Herreshoff New York 40 1926/2016

If the New York Yacht Club’s intention in 1916 was for a yacht that could cruise comfortably with a small crew and racing almost a secondary consideration, Nat Herreshoff’s genius nevertheless created in the New York 40 a yacht so tough, seaworthy, fast, and manoeuvrable, examples would eventually win two Bermuda Races in short order, and then another. Enough to earn the sobriquet, 'The Fighting Forties’. A classic piece of Americana coming up to her centenary, MARILEE is one of only five remaining examples of this strikingly good-looking class - like they’re doing 10 knots tied to the dock. This is an opportunity to own a boat recently restored with no budget ceiling, a fabulous fusion interior, both gaff and marconi rigs as designed by Herreshoff – and of a type that has enjoyed numerous clean sweeps of the Mediterranean in recent years.

Stewardship of MARILEE has been an honor and a pleasure. She turns heads wherever she sails for both her beauty and her racing performance.

Starting with her win of the King’s Cup for the Around the Island Race and her tie with RUGOSA II for 1st in her class at the Americas Cup Jubilee Regatta in Cowes in 2001, MARILEE’s fourth quarter century has largely been dedicated to racing, Initially in Europe and later the United States.

She races very well under both rigs having made the podium in numerous classic yacht regattas. Under her current owner she has made the podium in each of the last four years at the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta, the largest wooden boat regatta in the world (two 1sts and two 3rds even though she sailed each time with a “winners handicap”). MARILEE was also the Classic Yacht Owner’s Association Overall Vintage Yacht winner (2021), Maine District Vintage Yacht winner (2021 and 2022) and most recently winner of vintage yachts at the NYYC Annual Regatta (2024).

WINTERS 2014-2015; 2015-2016;
by French & Webb, Belfast, Maine, USA
- 75% New hull planking
- 3000 custom bronze fasteners
- Custom bronze stem fitting to house all fittings for gaff & Marconi rigs
- Mast step – new
- Floor frames x 8 – new
- Bronze chain plates – new
- Rudder & post – new
- Horn timber – rebuilt
- Engine moved aft
- New tanks – relocated
- Sheer clamps – new
- Deck beams – new
- New bronze strapping – high load areas
- Deck – new
- Transom – new
- Bronze knees new
- 10 x laminated oak knees – new
- New gaff and boom for gaff rig
- Marconi Rig - new
- Rebuilt wooden interior using the highest specification timber - refer to video

The shock of the new happens every few decades in yacht design and style; always has; always will. When the New York Yacht Club 40-Footers first appeared in spring 1916, the lovely curves, powerful beam, and relatively high topsides that make them so appealing to our eyes today - then created quite a stir. But Nathanael G. Herreshoff, 'The Wizard of Bristol', was only reeling-in over two decades of trends in American Yacht design that had leaned towards the G.L. Watson / William Fife III/ Charles E. Nicholson models in an effort to fend off the advancing technology of the British America’s Cup challenges of the 1890s and early 1900s. Herreshoff well knew how close the British America's Cup challengers had been to potentially winning - in particular, Watson’s tank and aerodynamically tested SHAMROCK II of 1901 - if they’d been sailed better. Or, perhaps, if they hadn’t to contend with one of their own at the helm of the defenders, Charlie Barr.

Tasked by New York Yacht Club in 1915 with creating a new, modern one design class for Long Island Sound and beyond, capable of being raced and cruised efficiently inshore and offshore by amateur owner-helms and crew with the minimum of professional assistance, Herreshoff came up with a fusion between the beamy, shallow American yachts of the past, and their narrower, deeper British contemporaries, with those topsides affording decent headroom below for longer periods afloat. The superb result - unfettered by any rating rule - is easy to see in MARILEE, and the reason, over a century later, why enthusiasts are prepared to invest in the survival of the remaining 'Fighting Forties' by restoration and use true to the original remit. MARILEE is one of the finest such examples.

