HMCo #1123s Nightmare

"... in some ways the most interesting product of 1919 was the one-design class of 'S' boats, which came out early that spring.
While there were few of them built the first year, perhaps twenty, the company continued building them off and on for the next eight or nine years so that eventually there were perhaps a hundred and fifty or more of them, and besides being good little cruisers they have furnished active racing up to the present time in widely separated districts. If I remember right these little yachts cost less than two thousand dollars the first few years, so they have been a good investment for some owners for they were built well enough to last for years if handled carefully. Perhaps the 'S' boats would even have been more popular if they had been a little better looking but that defect should not be wholly blamed on Captain Nat for it was the request of the original sponsors of the class that they have short overhangs and full bows and sterns. This feature has made them rather queer-looking Universal Rule boats, and consequently they are not particularly fast for their rating. But there have been few all-around better boats for afternoon sailing, cruising, and racing, and perhaps also the last one-design class that was somewhat comfortable." (Source: Herreshoff, L. Francis. The Wizard of Bristol. The Life and Achievements of Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, together with An Account of Some of the Yachts he Designed. New York, 1953, p. 306.)

"S Class will have an active fleet of 21 this season, though Livingston Davis' Friskie [#845s] was sold in the past week to a New York yachtsman and John R. C. McBeath's Kotick [unidentified, not #1018s] passed on to Edwin S. Webster of Chestnut Hill for racing by his daughter in the Quissett fleet. The loss of these two knockabouts has been more than replaced, by new additions to the fleet in the boats building at Bristol for John R. C. McBeath [#1126s Alpha], Lawrence F. Percival Jr [#1125s Barracuda V] and Hamilton Brown [#1123s Nightmare]. ..." (Source: Anon. "S Class Association." Boston Globe, April 28, 1929, p. B21.)

"... Of the dozen or so knockabouts built by Herreshoff this last Winter, three are to come to Marblehead, two as replacements and the other bringing a new skipper to the class. The replacements are Alpha [#1126s], by John R. C. McBeath, and Barracuda V [#1125s], by Lawrence F. Percival Jr, while Hamilton Brown's Nightmare [#1123s] will be the newcomer. Also Fondec II [sic, i.e. #1019s Fandec?], raced last year by H. L. Chailfoux only during mid-Summer Week, this year is to be a steady competitor throughout the season. " (Source: Anon. "Yachts and Yachtsmen." Boston Globe, June 2, 1929, p. B15, B16.)

"... By 1932 there were ten S boats regularly racing at Quissett every Saturday. Isabel Emery (Haigh), then 16 years old, had been racing her 12 1/2 Isabel V [#897s] but was starting to shift into her father’s S boats. One of her first experiences of being in command involved her father’s request for her to sail the appropriately named Nightmare [#1123s] home from Marion:
We were over in Marion for a regatta. My father had been racing his S boat and his schooner Adventure was over too. He wanted to sail home on Adventure so he said, 'You sail the S boat home. All you have to do is go on one tack all the way. We’ll be right with you in the schooner.' My crew knew less than nothing and I knew almost as little. Well, we sailed faster than they did and I didn’t even know how to slow down! We came roaring over smack into Quissett Harbor as hard as we could go and nobody here! Oh, my Lord what am I going to do! We were just going to sail straight on into shore….of course Charlie (Eldred) came out, got a hold of us and onto a mooring. Oh, I was scared! Would you believe that an S boat could out-sail Adventure?
Having survived this trial Isabel would go on, in her early 20s, to compete regularly in S boats. She recalled: If it was blowing and you suddenly wanted to head off, you had to let the mainsail go fast or it wouldn’t turn. We almost had some collisions as a result until people learned. It was very hard coming into the harbor with a southwest wind behind you. ..." (Source: Quissett Yacht Club (publ.). Glorious Good Times. The First Hundred Years of the Quissett Yacht Club. Quissett, 2012, p. 43-44.)

