herreshoff fish class sailboat

Preview: Fine Boat Designs – The Herreshoff Fish Class

I ‘m sure that N.G Herreshoff (NGH) realized he’d created something pretty special when he finished carving this half model in 1914, for it was quite unlike any he’d carved before and supremely beautiful as well. From it, the Herreshoff Mfg. Co. built around 40 Fish class sloops at 20’9″ in overall length and nearly ten times that number of the better-known 12-1/2 footers.

NGH lived to see this design flourish, but he didn’t live to know of its longevity. Now, a century later, about half the Fish boats and two thirds of the 12-1/2s stillsurvive—and replicas, variations, and derivatives are still being turned out in significant numbers.

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16 Responses So Far to “ Fine Boat Designs – The Herreshoff Fish Class ”

David and Margaret Tew says:

The $100K figure for a new build may be out of date now. Here’s the Herreshoff 20 INTENT, slightly smaller, built by a superb craftsman who doesn’t waste motion. https://classicboatshow.com/classified/20-herreshoff-design-204-2015-intent/

A video of the H-20 INTENT under sail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9kJJ4Wm7vE

Peter Strock says:

See my note of April 2020. I restored a Fish/Marlin in about 1970. Hart Museum made available all the drawings, including scantlings, yard book, and designs for fittings. I did extend the ‘cabin’ back one or two frames which made her perfect for single-handed L.Francis type cruising: “Simplicity afloat…” We bruised serious water from Block Island to Nantucket and she never failed to bring me home. Or to put a smile on my face when she bent to the task at hand, whether shooting a mooring or dealing with a smokey So’Wester. . A few more feet would be nice, comfortable even, but she is more than adequate for 1-2 people SIMPLE cruising. But then a cedar bucket is no longer permitted is it?

To add to my note of 2020:

My first boat was a Marlin: “cruising version” of a Fish. Bought at auction on the hard at Aucoot Cove in Narragansett Bay. Currently in Woods Hole owned by Jim Newman. Fish plans are available from Hart Museum at MIT, although they make it hard to get a set.

Leigh Besson says:

Do you know of a source for plans for a half model? Thank you, Leigh

John Holscher says:

Anyone familiar with the Golden Era Petrel? A fiberglass boat allegedly based on the fish class. I’ve seen a couple for sale for a lot less than $100K.

Charles Zimmermann says:

The first batch of Model T Fords were sold in 1909 for $825 each. See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_T_Ford . If we adjust the Fish price for overall inflation then a new Fish should cost around $25,000 which would be real “value for money” in my opinion. However if you look at market prices for Folkboats by searching Yachtworld you can get a good used boat for $20,000. So $100,000 looks very expensive. Could the Fish be produced at lower cost by a company such as Cabo Rico? See http://www.caborico.com/aboutus/index.html . It’s such a beautiful hull – and seaworthy – why don’t we have more of these boats?

Maynard Bray says:

Hi Charles, We’re estimating about 1,500 man-hours to build a Fish boat. Labor rates at $50 to $60 per hour get you to $75,000 or $90,000. Then there are the materials: wood, fittings, lead ballast keel, sails and rigging. Add these and it reaches $100,000, at least. If a “factory” like Herreshoff Mfg. Co. were turning Fish boats out like Fords, the costs could be reduced some, but I doubt if it could ever get down to $25,000. New boats of any material, if well built, are expensive. These days, used wooden boats are a real bargain.

Charles Whitin says:

I have sailed aboard a Fish named “Sea Robin” owned by N.T. Long out of Sakonnet Point for many years. Even in a ‘Smokey’ Sou’wester in mid-summer on Buzzard’s Bay, her helm was light as a feather. The boat, like every Herreshoff design, draws comment and admiration in every harbor. What is wonderful about sailing “Sea Robin” is that it places you literally a century earlier, while making a passage to or from Cuttyhunk into an time-warp, and a potentially epic voyage instead of an everyday sail.

