HMCo #345p [Stock Launch]

"[Item Transcription:] [Typewritten letter on 'Lawrence Gas Company, R.W. Emmons, 2D, Treasurer, 79 Milk Street, Boston, Massachusetts' stationery:] Your letter of January 1st [1920] I received more than a week ago. I have delayed answering it until after the New York Yacht Club meeting, which was held night before last, as George Cormack telegraphed and wrote you.
The Committee replied to Lipton they would agree to his terms, namely, to race, beginning July 15th off Sandy Hook, but declined to make any alteration in rig in the way of Marconi topmast. This being settled, George [Cormack] and I have got underway with the schedule for captain, mates and crew for Resolute. [Chris] Christiansen with John Christiansen, whom we had the first year will be our Captain and first mate [on #725s RESOLUTE]. We have already obtained some of our old men.
The question of tender still troubling us. Steamers like CAPE COD will cost to run this year nearly $45,0000 a piece for each boat, which seems a sinful waste of Syndicate money. Charlie [Adams] and I are both in favor or rechartering the QUEEN [#657s], and in order to obtain if necessary more room, building a house over her from the main deck forward in the line of a receiving ship. This will enable us to mess all the men at the same time and give us ample accommodations for sails, supplies and for ourselves. Such a lay-out together with Harold Vanderbilt's tender [#301p MAGISTRATE] would be adequate for our purpose. Nothing definite has been settled, but this is what Charlie and I lean towards. George [Cormack], however, is still in favor of steamers.
The Cup Committee have decided to begin the racing on May 2lst --- a series of 5 races to he held off New Haven; an interval then for alterations, refit, etc., and then a series to begin off Newport about June 4th and continue until the first of July. Newport races only to actually count for selection.
This being the schedule it is out opinion that RESOLUTE should be launched about May 1st, as with her crew on the spot it will not take long to rig her, and from experience of previous years, weather at that time is none too favorable anyway. I do not know how this will suit your plan, but I think if you plan to arrive about that time we can get on all right.
The new wooden mast for RESOLUTE has not been started and there is some discussion as to where to built it. Your ideas were that it should be built in the south shop, if I remember correctly, and unless I hear from you to the contrary I will have it constructed there. Chase has the rigging for same practically all completed. There is not much else to report regarding RESOLUTE.
George Nichols is to arrive in Boston for our Directors meeting next week, and at that time he and I will take up with Sidney the subject of making winches for him, as per an understanding you had with him just before you sailed.
Jim Swan has no doubt written you regarding all the other work in the shop; especially work on the schooner [#827s OHONKARA] seems to have gone on very satisfactorily.
The first little S boat is practically completed, and some of the proposed owners of same have made inspection.
All seem to be pleased with the boats with the exception of one point, and opinion has been so strongly expressed that I have taken it upon myself to alter the specifications as originally planned by you, and I trust you will understand and forgive me in case you have any feeling in the matter. The case is this. The present oak ribbon which you have designed and placed on the first boat with the hollow under side, in place of the usual pear-shaped shear streak, they all desire changed for the older method.
While I recognize your idea, which is a good one both as to cover board for the canvas deck and also the hollowed out underside for shedding water, it gives the boats a very heavy effect looked at from broadside or stern view, and I thought it best to meet their desires in the matter, and the other boats will be built as I stated above on the old method. The only other alteration was the slight tipping of the seats in the deep cockpit boats; the first boats seats are flat, and while comfortable enough in the forward part of the cockpit, are not as comfortable as if dipped in the after part.
Chase is going at the rigging for these boats and the first mast is all done. I will follow out your suggestion and have the boat launched and weighted according to your instructions, but if the weather holds mild, although it has been very cold recently, Charlie Adams and I propose to rig up, launch and try out the first boat under sail before the other sails are made, and I think between us we will discover anything that may not be just right. Arthur Adams, Charlie's brother has just ordered four more 12 1/2 footers, and as we were already building one, we have taken the order for the other four at $750 a piece.
We are in hopes of getting an order for a good-sized house boat to carry us through the spring and summer work. Swazey is on his way South to see two or three gentleman regarding same. We shall need this new work soon.