• Benfield, James W. "Reviving the 'S' Class." Yachting, May 1945, p. 56-57, 104. (3,516 kB)
  Document is copyrighted: Yes. How the Western Long Island Sound S-class fleet was built with a deliberate strategy.
• Upham, Kenneth B. History and Register of the S-Boat. Privately printed, no place, 1994. (13,553 kB)
  Document is copyrighted: Yes, used with permission. The definitive source of info on the S-class, but unfortunately current only up to its date of publication in 1994. History of the class and its various fleets, technical comments, detailed vessel-by-vessel provenance, owner and name indices.
• Bray, Maynard and Claas van der Linde. "The Origins of the S-Boat. A Remarkable Herreshoff One-Design." Wooden Boat #267, March/April 2019, p. 74-79. (1,201 kB)
  Document is copyrighted: Yes. A short history of how the S-Class came about, including new insights from recent research of original Herreshoff documents. With photos and reproductions of the original construction and sail plans.
• Silken, Alan (text). Silken, Cory (photos). "Setting Sail in America. The Remarkable Story of Herreshoff S Class Sailboats." Seapoint Books, Brooklin, ME.
  Appreciation of the S-Class, history of the design and local fleets, portraits of surviving S-boats and a catalogue of all S-boats
• Silken, Alan (text). Silken, Cory (photos). "A Century of S-Boats. The Enduring Appeal of a Classic Herreshoff One-Design." Wooden Boat #267, March/April 2019, p. 80-85. (1,510 kB)
  Document is copyrighted: Yes. Appreciation of the S-Class and a history of the fleets in Narragansett Bay, Quisset and Long Island and a summary of the leading S-boat restorers.
• van der Linde, Claas. [No title. Note about S-Class Weight Discrepancies.] March 11, 2022. (11 kB)
  Document is copyrighted: Yes, used with permission. Copyright holder: Claas van der Linde. Note about discrepancies in published and unpublished sources of displacement of S-class boats and why 6030lbs is currently assumed to be the correct weight.

• Nightmare (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.

Name: Nightmare
Type: J & M S
Length: 20'6"
Owner: Brown, A. S., Jr.

Source: Herreshoff Manufacturing Company. "A Partial List of Herreshoff Clients." In: Herreshoff Manufacturing Company. Herreshoff Yachts. Bristol, Rhode Island, ca. 1931.

Name: Nightmare
Type: "S" boat
Owner: A. S. Brown, Jr.
Row No.: 871

Source: Herreshoff, L. Francis. "Partial List of Herreshoff-Built Boats." In: Herreshoff, L. Francis. Capt. Nat Herreshoff. The Wizard of Bristol. New York, 1953, p. 325-343.

Month: Jan
Day: 15
Year: 1929
E/P/S: S
No.: 1123
Name: Nightmare
OA: 27 1/2'
LW: 20 1/2'
B: 7' 2"
D: 4' 9"
Rig: J & M
K: y
Ballast: Lead
Amount: 4100.00
Notes Constr. Record: "S" Boat. Mahogany Finish. May 15/29 Sails ordered ?/16/29 S-23
Notes Bray: S#73 (so annotated in O.A. field)
Last Name: Brown, Jr.
First Name: A. S.

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.

"Sail number 23." (Source: Upham, Kenneth B. History and Register of the S-Boat. No place, 1994, p. 94.)

"Built in 120 days (order to build to delivered; equivalent to $34/day, 50 lbs displacement/day)." (Source: van der Linde, Claas. January 16, 2024.)

"Sail area approximately 425 square feet, measured." (Source: Herreshoff Manufacturing Company. Yachts by Herreshoff. The Herreshoff Manufacturing Company: Designers and Builders of Sailing and Power Craft since 1861. Bristol, Rhode Island, 1937.)

"See note about about weight discrepancies in published and unpublished sources under 'Further Reading' heading." (Source: van der Linde, Claas. March 11, 2022.)

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