The first twelve 59 ft New York 40s were built at Bristol RI over one winter, 1915-1916 - the Herreshoffs didn't call themselves a manufacturing company for nothing - and would enjoy only one season of competition before the United States entered the First World War in April 1917.

©2024 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

A special correspondent to the The New York Times wrote this about the first outing of the second boat launched, PAULINE, with none other than Nat Herreshoff - no holds barred - at the helm, daring his offspring to fail (which she, of course, did not):

"SLOOP PAULINE SAILS WELL."

"Nat Herreshoff Gives New 40-Footer a Spin Off Bristol."

"BRISTOL, R.I., April 25 [1916]. — Swinging full sail in a grayback southwester this afternoon the sloop PAULINE, the second of the New York Y.C. forty-foot class yachts launched at Herreshoff's, received a searching test today from Nat Herreshoff, the designer. PAULINE left her mooring with club topsail and jib topsail spread over lower sails, Herreshoff holding the wheel as the craft gathered headway and heeled gently under the impulse of the steady breeze.

"Passing Poppas Quash with the wind abeam, Herreshoff jammed the PAULINE sharp on the wind when she began to show gratifying speed. The sails were sweated up soon after the boat came to a close haul. The sloop behaved better in consequence, held a course very close to the wind, and legged it across Narragansett Bay in fine style to Sandy Point Light.

"Herreshoff manoeuvred the yacht to a reach without starting the mainsheet. A close search of the hull and tophamper for weak spots was made, but none was discovered.

"After a run up the bay to Providence Point the designer threw out more kinks by jibing with sheets aft. In each manoeuvre the PAULINE behaved finely and stood firmly to the breeze. It is doubtful if three professionals will be sufficient to handle these craft, which go in stays like machines."

Herreshoff Manufacturing Co. No. 955

Post-First World War racing for the New York Yacht Club's sponsored one-design classes re-commenced in 1920, with fierce competition through the 'Roaring Twenties' gaining the New York 40s the nickname, 'The Fighting Forties'. Class activity had always been split between Inner Long Island Sound in the west, and principally Marblehead, Massachusetts in the east where racing among New York 40s had already resumed in 1919.

MARILEE's first owner was Beverly Yacht Club (Marion, Massachusetts) member Edward Ignateous Cudahy (1880-1963), a legal publisher from Chicago with a family fortune background in the meat trade (Cudahy Packing Company) who summered at Marion. The name most probably comes from Edward Cudahy's daughter, Leonore Mary (1923-1992).

Cudahy was a return Herreshoff client, having taken delivery of the Buzzards Bay 15 MAUREEN in 1925. Why did he also commission MARILEE? Presumably he was looking for a much larger yacht with all the possibilities a New York 40 offered, including family cruising; perhaps he'd been exposed to them racing at Marion, and/or seen them wintering at the Herreshoff yard; in 1923 and 1924, Robert N. Bavier Sr. had endorsed the New York 40's all round qualities with back to back Bermuda Race victories at the helm of MEMORY (built as BLACK DUCK) - 1923 line honours, and 1924 both line honours and overall on corrected time; and the new, well connected owner of the Herreshoff yard, Rudolf F. Haffenreffer may have been touting for business. Whatever the reason, the Herreshoff yard built two more New York 40s during the winter of 1925-1926: MARILEE and RUGOSA II.

Press reports of Beverly Yacht club's August 1926 Race Week show MARILEE competing in a fleet of five New York 40s against:
- BANSHEE (ex PAULINE, Henry L. Maxwell, Larchmont, NY)
- COCKATOO (ex DOLLY BOWEN, Amory Coolidge, Marblehead, Mass)
- PAMPERO (Chandler Hovey, Marblehead, Mass)
- ROWDY (Holland S. Duell, Milton Point, NY)

It is commonly thought that 1926 and 1927 were the last seasons of the class, but this most probably refers to its endorsement as a New York Yacht Club class. Contemporary press reports confirm that class starts continued to be offered for The Forties throughout Long Island Sound and its extensions into the 1930s, when the Great Depression of course changed everything.

