HMCo #410p Sheerness

P00410_Sheerness_a.jpg

Particulars

Construction_Record_Title.jpgName: Sheerness
Type: Power Yacht
Designed by: ASdeWH
Contract: 1939-10-20
Launch: 1940
Construction: Wood
LOA: 52' 6" (16.00m)
LWL: 51' (15.54m)
Beam: 12' 3" (3.73m)
Draft: 3' (0.91m)
Displ.: 44,000 lbs (19,958 kg)
Propulsion: Gasoline, Sterling Petrel, 2 engines; 2 [engines]
Built for: Sheppey, Marshall
Amount: $23,000.00
Note(s) in HMCo Construction Record: Marshall Sheppey - Toledo. Owner furnished engines; records pertaining to this boat taken by Mr. Newman 9/13/43.
Last reported: 1944 (aged 4)

Note: Particulars are primarily but not exclusively from the HMCo Construction Record. Supplementary information not from the Construction Record appears elsewhere in this record with a complete citation.

Offsets

Offset booklet number(s): HH.4.070

Offset booklet contents:
#410 [16' 6"catboat Mab, sic. i.e. 52' 6" power yacht Sheerness].

Offset Booklet(s) in Haffenreffer-Herreshoff Collection. Francis Russell Hart Nautical Collections, MIT Museum, Cambridge, Mass. (Restricted access --- see curator.)

Drawings

Main drawing Dwg 119-087 (HH.5.09811) Explore all drawings relating to this boat.

List of drawings:
   Drawings believed to have been first drawn for, or being first referenced to
   HMCo #410p Sheerness are listed in bold.
   Click on Dwg number for preview, on HH number to see at M.I.T. Museum.
  1. Dwg 132-000 (HH.5.10801): General Arrangement > Proposed Express Cruiser (1939-10-06)
  2. Dwg 119-087 (HH.5.09811): Construction Dwg > Construction Plan (ca. 1940)
  3. Dwg 119-088 (HH.5.09812): General Arrangement > Arrangement Plan (ca. 1940)
  4. Dwg 119-089 (HH.5.09813): General Arrangement > Outboard Profile (ca. 1940)
Source: Francis Russell Hart Nautical Collections, MIT Museum, Cambridge, Mass. Haffenreffer-Herreshoff Collection. Together with: Hasselbalch, Kurt with Frances Overcash and Angela Reddin. Guide to The Haffenreffer-Herreshoff Collection. Francis Russell Hart Nautical Collections, MIT Museum, Cambridge, Mass., 1997. Together with: Numerous additions and corrections by Claas van der Linde.
Note: The Haffenreffer-Herreshoff Collection is copyrighted by the Francis Russell Hart Nautical Collections of the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Mass. Permission to incorporate information from it in the Herreshoff Catalogue Raisonné is gratefully acknowledged. The use of this information is permitted solely for research purposes. No part of it is to be published in any form whatsoever.

Documents

Other Contemporary Text Source(s)

"... Marshall Sheppey's Sheerness has been completed and launched at Herreshoff's. Mr. Sheppey came on from Toledo, saw her launched, had an afternoon spin in her and ordered her hauled out again and stored in the shed until he wants her at Miami next fall. ... " (Source: Anon. [Title?] Yachting, Vol 68, 1940, [p. 121?].)

"... APROPOS of Gulf Stream fishing, the Sheerness which Herreshoff built for Marshall Sheppey of Toledo in 1940 and which was taken over by the Navy two years later is practically the only naval vessel in Florida that is not painted Navy gray. The 52-foot commuter was assigned to the Miami Port Director as a dispatch boat and has her varnish and chrome as shiny as any peacetime yacht. Now and then when some high ranking Army or Navy official who enjoys fishing is passing through and the boat is not busy on other duties he is taken out for a try at the Gulf Stream. One of her three-man crew is Richard Williams, former fishing guide for Tatem Wofford and now a boatswain's mate. A general returning from the front recently was taken over to Bimini, caught a 95-pound white marlin and a sizable amber jack and got back for his plane north all in the same day. ..." (Source: Anon (Solly John). "Southward Ho!" Motor Boating, October 1944, p. 60.)