Nat Wilson says:

My Fish Class enters her 99th year. I have owned her for forty of those years. Mostly original. No carbon, motor, just tide, wood, wind ,rope and wire. She always found her way home safely. Sporting her original gaff sail plan and leaking a little in the press of wind. Congratulations to Off Center Harbor and the 250th video. It has inspired me to get out the sand paper, varnish and go to work. Nat Wilson

Bruce Sinclair says:

Nat, I surely hope you do!

Craig Humphrey says:

Are there used Fish class boats available for less than the $100,000 price tag? I like the 12 1/2, and the Fish class has more to offer for the obvious reason that there is more boat and more room in the cockpit.

The very best source for Fish boat information is Steve Nagy’s Herreshoff Registry, which you can view by Googling. In it, each and every Fish boat is listed along with its present owner and whereabouts. I don’t know of any for sale offhand, but Artisan Boat Works has one that’s in need of a complete restoration.

David Coons says:

What would someone have paid for a Fish Class in 1916? And today?

The first batch cost $875 each; the price then rose to $925, then $1,750 and finally to $1,900 in 1925. The Marlin cruisers of 1937-38 went for about the same. These days a new Fish boat I expect would be well over $100,000.

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Series Small Boats Annual 2007

The Flatfish

An inspired daysailer

From Issue   Small Boats Annual 2007

E very sailor has his own vision of the perfect daysailer. For many, this ideal boat is based on the Herreshoff 12 1⁄2, Nathanael G. Herreshoff’s iconic daysailer, which debuted in the summer of 1915. For others, it’s the larger Fish class or the still-larger Alerion—two more masterworks from the hand of Herreshoff. These boats have been the subject of imitation and interpretation ever since they hit the water over 100 years ago. The Flatfish, designed in the early 1990s, is Joel White’s version of Herreshoff’s Fish.

In 1992, I was looking for a boat to build for my parents, then in their late 60s. They weren’t going cruising anymore, so I was looking for their perfect daysailer. The boat had to be big enough so that they wouldn’t get physically knocked around, and it had to be trailerable. My folks wanted something they could sail on the Hudson and take to both Maine and the Chesapeake. As with any daysailer, the destination becomes less important while the experience of sailing grows. In other words, she had to look good and perform well.

Picking a boat is always a balance of beauty, performance, cost, and, in this case, opportunity. A conversation with Maynard Bray, WoodenBoat magazine’s technical editor, led to an offer to build the first Flatfish, a design project he was working on with Joel White. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. The boat sounded perfect for my parents’ requirements, and I thought I could build it in a year of half-time work.

Flatfish is Joel White’s adaptation of Nathanael G. Herreshoff’s century-old Fish-class sloop. The Fish class is a keelboat; the principal modification in the Flatfish is the addition of a centerboard—and the subtraction of some draft. The boat pictured above and on the opposite page was built by Chip Flanagan of Portland, Maine, who’s at the helm.

When I first spoke with him, Joel had just done the initial drawings. Joel’s objective was to make the Fish trailerable, while retaining all the wonderful qualities of the original. Designed toward the end of Joel’s career, the Flatfish incorporates his experience as a leading builder and designer, and “does no harm” to Herreshoff’s design. The result is a boat with elegant looks. Every curve is right. A few inches over 20′ long, she’s big enough to sail comfortably with six people, but small enough to be easily singlehanded. With a gaff main and a club jib, her simple sloop rig tacks with one move of the tiller and the change of a running backstay. The hull is heavy enough to stand up to a stiff breeze or to carry its way through flat spots and shoot directly into the wind up to a mooring. It’s also slippery enough to accelerate quickly and outpace most boats under 30′, and with the cockpit close to the water there’s a real feeling of speed.

The Flatfish is Joel White’s second direct interpretation of N.G. Herreshoff’s classic hull shape. The first, the Haven 12 1⁄2, has been built by hundreds of professional and amateur builders—my shop included. Shallower and broader than Herreshoff’s originals, both of White’s designs use a keel-centerboard arrangement to maintain performance while making the boats trailerable. There are differences between the Haven and the Flatfish, especially in accommodations, building time, and hull speed. The larger boat comfortably accommodates two more people, and the cuddy cabin allows for stowage and the possibility of a porta-potti. In use, the dockage and launching fees for the Flatfish will be higher. She’s trailerable, but not easily launched at a ramp. She really needs a lift to launch and some mechanical advantage to step the mast. Once rigged, both boats require the same work to get underway.

