Customer Reviews

Capt. Nat Herreshoff: The Wizard of Bristol : The Life and Achievements of Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, Together With an Account of Some of the Yachts He Designed

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This book gives a very good overall story of the designs N.G. created and also tells the story of the Herreshoff Mfg. Co. Part of me wishes the book went into more detail on some of the designs but that book would be ten times as large. Overall this book presents Captn. Nat's live from beginning to end and gives a very interesting view into a time long since past.

This book is a reprint of the classic 1953 edition. It reads as though it was written some years before that.

Capt. Nat was one of the preeminent yacht designers from the late 1800's to about 1920. He and his shipyard built a lot of the more famous racing yachts of the time. This included some that he designed for the successful defense of the America's Cup.

Part of the interest in this book is that these boats were being designed at a time long before computers came on the scene. Capt. Nat first made a small sketch of the boat. Then he built a half hull model. He had a machine of his own design that would then trace along the model at prescribed intervals and draw the lines of the boat.

Of coure, in these days, all the boats were wooden or steel. The exotic material of todays boats had not been invented.

This is interesting reading from a time long past.