Maynard Bray

"With Sheerness, yacht building ended at the Herreshoff Mfg. Co., and wartime work began. She was the company's last powerboat built for pleasure. ...
Streamlining, a fad affecting nearly all the design work of the Depression era, shows in the double windshield canopies, although there's still plenty of the classic appearance one would expect from a Herreshoff boat. Sheerness was designed by Sidney Herreshoff and built for Marshall Sheppey of Toledo, Ohio.
Several choices exist for passenger seating aboard Sheerness. There's the forward cockpit which, although open, is protected to some degree by the glass windshield. For a high perch, one can sit on the cushioned seat in front of the pilothouse. Of course, there's the pilothouse itself. And, way aft, Sheerness has a traditional cockpit with a windshield of its own. In all, this is an exceptionally clever layout, carried off in a most attractive way. Sheerness is a fitting final peacetime power yacht for the Herreshoff Mfg. Co." (Source: Bray, Maynard and Carlton Pinheiro. Herreshoff of Bristol. Brooklin, Maine, 1989, p. 226-227.)

Archival Documents

"[Item Transcription:] Handwritten 'Estimate of Power required for Hull No. 426 [#426p APc2]
Navy Contract No. 55695' [extrapolating from data for #410p SHEERNESS]." (Source: MIT Museum, Hart Nautical Collections, Haffenreffer-Herreshoff Collection Item HH.6.009. Estimate. Box HAFH.6.1B, Folder Hull No. 426p. 1940-08-20.)
①

Note: This list of archival documents contains in an unedited form any and all which mention #410p Sheerness even if just in a cursory way. Permission to digitize, transcribe and display is gratefully acknowledged.


Images

Registers

1940 Lloyd's Register of American Yachts (#5688)
Name: Sheerness
Owner: Marshall Sheppey; Port: Toledo, Ohio; Port of Registry: Providence, R.I.
Official no. 239403; Building Material Wood; Type & Rig K[eel], RD [Raised Deck], Pwr [Power]
Tons Gross 22; Tons Net 15; LOA 52-6; LWL 51-0; Extr. Beam 12-5; Depth 5-8; Draught 3-0
Builder Herreshoff Mfg. Co.; Designer Herreshoff Mfg. Co.; Built where Bristol, R.I.; Built when 1940
Engine 2 Gas Eng. 4 Cyc. 6 Cyl. 5 1/4 x 6; Maker Sterling

1942 Lloyd's Register of American Yachts (#5500)
Name: Sheerness
Owner: Marshall Sheppey; Port: Toledo, Ohio; Port of Registry: Providence, R.I.
Official no. 239403; Building Material Wood; Type & Rig K[eel], RD [Raised Deck], Pwr [Power]
Tons Gross 32; Tons Net 15; LOA 52-6; LWL 51-0; Extr. Beam 12-5; Depth 5-8; Draught 3-0
Builder Herreshoff Mfg. Co.; Designer Herreshoff Mfg. Co.; Built where Bristol, R.I.; Built when 1940
Engine 2 Gas Eng. 4 Cyc. 6 Cyl. 5 1/4 x 6; Maker Sterling

Source: Various Yacht Lists and Registers. For complete biographical information see the Herreshoff Catalogue Raisonné under Data Sources. Note that this section shows only snapshots in time and should not be considered a provenance, although it can help creating one.

Supplement

From the 1920 and earlier HMCo Index Cards at the MIT Museum
  • 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.
From the 2000 (ca.) Transcription of the HMCo Construction Record by Vermilya/Bray

Year: 1939
E/P/S: P
No.: 410p
Name: Sheerness
OA: 52' 6"
LW: 51'

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.

Research Note(s)

"The offsets in offset book HH.4.70 are not for #410s Mab (as noted in: Hasselbalch, Kurt and Frances Overcash and Angela Reddin: Guide to The Haffenreffer-Herreshoff Collection. Francis Russell Hart Nautical Collections, MIT Museum, Cambridge, Mass., 1997, p. 37.) but for #410p Sheerness." (Source: Langerman, Adam. Private email communication to Claas van der Linde. April 6, 2009.)

"In the absence of better available data displacement was estimated by using the figure for Gross Register Tons (22) from the 1940 Lloyd's Register of American Yachts (Net Register Tons were reported as 15) and converting to lbs by dividing through 2000 (short tons). Note that this figure can only be a rough estimate because register tons as reported in Yacht Registers correlate only loosely with actual displacement figures." (Source: van der Linde, Claas. March 17, 2015.)

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

Note

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Citation: HMCo #410p Sheerness. Herreshoff Catalogue Raisonné. https://herreshoff.info/Docs/P00410_Sheerness.htm.