RudderPosts

A Ketch from John Alden

A Sloop From Martin Erismann

Martin Erismann was a Glasgow-trained naval architect who practiced on both the US East and West Coasts. He was sort fo a proto-Howard Chapelle, for he had a major interest in documenting disappearing working craft. Indeed, he built a copy of a Block Island Cowhorn, called ROARING BESSIE, that he sailed for pleasure on Massachusetts Bay. The copy was based on an original orkboat, LENA M, that he had purchased with the intent of restoring, but the boat was too far gone for that.
    The following pages from The Rudder emerged from the WoodenBoat desginer archives recently during a search of Erismann's file. This captivating little yawl, a 24-footer, would be the perfect vehicle for weekend explorations of Eggemoggin Reach.

 

Designer Archives

Here at WoodenBoat, we're lucky to have in our library nearly complete sets of The Rudder and Yachting magazines. These publications are treasure troves of boat history, and include beautiful cruising narratives, informative technical articles, and engrossing design reviews. Those design reviews are so engrossing, in fact, that we have many of them photocopied and filed by designer name. So, you can open a drawer and pull the file for, say, John G. Alden, and review the study plans and commentary for any of his boats ever published in those two magazines.
    We thought it would be nice to share some fo those with you, so we're going to begin an informal program here: a new category on this blog called "The Designer Archives." I've had B.B. Crowninshiled on my mind lately, as we'll be publishing an article in May about a new boat built to one of his designs. So, we lead off with B.B. Crowninshield:

From The Rudder, April 1916