Sloop Envy

This is Siren. She's a New York 32, a class designed by Sparkman & Stephens and launched by Nevins in 1935. (The 32s replaced the aging Herreshoff-designed, gaff rigged, New York 30s, which are profiled in the current issue of WoodenBoat.)
   Peter Cassidy owns Siren, and has for the past several years. She was a yawl when he purchased her but, in a fit of sloop envy, he spent the past winter building a new mast for the boat. This is a recent photo, received this morning by e-mail, showing the newly stepped spar—which, according to the grapevine, is 1/4" taller than those of Peter's competiitors. Why? So Peter can look across the water at those other boats and mutter, "What a nice little mast.”
    Each summer, for a week or so, I sail on one of Siren's competitors, a NY 32 called FALCON and owned by Bob Scott of Castine, Maine. There's another 32 in Castine, GENTIAN, recently relaunched by the Rogers family there (with lots of help from Paul Rollins, who rebuilt the hull). It's an unfolding story, this New 32 thing. There's a fellow in Holland building a new one--from the bones of an old one--and there have been murmers of other potential new constructions and acquisitions. Stay tuned. And while you're staying tuned, you can learn more here at the site maintained by sloop-man Cassidy.