The building process of the two boats is almost identical and is well documented in Maynard Bray’s book Building the Haven 12 1⁄2. That said, the Flatfish is a lot more boat to build than the Haven. There’s more of everything— building molds, planks, frames, deckbeams. There’s also the cuddy cabin. Comparing the displacement of the hulls minus the ballast, one of White’s own cost-estimating techniques, provides a good indicator of the relative work involved in building the two boats. The Flatfish weighs 1,300 lbs compared to the Haven’s 800 lbs—a factor of 1.625. I found this ratio to be even a little low when applying it to building hours. The time required to build a Flatfish is closer to double that for a Haven, probably because the shorter boat can utilize more one-piece planks and smaller stock. Both the Haven and the Flatfish are designed to be built using the Herreshoff method, which involves one mold for each steamed frame. It’s a lot of work for a single boat, but it makes for a very fair hull and certainly works well for a production boat. It also makes a boat that lasts. There are many hundred-year-old Herreshoffs still sailing. This boat requires 22 molds for the Herreshoff method, while it probably take less than half that number for a conventionally planked carvel hull.

On the water the Haven is evenly matched with its sibling Herreshoff 12 1⁄2. Joel wasn’t able to achieve the same parity with the larger boats. The Flatfish is slightly faster than the Fish. We proved this by match-racing my folks’ Flatfish with an original Fish. Both had new sails and the better helmsman was in the Fish, yet the Flatfish just slightly outpaced the original. (I think the centerboard is the culprit, providing better windward ability.) The profiles of the boats are very similar; there’s a slight difference in the run aft. The real difference is the Flatfish’s broader beam. It’s especially noticeable when the two boats are side by side, on shore or in the water.

Another design goal was to make the boat trailerable for easy transport and storage. My parents’ boat has logged several thousand miles on its trailer. The hull seems no worse for the wear. She also has spent every winter stored in the backyard under a temporary garage. Having her at home allows for convenient maintenance and really makes the boat a part of the family.

An original Herreshoff Fish, SHARK, near Noank, Connnecticut. The Fish is narrower and deeper than the Flatfish; the greater beam of the Flatfish compensates for the reduced stability caused by the newer design’s shallower keel.

The boat sails wonderfully well with its gaff rig. She points well, has real power on anything close to a reach, and has low heeling moment. White also drew a marconi rig, but I have no experience with it.

Almost ten years of sailing has exposed only one design flaw: We haven’t found a good way to add an outboard or other auxiliary power, aside from an oar. The transom rake is the main culprit. Electric motors can accommodate the rake, but they lack enough power to punch the boat into a real breeze. Side-mount brackets allow for a gas motor, but the motor swamps when the boat rolls. The stern-mount bracket used on the fiberglass 12 1⁄2 s built by Cape Cod Shipbuilding also tends to dunk the motor in any sort of sea. With all solutions, the motor needs to be removed for sailing and stored in the boat; otherwise, it fouls the mainsheets. Cutting an outboard well into the bottom planking has also been tried, but it’s very intrusive and it slows the boat. The best solution is just to sail off a mooring, plan well, and pay attention to wind and tide.

With the Flatfish design, Joel White followed the engineer’s maxim of not putting one extra piece of wood in the boat, and the designer’s rule of not placing one extra line on the drawing. The design does everything it’s supposed to do: It provides a sweet-lined, capable, transportable boat.

I’d certainly like to live in a house on a rock-lined coast with my boat on a mooring that I can see from my back window. I don’t. This boat’s combination of trailerability, good sailing qualities, and classic elegance (along with rental cottages) makes that world accessible. It’s a wonderful boat to sail off a mooring on the morning’s outgoing tide, take a picnic lunch, and catch the incoming tide as the breeze dies at the end of the day.