The expert accountants have been making the annual audit, but at the time of the stockholders meeting held last Thursday, complete figures were not in. I am sorry to have to tell you that their figures so far bring us out with a loss instead of a profit for the year. As soon as I get the final correct figures I will forward you a copy, but although Mr. Garfield, Charlie Adams and myself, as well as Young and Swan are convinced that the profit we should have showed is tied up somewhere in the inventory and we have not yet been able to dig it out. We have already dug out $6,000, and I am in hopes we may find other misrepresentations.
I am convinced our methods are all right, and our book-keeping system all right, and further that any Company which could have paid off $100,000 indebtedness as we did the past year is a good-going concern, and even if this year's statement shows us behind instead of ahead, I am confident we will only come out with all the better balance this coming year. The officers and directors of the previous year were all elected at the meeting, and we are to hold as i stated a Directors meeting Wednesday next.
You must be having splendid weather and a fine time, It seems hard to think of you sailing in summer clothes, while we are experiencing 5 below zero day before yesterday, and now a snow storm with a foot and a half on the ground.
The Alumni of Harvard have chosen me to be their chief Marshal on my Twenty-fifth anniversary this coming June.
This same honor was given to Charlie Adams on his Twenty-fifth, and on that day I am afraid the RESOLUTE will have to stop work --- otherwise my attention from now on will be largely given to her.
They are already at work on the SHAMROCK pearing off some of her fore-foot, and I believe further they are expecting to relay the deck. George [Nichols] will have a hard time to get his work [on VANITIE] done in the same yard, but I do not think we can possibly do anything more for him than we have agreed to. His present plans are, namely; shorten bowsprit and main boom while increasing the height of his rig a little, thereby reducing his sail area enough to reduce his time allowance 30 seconds. Charlie and I think he is working in the wrong way. We would both have left the base line as it is and increased the rig at least 500 sq. ft if not more, giving us more allowance, trying to come nearer to to SHAMROCK's rig. There it would give us a better line on how we will go with the latter. However, I do not think it makes much difference what he does, or what SHAMROCK does, for as Charlie says, if we cannot beat them both we had better quit racing for good.
With my very best wishes for a Happy New Year to you and Mrs. Herreshoff, and hoping to hear from you soon, and further trusting my delay in answering your letter is offset by what I have written, I am
Yours faithfully, ...
P.S.: Since writing I have been in communication with Mr. Kittredge the expert accountant and his statement is as follows; namely that if we fail to find any further discrepancy in the inventory to offset what loss the Company now shows as per figures sent you, there are two items to account for a large loss, namely: The Richards contract [#329p CAROLA] on which we allowed $3,000 for completion and delivery this year, has probably cost us, as figures will show, nearer $8,000. Then since you left, as probably Jim Swan has written the government has assessed their war tax against us on all contracts completed since that law was out into effect, excepting the Richards boat. These taxes amount to some $9,900, and we cannot include them in this years assets, for the reason that in the case of Harry Lippett [#368p MARY ANN], he has refused to pay his tax. In the case of the Sabine launch and the Codman launch [#342p, #343p, #344p or #345p?], as no account of this was made to them, it is the feeling of the Directors that we must pay the tax, although we may get Mr. Codman's. In the case of of Herrick [#311p APACHE and #371p GYPSY] and Crozier [#369p SUNFLOWER], Pinchon [#372p VASANTA] and the others, the matter has been brought to their attention I understand, and we should expect their taxes. Since, however, this question has arisen, we have had a legal clause drawn, and all contracts now go out from the Company's office including this clause and precluding any liability on the part of the Company being stuck for the taxes, as it states this must be paid before delivery is made.
Please do not worry yourself any over these financial details, however, as I think everything will come out all right in the end.
[Penciled PPS:] Enclosed is copy of Butler Duncan's letter just rec[eive]d regarding dates for trial races." (Source: Emmons, Robert W. Letter to N.G. Herreshoff. Halsey C. Herreshoff Collection at the Herreshoff Marine Museum Item MR_26390. Subject Files, Folder 6, formerly 90-95. 1920-01-17.)
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Note: This list of archival documents contains in an unedited form any and all which mention #345p [Stock Launch] even if just in a cursory way. Permission to digitize, transcribe and display is gratefully acknowledged.

• Launch (HMCo-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: 1918c
E/P/S: P
No.: 345
Name: Launches

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.