HMCo #259p Neith Jr.

"Richard H. Hoe of the famous Hoe perfecting printing press, New York City, is having a 40-foot motor boat constructed at the Herreshoff boat shops. ... [Note: This is a curious and possibly incorrect news item. Richard M. Hoe, the famous inventor of the rotary printing press, was dead since 1888. Was this vessel (and thus also #665s Neith and #646s Kotic, ordered by his son or a relative who continued to lead the printing press company in New York? Note also that HMCo records describe this vessel as a 12ft 7in power boat, not a 40-foot motor boat.]" (Source: Anon. "Bristol and Vicinity." Bristol Phoenix, January 29, 1907, p. 2.)

"N/A"

Note: This list of archival documents contains in an unedited form any and all which mention #259p Neith Jr. even if just in a cursory way. Permission to digitize, transcribe and display is gratefully acknowledged.

• Neith Jr (HMCo-made index card)
• Neith Jr (MIT Museum-made index card)
• Note: The vessel index cards comprise two sets of a total of some 3200 cards about vessels built by HMCo, with dimensions and information regarding drawings, later or former vessel names, and owners. They were compiled from HMCo's early days until 1920 and added to in later decades, apparently by Hart Nautical curator William A. Baker and his successors. While HMCo seems to have used only one set of index cards, all sorted by name and, where no name was available, by number, later users at MIT apparently divided them into two sets of cards, one sorted by vessel name, the other by vessel number and greatly expanded the number of cards. Original HMCo cards are usually lined and almost always punched with a hole at bottom center while later cards usually have no hole, are unlined, and often carry substantially less information. All cards are held by the Francis Russell Hart Nautical Collections of the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Mass.

Year: 1907
E/P/S: P
No.: 259
OA: 12' 7"

Source: Vermilya, Peter and Maynard Bray. "Transcription of the HMCo. Construction Record." Unpublished database, ca. 2000.

Note: The transcription of the HMCo Construction Record by Peter Vermilya and Maynard Bray was performed independently (and earlier) than that by Claas van der Linde. A comparison of the two transcriptions can be particularly useful in those many cases where the handwriting in the Construction Record is difficult to decipher.

"12'-6" x 3'-11" Gasoline Launch used as tender for #665 [Neith]. Reduced to 10/12 scale for 14' boat #499 [Columbia] mold. 4 3/4 (Common rule= is added to sheer from figures in book. Frame space 6 1/2" for 12'-6" Boat. Planking 1/4" cedar lapped in narrow strakes. Watertight bulkheads Mahogany + Cedar. Deck 5/32" Mahogany + 5/32" Cedar. Lackawanna valveless Motor 3 HP. 12" dia righthand propeller 2 blades [as per notes on plan 2-47]." (Source: van der Linde, Claas. October 26, 2009.)

"Plan 2-47 from which this boat was built was drawn 1907-04-06. #665s Neith (for which this vessel was built) was contracted for 1906-10-25. This boat's contract or building date is 116 days after #665s Neith was contracted for." (Source: van der Linde, Claas. October 26, 2009.)

"Built in 96 days (contract to finished; equivalent to 4 lbs displacement/day)." (Source: van der Linde, Claas. January 16, 2024.)

"Displacement '354 lbs complete' from pencilled note on construction plan 2-47." (Source: Herreshoff, N.G.? Penciled note on construction plan 002-047 (HH.5.00046). Haffenreffer-Herreshoff Collection, MIT Museum, Cambridge, MA.)

Note: Research notes contain information about a vessel that is often random and unedited but has been deemed useful for future research.