Edward Cudahy's wife Leonore - by accounts a more enthusiastic sailor than her husband - died aged only 44 in 1932 and MARILEE was sold to textiles entrepreneur and Eastern Yacht Club member C. Brooks Stevens. We presume it was he who commissioned the 1933 marconi rig design from the Herreshoff yard, and an auxiliary engine installation at the same time. Stevens owned MARILEE into old age, latterly at Gloucester, Mass. Subsequent owners from c.1950 into the 1960s were Loring Washburn, Greenwich, Conn, and Thos. B. Sutton, Larchmont.

From the late 1960s through early 2000, under a low aspect ratio CCA-Rule yawl rig fitted in 1955, MARILEE was berthed at Port Jefferson, north shore Long Island in the ownership of Alvin Bicker and family and attended the Herreshoff Marine Museum Rendezvous from its earliest, 1980s editions into the late 1990s.

In 2000 the lure of the 2001 America's Cup Jubilee Regatta at Cowes, England, attracted a syndicate of New York Yacht Club classic boat lovers to bring MARILEE back to life at Bill Cannell's quaint yard in the heart of the port of Camden, Maine. Shipped to England together with her 1926 sister, Halsey Herreshoff's RUGOSA, the two Fighting Forties dominated their class at that amazing event, and MARILEE then continued south to take in the autumn Mediterranean classic regattas.

MARILEE's subsequent, epic rebuild at Belfast, Maine by French & Webb with interior restyling design by Stephens & Waring is best followed in Alison Langley's excellent video here. She has since been enjoyed, showed off and successfully raced under both her original gaff and 1933 Herreshoff-designed marconi rigs.

MARILEE is one of the most special and recognisable classic yachts of our time.

©2024 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

- Double planked Douglas fir on oak timbers
- Oak longitudinal structure
- Laminated oak knees
- Bronze fastenings, strapping and chainplates
- Lead ballast keel
- Laid teak deck
- 3 x Port Orford cedar deck substrate

SUMMARY
- Teak laid deck with light gray caulking
- Varnished mahogany deck structures and toerail
- All bronze fittings

FROM AFT

- Runner and downwind sail sheet padeyes and tackles port and starboard
- Mainsheet horse, padeyes and tackles
- Herreshoff pattern mooring cleats port and starboard
- Lazarette/ navigator/ tactician/ trimmer hatch
- Small Herreshoff pattern cleats port and starboard
- Locust tiller
- Bronze self-tailing runner/ mainsheet winches port and starboard
- Well type cockpit
- Swept coaming, open aft
- Butterfly skylight over aft accommodation
- Herreshoff pattern springs mooring cleats port and starboard
- Bronze self-tailing sheet winches port and starboard
- Associated Herreshoff pattern cleats port and starboard
- Accommodation access house
- Butterfly skylight over mid accommodation
- Herreshoff pattern springs mooring cleats port and starboard
- Bronze self-tailing sheeting winch

MAST POSITION
- Bronze chainplates outboard
- Herreshoff cleats port and starboard

FOREDECK
- Bronze staysail boom sheeting horse and tackles
- Forehatch
- Bowsprit 'bitts' with bronze samson post

GROUND TACKLE
- Fortress FY-125 anchor
- Fortress FX-37 anchor
- Chain/Rode:
- 30ft 3⁄8 in / 9 mm galvanised chain
- 250ft of 1 3⁄8 in / 29 mm 8 plait nylon rode

"MARILEE’s [restoring] owner had the bold vision to create an interior that reflected the yacht’s century-long provenance while creating an open space below.... It became clear from comparing plans that ever since the inception of the class, the interior space has been personal to each owner. In fact, Herreshoff designed many different layouts to accommodate the widely varied preferences of each NY40 owner. With this in mind, MARILEE’s restoration team set out to create a fresh, innovative space. The team worked with Paul Waring of Stephens Waring Yacht Design to create a traditional and properly constructed interior with an updated layout for modern day use." [French & Webb]

