rhode Island, during his long career from the 1860s until his retirement nearly 100 years ago he remains the world’s most successful yacht designer. The designer of the winners of six America’s Cup matches and also of many classics still sailing today, he created both a new way of looking at boats and an extremely influ- ential approach to technology. Here is the man who introduced yachting to the Industrial Revolution. A member of a family who had emi-


grated to America from Prussia in the early 1800s and settled in Bristol, Rhode Island, in his youth he sailed often and was so fascinated by boats that he decided to design and build them. This in itself hardly makes him unique, but his way of going about it was noteworthy. Having the itch myself when I was young, I made a point of enquiring of established yacht designers, ‘What would you advise someone who is considering becoming a yacht designer?’ The first person I asked was L Francis


Herreshoff, one of Captain Nat’s two sons who took up the trade, and the author of several entrancing and often romantic books about it. His reply to my letter was this: ‘I should advise him to attend art school and learn about proportion.’ That was no surprise; this Herreshoff


was famous for his love of pretty sheer lines and artistic mast rake. I kept asking my question until one day I had a very different response that put me off the track entirely. Jim McCurdy, of McCurdy & Rhodes, looked me in the eye and told me, ‘I should advise him to have a good, long talk with his financial advisor.’ With that I became determined to enter some other trade with a better record for economic success, yet still I somehow stumbled in trying to write for a living. Nat Herreshoff knew what he wanted


to do, which was to build things. Born in 1848 on the family farm in Bristol, Rhode Island, near the shore of Narragansett Bay, unlike his son he set out to be technically trained – to build engines and ships in one of that profession’s greatest boom times.


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