Atlantic 1905

Hand-crafted plank-on-frame wood hull with black topsides, gold cove stripe . Varnished stained wood hull.

Hull size: 60cm.

Board size: 75cm X20cm

With over 2000 hulls built, Nathanael Greene Herreshoff’s 1914 design for a “Buzzards Bay Boys Boat” – the Herreshoff 12 ½ – has been in production for 113 years and is likely the most popular small yacht ever. Versions include a fiberglass redesign – the Bullseye, from Cape Cod Shipbuilding; exact fiberglass replicas like William Harding’s Doughdish, and Joel White’s Haven 12 ½ – a centerboard design built to sail shallower water. Uncounted copies from custom wooden boat builders also testify to its appeal.

With a 12 ½ foot waterline, the H 12 ½ is16 feet long. Proposed as a children’s training boat, it handled the choppy seas and brisk breezes of Massachusetts’ Buzzards Bay with an easy motion and a comforting sense of security. The design is informed by Captain Nat’s critical, innovative eye and long experience building trophy winning sailing yachts. By 1914 he was in his mid-sixties and drawing some of his best-loved designs – the Buzzards Bay 25s, Newport 29s and his own Alerion. Instead of rule-stretching high speed sleds his pen now drew human sized, sweet-sailing and uncomplicated boats that spoke of his deep appreciation for the arts of sailing and naval design.

Herreshoff gave the H 12 ½ a short ballast keel for stability and a deep, spacious cockpit to carry multiple kids and/or adults. Sold initially with a gaff and later with a Marconi rig, the sail area is small enough to be handily managed by a boy or girl – steel biceps not required. In experienced hands, however, the rig is big enough to slip along with a bit of a bone in her teeth. Adults have been known to downsize from trophy yacht to H 12 ½ just to relish casual sunset sailing into their golden years. It’s ironic that no one alive sailed on Captain Nat’s masterpiece, Reliance – a brilliantly engineered, extreme racer – but thousands have memories of sailing his “children’s” boat.

Particularly popular in Southern New England, H 12 ½ s are found all along North America’s Atlantic coast. In some families they’re handed down through generations, and rarely is one in need of repair not rescued and relaunched. Surprisingly, they have also traveled quite far afield: they sail in Norway, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and many countries far from Bristol, RI. The H 12 ½ truly has a hull shape and history for the ages.

Jeff Silva

Designed by William Gardner, Launched 1903 in New-York. At the Turn of the Century, royalty dominated luxury yachting, and races were organized for the pleasure of the wealthiest yacht-owners. In 1905, 11 yachts are invited in Europe to race the Kaiser's Cup, offered by the German Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Among these luxury yachts, there was a three masted steam schooner Atlantic, 185' long and owned by Wilson Marshall, who would enter the legend of boating forever. Driven to the potential of her lean hull form and 18,500 square feet of sail by Captain Charlie Barr, on the seventh day of racing she logged a staggering 341 nautical miles . When she passed the warship marking the finish, she had crossed the ocean in 12 days, 4 hours, 1 minute and 19 seconds. This record would stand for more than 50 years!

Her second owner was Cornelius Vanderbilt. She lasted into the late 1970s. Too big and costly to properly maintain, she sank at her last mooring in tidewater Virginia. In 1997, the New-York Yacht Club hosted the Atlantic Challenge, race for large cruising yachts in Atlantic's memory.