{"id":3268,"date":"2014-08-10T12:44:44","date_gmt":"2014-08-10T12:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=3268"},"modified":"2014-08-10T19:37:36","modified_gmt":"2014-08-10T19:37:36","slug":"visiting-the-wizard-in-bristol-ri-that-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=3268","title":{"rendered":"Visiting the Wizard. In Bristol, RI that is."},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Sunday morning and we are anchored in Newport harbor where we will be for the next few days.\u00a0 Yesterday we motored down from Bristol into a light SW breeze, an easy run of about 10 miles.\u00a0\u00a0 It was remarkable to see how many boats were out on a perfect Saturday afternoon for a sail. I would guess that there were literally hundreds of white sails dotting the water.\u00a0 And, the boats that weren’t out on the bay were motoring around the harbor.\u00a0 What a busy place. However, in spite of the crowded harbor, we were able to find a place to drop the hook for the night.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Along the way we were passed by the sole remaining member of the NY 50 class, Spartan, built by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, a boat builder from Bristol that dominated the yachting scene from the mid 1800s through the 1930s.\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>Spartan, was rebuilt over several years in a no expense spared restoration.\u00a0 I had seen her at the Wooden Boat Show at Mystic several years ago when she was fresh from her rebuild.\u00a0 Yesterday she sailed by us with topsail flying.\u00a0 Imagine a 70+ foot long daysailer.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, she has some bunks down below but it\u2019s not a big boat inside.\u00a0 What a sight to see the huge sails billowing in the light wind. \"\"<\/a>It was fitting that we should see Spartan as we left Bristol where we had been the prior day with the Essex Yacht Club cruise as we had visited the yard where she was built, the Herreshoff company closed in the 40s and now lives on as a museum dedicated to the many yachts that the yard turned out.\u00a0 The museum has an impressive collection of boats built there.\u00a0 In particular, they display the half models of nearly every design that the yard developed, some built and some just ideas of yachts he’d have liked to build.\u00a0 Nat Herreshoff the dominant force at the yard for many years and a brilliant designer, was dubbed the \u201cWizard of Bristol\u201d and was sought after by many yachtsmen of great wealth to have him design and build yachts for them.\u00a0 The yard was a dominant force in the early America\u2019s Cup yachts turning out many winners.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nat\u2019s designs were done first as half models which he carved out of wood and then they were measured\u00a0 and the lines taken off so that a proper set of builder\u2019s plans could be drawn and it was from these plans that the actual yachts were built.\u00a0\u00a0 The museum has a remarkable set of these half models on display.\u00a0 There are a lot of them representing every yacht that the yard turned out throughout their rich history. \u00a0The walls were just covered by them.\u00a0\"\"<\/a>The tour was particularly interesting as we had an expert guiding us and giving us interesting anecdotes along the way. \u00a0\"\"<\/a>They even did some work for the US government during the two world wars including the hulls design and construction of some flying boats.\u00a0 In particular, the NC4 which was the first plane to fly across the Atlantic, albeit with stops for fuel along the way.\u00a0 This is a particularly nice model of the design, if a bit blurry.\"\"<\/a><\/span>And, it appears that the Navy did this short movie of the historic flight. I haven’t watched it though as I don’t want to burn up bandwidth. \u00a0I hope it’s good.
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