SUMMARY
- Interior completely refashioned
- Design by naval architects Stephens & Waring
- complimented by interior design refinement touches by Angela Thompson
- Predominantly created from old growth cypress as specified originally
- Cypress stock is from logs sunk for 140 years in a N. Carolina river
- Finished using distressing techniques

8 x STEPS DOWN COMPANIONWAY LADDER TO OPEN PLAN LAYOUT
- Over engine box
- Landing at saloon

SALOON
- Settee to port
- Shelf outboard
- Navigation area to starboard
- Aft facing chart table with displays behind wood roller shutter
- Bronze electrical/ gauges panel outboard behind wood roller shutter
- Settee to starboard with after part the chart table seat
- Shelf outboard

GALLEY TO PORT FORWARD
- Copper counter top
- Stowage under
- Ice box under; coolplate
- Inset sink
- Mixer taps
- Stowage and shelf outboard
- Nespresso coffee maker with secured wooden mount

WC/ SHOWER COMPARTMENT TO STARBOARD
- Copper counter top
- Inset copper sink bowl
- Mixer taps
- Mixer shower head

FOREPEAK
- Cot berths to port and starboard
- Sails and cordage stowage

AFT TO AFT STATEROOM
- Double berth to starboard
- Drawers under
- Pantograph reading lamp
- Dresser aft; drawers under
- Copper counter top; original DIRIGO steering compass inset
- Single berth to port
- Drawers under
- Sideboard forward

RIG
Gaff Mast and Spars (2000)
- By Pendleton Yacht Yard, Isleboro, Maine
- Douglas fir gaff rig mast
- Douglas fir gaff rig boom
- Douglas fir gaff
- Stainless Steel wire standing rigging
- Spliced leather covered hoops aloft; turnbuckles at deck
- All associated, updated running rigging for gaff rig setup

Marconi Mast and Spars (2016)
- By French & Webb to original 1933 Herreshoff drawings
- Douglas fir marconi, bermudan rig mast
- Douglas fir marconi rig boom
- Bronze custom fittings
- Stainless Steel wire rigging for marconi rig

Bowsprit (2021 by French & Webb)
- Stainless Steel wire whisker stay rigging and martingale

Additional Rigging:
- Staysail boom (gaff rig)
- Whisker pole
- Bronze staysail self-tailing traveller bar
- Spare sprit without hardware

Running Rigging
- Typically double braid polyester – beige)
- Gaff - 2 x Spin sheets
- Gaff - 2 x Jib top sheets
- 2 x Jib sheets
- 1 x Spare jib sheet
- 2 x Spinnaker sheets
- 2 x Spare spinnaker sheets
- 1 x Spinnaker tack line
- 1 x Spare spinnaker tack line
- 1 x Purchase system for spinnaker tack
- 1 x Spare halyard
- 1 x Spinnaker staysail sheets
- 2 x Hobble
- 1 x Spinnaker tweaker
- 1 x Barber hauler
- 1 x Jib tacking line
- 1 x Cunningham

Rigging Hardware
- Complete working set for both rigs

Rigging (Gaff)
2 x Spinnaker sheets
2 x Gaff jib top sheets

SAILS

Gaff Rig Racing Sails by North
- Mainsail (2017)
- Jackyard Topsail 2017
- Jib Topsail #1 (2023)
- Jib Topsail #2 (2023)
- Jib Topsail #3 (2017)
- Staysail (2023)

Other Gaff Rig Sails
- Mainsail (2015)
- Mainsail (2016)
- Jackyard Topsail 2015
- Working Topsail
- Masthead Jib 2016
- Jib Topsail 2015
- Small Jib Topsail
- Staysail 2015
- Overlapping Staysail 2017
- Working Jib
- Storm Trysail

