Half Models Continued
which was always a favorite pastime for me, but the accuracy and
consistency of CNC machining simply cannot be matched. If there
is a particular classic design you would be interested in having a
model of, please don’t hesitate to call. They will be finished to the
same exceptional standard as our full-sized boats, using the same
products and applied by the same finishers.
A PROPO S A L
Captain Nat Herreshoff designed ALERION III for himself in 1912 as a retirement boat for his winter vacations in Bermuda.
The original ALERION III was a keel/centerboard boat, but in 1914 he added a full-keel to the half-model to create the larger
Newport 29. In the 1970s, his son Sidney DeWolf Herreshoff used that same full keel configuration for the smaller Alerion 26 in
fiberglass. What strikes me is that, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet built a full-keel version of ALERION III at her
original scale. The result would be a comfortable daysailer/weekender with ample room for a self-bailing cockpit and diesel
or electric auxiliary propulsion.
The concept so intrigued me that I asked Barrington, RI, naval architect Matthew Smith to sketch it up. The added bonus, as you
can see in the rendering, is that the full-keel Alerion will fit neatly into a standard shipping container.
Full Keel
Alerion proposal
by Matthew
Smith Naval
Architecture
CENT E NA RIAN
In the summer 1913, Wianno Yacht Club member Fritz P. Day commissioned local boatbuilder H. Manley
Crosby to design “a fast, handy, handsome, seaworthy, rugged, shoal-draft knockabout, appropriate for the
notoriously shallow and choppy waters of Nantucket Sound.”
The first fourteen boats, measuring 25' on deck, 17' 6" on the water, and weighing 4,500 lbs, were delivered
in the spring of 1914 at a cost of $600 apiece. Those boats are 100 years old this year, and since their debut
in 1914, about 150 more WIANNO SENIORS have been built, the last wooden one launched in 1976. When
we judge the success of a design there are many factors to consider, but at the end of the day, when wooden
boats like the Wianno Senior and Herreshoff S-boat are still actively raced after so many years, these surely
have earned the ultimate testament. I wonder which modern-day one-design sailboats of fiberglass will be
racing 100 years from now?
There has been much excitement surrounding this 100th anniversary, which will be celebrated July 25th
through the 27th. Many old Wiannos have been pulled out of retirement for one last race, and several
others have been completely rebuilt for F