Aficionados of the Herrehsoff 12 1⁄2 and the Haven 12 1⁄2 will recognize these boats in the Flatfish’s lines and sailplan (just as the Flatfish is a modification of the original Herreshoff Fish, the smaller Haven is a modification of the 12 1⁄2 ). The Flatfish is trailerable, but most sailors will want to use a Travelift to move the boat onto a trailer.

Boat plans are available from The WoodenBoat Store , P.O. Box 78, Brooklin, ME 04616; 800–273–7447.

Is there a boat you’d like to know more about? Have you built one that you think other  Small Boats Magazine  readers would enjoy? Please  email  us!

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Comments (2)

I don’t understand why this wonderful boat should not be fitted with an electric motor. There are at least three equally good solutions. A shaft drive with a shaft shifted to one side. A pod drive also situated asymmetrically. The third would be to integrate a pod drive into the rudder. This has been done for a Folkeboat. All three solutions would come with a folding prop.

I haven’t sailed a Flatfish, but having taught adult sailing classes in a Fish class out out the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol, RI, if the Flatfish sails half as well as the Fish it will be a phenomenal sailing craft. The Fish class is surprisingly nimble, while at the same time being stable and easy to sail. A stellar sailing boat.

I will add the Flatfish to boats I may someday think about building.

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• Sailboat Guide

Herreshoff Marlin

Herreshoff Marlin is a 20 ′ 8 ″ / 6.3 m monohull sailboat designed by Nathaniel G. Herreshoff and built by Herreshoff Mfg. Co. between 1937 and 1938.

Rig and Sails

Auxilary power, accomodations, calculations.

The theoretical maximum speed that a displacement hull can move efficiently through the water is determined by it's waterline length and displacement. It may be unable to reach this speed if the boat is underpowered or heavily loaded, though it may exceed this speed given enough power. Read more.

Classic hull speed formula:

Hull Speed = 1.34 x √LWL

Max Speed/Length ratio = 8.26 ÷ Displacement/Length ratio .311 Hull Speed = Max Speed/Length ratio x √LWL

Sail Area / Displacement Ratio

A measure of the power of the sails relative to the weight of the boat. The higher the number, the higher the performance, but the harder the boat will be to handle. This ratio is a "non-dimensional" value that facilitates comparisons between boats of different types and sizes. Read more.

SA/D = SA ÷ (D ÷ 64) 2/3

• SA : Sail area in square feet, derived by adding the mainsail area to 100% of the foretriangle area (the lateral area above the deck between the mast and the forestay).
• D : Displacement in pounds.

Ballast / Displacement Ratio

A measure of the stability of a boat's hull that suggests how well a monohull will stand up to its sails. The ballast displacement ratio indicates how much of the weight of a boat is placed for maximum stability against capsizing and is an indicator of stiffness and resistance to capsize.

Ballast / Displacement * 100

Displacement / Length Ratio

A measure of the weight of the boat relative to it's length at the waterline. The higher a boat’s D/L ratio, the more easily it will carry a load and the more comfortable its motion will be. The lower a boat's ratio is, the less power it takes to drive the boat to its nominal hull speed or beyond. Read more.

D/L = (D ÷ 2240) ÷ (0.01 x LWL)³

• D: Displacement of the boat in pounds.
• LWL: Waterline length in feet

Comfort Ratio

This ratio assess how quickly and abruptly a boat’s hull reacts to waves in a significant seaway, these being the elements of a boat’s motion most likely to cause seasickness. Read more.

Comfort ratio = D ÷ (.65 x (.7 LWL + .3 LOA) x Beam 1.33 )

• D: Displacement of the boat in pounds
• LOA: Length overall in feet
• Beam: Width of boat at the widest point in feet

Capsize Screening Formula

This formula attempts to indicate whether a given boat might be too wide and light to readily right itself after being overturned in extreme conditions. Read more.

CSV = Beam ÷ ³√(D / 64)

Same hull as the FISH Class but with a cuddy/cabin. At last account, all 4 original Marlins have survived into the 21’st century.

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