The View from the Helm

The long awaited launch was yesterday. She is as close to perfect as any design I have ever had a hand in. She’s much stiffer than a centerboard Alerion and sails like a dream in light airs with a feather-light helm. Thanks, Nat Herreshoff- my part in it was minor.

French & Webb’s Herreshoff Alerion/Sadie adaptation has emerged from the shop.

She’ll be rigged today and we plan to sail her this afternoon. Exciting!

Here’s a coupla photos of recent progress on the F&W 27.

Here’s a sailplan of French & Webb’s Nat Herreshoff designed SADIE with her Paine designed fixed keel. Stop by and see her- she’s a real beauty!

I will be giving an illustrated presentation at Boothbay Harbor (Maine) Yacht Club on June 15. Also at NYYC (NYC) in November. In getting ready for my talk I unearthed this photo of me in the late 1970s carving a half model. Even after we were using computers to design our hulls I insisted upon carving a half model. It was slow, and tedious, but I felt that it enabled me to perfect the shape, so I did it and convinced the client to pay for it. It worked- the boats performed beautifully and looked good.

Much progress on French and Webb’s full-keel SADIE adaptation. The keel is installed, the transom ready for finishing and the cockpit coamings in place. The owner has substituted an incised cove stripe for the Herreshoff sculpted wale. This will be a Herreshoff Alerion/Sadie brought up to date with 21st century expectations.

My friend and former employee Mark Fitzgerald fell behind building his 27-foot custom cold-molded sport fisherman, so he asked me to come in and do some boat carpentry. Here I am with one of the matched “wing posts” I’ve been fashioning that will hold up the hardtop. One thing for sure, this manual labor is hard work for a 70- year old!

French and Webb hired me to convert Nat Herreshoff’s “Sadie” design to a computer-lofted set of hull lines, and to design a new, fixed keel to make her more stable. Yesterday the ballast, weighing exactly as predicted and fitting beautifully, was fitted to the hull. The deadwood, built in advance from the computer lofting, is waiting at the left and will go on next. Don’t worry… that ugly fairing at the sheer will soon give way to a lovely gold-leaf cove stripe, and the transom will get a varnished mahogany overlay.

AMELIA, our custom WEST System cold molded PAINE 14 demonstrator, is for sale! Built at a cost of over $80,000, she would cost over $100,000 to reproduce today. She is in sparkling new condition, and would make a great boat for you to store on the boat deck of your motoryacht, or hang from your boat-lift for use in a Florida canal. She comes with carbon fiber mast, custom fitted galvanized trailer, and every conceivable option. She is probably the most beautiful and finest constructed yacht in America today at anything near her size. Significant price concession for the right purchaser.

Painted from memory of sailing transatlantic on BURGOO in 1966, when I was 21 years old. With that big spinnaker, that sucker would roll!

See this and more at:

http://www.painefineart.com/