Marconi Rig Sails by North (2022)
- Jib (sprit tack configuration)
- Mainsail

Racing Spinnakers by North – both rigs – (all current racing)
--A2 Spinnaker (2022)
- A2 Spinnaker (2015)
- A2 Spinnaker (2016)
- A3 Spinnaker (2016)

Marconi Rig Sails by North (all 2018)
- #1 Jib (stem tack configuration)
- #2 Jib (stem tack configuration)
- #3 Jib (stem tack configuration)
- #4 Jib (stem tack configuration)
- Spinnaker Staysail (not used with US CRF Rating)

CANVASWORK
- Hatch covers
- Sail Cover (Marconi)
- All purpose heavy duty awning

MECHANICAL
- Volvo D3110 110 hp diesel
- Folding Gori folding 3-blade propeller with overdrive - - Prop rebuilt at factory 2022

ELECTRICAL
- Mastervolt Mass Combi 12/2500-100 inverter
- New wiring – 2015 to 2017 refit

TANKAGE
- Fresh water: 30 US Gal / 114 L
- Fuel: 70 US Gal / 265 L
- Black water: 30 US Gal / 114 L

NAVIGATION
- Steering compass
- (in mahogany box for removable cockpit mounting)
- Brookes & Gatehouse Zeus3, 9 inch at Helm
- Brookes & Gatehouse Analogue Module
- Brookes & Gatehouse Barometer H500
- Brookes & Gatehouse Transceiver #NAIS-400 Class B
- Brookes & Gatehouse ZM Series Display Monitor #H500
- Brookes & Gatehouse chart plotter
- (in custom Mahogany Box for removable coaming mounting)
- Simrad Broadband 4G radar
- Stern radar mounting post (with alt. spreader mount)
- Brooks & Gatehouse Autohelm

- Fusion Stereo

COMMUNICATIONS
- ICOM VHF Marine IC-M504
- Handheld VHF Radio + chargers
- Fusion Stereo

- 4-person liferaft
- Ditch kit/ Grab bag, flares
- EPIRB
- 12 x Type 1 Spinlock PFDs
- 10 x Fanny packs
- 6 x Harnesses
- 1 x Spotlight
- 2 x Fire Extinguishers ABC
- 2 x Jacklines
- Running and Steaming lights
- 2 x Air horns
- All-purpose first aid kit

- Built 2014 by Christian Zimmerman, Pendelton Yacht Yard, Iselboro, Maine
- Faithfully following Herreshoff Manuf. Co. drawings and specs
- Clinker white cedar on oak
- Repair to a plank and a frame necessary

DECK
- Original capstan with handle (dismountable)
- Boat Hook
- Teak cleat covers
- Winch Handles
- Cockpit divider bag
- Running rigging storage boards
- Jib trimmer brace blocks
- Bosun's Chair
- Dock step
- Shore Power cord
- Deck Cleaning bin

MISCELLANEOUS
- Leather
- Goop bag
- Tape bag
- Polish bin
- Below cleaning bin
- Misc bronze parts
- Canvas cover bag
- Racing forepeak hatch
- Festival/signal flags
- Ensign
- Pig stick/Burgee

TOOLS
- Drill
- Impact driver
- 2 x Drill bit sets
- Wood drill bit set
- Tool bag/hand tools
- Ratchet set
- Screw driver/ file roll
- Rig bag
- Wrench set
- Angle grinder
- Vacuum
- Gear wrench set
- 2 x Electrical Bags
- 2 x Fasteners boxes

SUPPORT TRAILER (2006)
- 5th-wheel box trailer with various spare parts and support materials

- Alison Langley: sailing, at rest, and on board - as credited
- Onne van der Wal: sailing - as credited
- Scott Schuster: sailing - as credited
- French & Webb: historic
- Stephens & Waring: accommodation plan