HMCo #1298s Captain Kidd

"The mind of Eugene Lee works in intricate ways, which helps to explain how the Tony-award-winning set designer approaches his trade. ...
At current count, Lee’s wooden boat fleet, scattered throughout southern New England, totals about 10. It’s a number in flux but includes a Concordia 31, a pair of Laurent Giles-designed Vertue sloops, a couple of Herreshoff 12½s (Captain Kidd [#1298s] and Jerry Todd [#1478s]), a Herreshoff Buzzards Bay 15 [#919s], a Beetle Cat, a Pete Culler lapstrake yawl and a Pulsifer Hampton launch.
Owning all these boats, studying their past, restoring them, paying their yard bills and spending lots of money to have others take care of them—let alone sailing them—makes no sense. That’s why he does it.
'Wooden boats are just nice,' Lee says. 'A little varnish is not a bad thing. It’s good to restore a 12½ perfectly. It will last another 50 years.'
The 77-year-old Lee, whose career spans more than 40 years, better resembles a reclusive Yankee shipwright than a denizen of the Great White Way. ..." (Source: Lembo, Elaine. A Secret Passion. For Tony-Award-Winner Eugene Lee, Theatrical Set Design And Wooden Boats To Tongue And Groove. Yachts International, October 3, 2016. https://www.yachtsinternational.com/owners-lounge/a-secret-passion, retrieved March 23, 2019.)

"CAPTAIN KIDD is hull #1298 and was built by Herreshoff Manufacturing Co. in 1936. She was likely the last Herreshoff 12 built with oak trim. Over her long lifetime, her transom had been replaced in mahogany, hardware had been lost and mis-replaced and her oak trim painted. Her restoration by Ballentine's Boat Shop brought her back to originality and authenticity and she remains as an accurate example of the Herreshoff legacy.
The complete restoration included steaming new oak frames to replace the tired originals. Additionally, all of her original planking was completely replaced. New deck beams were fit and a plywood deck laid down on top covered in fiberglass and painted with non-skid particles. While a new keelson and floor timbers were installed, the original lead ballast and yellow pine deadwood were able to be reused. The final touch was the re-installation of her original Herreshoff builder’s plate (Hull #1298).
Home Port: Southport, CT
Sail Number: 1298
Owner Name: Philip R. Hood
Yacht Club: Pequot Yacht Club, New York Yacht Club." (Source: Hood, Philip R. Wooden Boat Register, September 29, 2021. https://www.woodenboat.com/register-wooden-boats/captain-kidd, retrieved February 6, 2022.)

• Bray, Maynard. "Restoration of 12 1/2 Footers. Part I." Wooden Boat #56, January/February 1984, p. 93-101. (1,293 kB)
  Document is copyrighted: Yes, used with permission. Copyright holder: Maynard Bray (text). Detailed Buzzards Bay 12 1/2 restoration step by step as performed by the Ballentine shop. Part I. Stem restoration, transom and frame replacement.
• Bray, Maynard. "Restoration of 12 1/2 Footers. Part II." Wooden Boat #57, March/April 1984, p. 93-100. (1,036 kB)
  Document is copyrighted: Yes, used with permission. Copyright holder: Maynard Bray (text). Detailed Buzzards Bay 12 1/2 restoration step by step as performed by the Ballentine shop. Part II. Keel timber and coamings replacement.
• Bray, Maynard (with photos by Benjamin Mendlowitz). "12 1/2 Footers." Nautical Quarterly, no. 37, Spring 1987, p. 47. (608 kB)
  Document is copyrighted: Yes, used with permission. Copyright holder: Maynard Bray (text), Benjamin Mendlowitz (photos). Short class portrait. Part of the larger article "Herreshoff Legacies."
• Nagy, Steve. "The Herreshoff 12 1/2 Footer. Evolution Of The Class." In: Herreshoff Marine Museum (publ.). Proceedings. The 6th Classic Yacht Symposium. May 2-3, 2014. Bristol, RI, 2014, p. 1-23. (4,425 kB)
  Document is copyrighted: Yes. Copyright holder: Steve Nagy / Herreshoff Marine Museum. Short class history of the 12 1/2 as built by HMCo, Quincy Adams, Cape Cod Shipbuilding and others. Different models: Gaff, marconi, wishboom, Fishers Island. Detailed description of changes in configuration and equipment as boats were built over time. Identification guide for 12 1/2s missing their builder's plate. Photos. Original promotional material.

• Captain Kidd (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.

Hull No.: 1298
Contract Date: 1936-07-13
Org. Name: Captain Kidd
Org. Owner: Wolcott Blair

Source: Nagy, Steve. "The Herreshoff 12 1/2 Footer Registry." Version 2.0. August 2007. (http://h12.orrsford.com/H12_Registry_Ver_2-0.pdf, last visit May 23, 2008.)

"Rebuilt at Ballentine's Boatshop in 2013/2014." (Source: van der Linde, Claas. April 11, 2015.)

"[Copyright-restricted content.]" (Source: van der Linde, Claas. Private Research Note. February 6, 2022.)

"Sail area approximately 140 square feet by rule." (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.)

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