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The Herreshoff Manufacturing Co. |
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The Herreshoff Manufacturing Co. (1863-1945)
In 1878 John Brown Herreshoff, a blind boatbuilder from
Bristol, Rhode Island, who had been in business since 1863,
went into partnership with his younger brother, Nathanael
Green Herreshoff, a naval architect and steam engineer.
The name of their new firm was the Herreshoff Manufacturing
Company. The partnership was an immediate and lasting success.
The same love of competition and technological innovation
that had made J. B. and Nat almost unbeatable when as boys
they raced sailboats together on Narragansett Bay so brought
them fame as builders of some of the world's fastest steam
yachts and torpedo boats. From the first, the Herreshoff Mfg. Co.
was noted for the ingenuity and excellence of its designs,
its construction methods, its manufacturing and business
efficiency, and for its uncanny ability to create fast and
stylish boats. Although the Herreshoff brothers never lost
their love or mastery of steam engineering, it was as
producers of outstanding racing and cruising sailboats up
to 162 feet in overall length that the Company earned its
most enduring fame. Between 1893 and 1914, for the defense
of the America's Cup, Captain Nat designed and built seven
of the largest, most complex and powerful racing sloops
the world has ever known. Of these, five were selected
to sail as defenders, and all five were victorious. The
firm also launched many hundreds of custom designs, both
large and small, and a number of one-design classes (among
them Herreshoff J12'1/2- and 15-Footers, S boats, and
New York 30's, 40's, and 50's) that have never been bettered
for all-around sailing excitement and pleasure.
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