HMCo #1360s Gramp

"N. G. HERRESHOFF 6 WALLEY STREET BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND April 28 1936. {1936/04/28} Dear Francis, ... I understand the lot of dinghys built for M.I.T. intrests are about finished, and work is rather centered on a cruiser of about 50 ft of Alden's design, and for the present owner of Wildfire, which is now at the dock. ... Your affect - Father." (Source: Mystic Seaport Museum, L. Francis Herreshoff Collection, Box 17, Folder 12: Letter from N. G. Herreshoff to L. F. Herreshoff.)

"12 ft. 6 inch M.I.T. Sailing Dinghy. Designed by Naval Architecture Department of M. I. T., and built by Herreshoff Mfg. Co. of Bristol, Rhode Island in 1936. Lapstreak construction of native cedar, 1/4 inch thick. [Model] Scale: 1 inch = 1 ft.
Length overall = 12 ft. 6 in.
Length L.W.L. (with 2 persons aboard at 150 lbs.) about = 11 ft. 6 in.
Breadth, extreme = 5 ft. 0 in.
Depth at middle of L.W.L. Length = 21 inches
Sail Area = 67 sq. ft.
Displacement, at above flotation = 475 lbs." (Source: Owen, George. "Owen Collection of Half Models." Catalog, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 1939.)

"Herreshoff Mfg. Co. records show that forty of these intercollegiate sailing dinghies were built for a flat fee of $10,000, a unit cost of only $250, or only about half what the similar-sized Amphi-Craft ... sold for. Such are the possibilities of an efficient production line and large-dollar contracts. (Subsequently, five more were built at prices ranging to $325.)
M.I.T. professor George Owen was responsible for the 'Tech' dinghy design, and if the boats appear to be pure Herreshoff creations, there's good reason. Owen was one of NGH's draftsmen in earlier times, before joining the M.I.T. staff and before becoming a well-known designer himself. Rather more elegant than practical, the structural design reflects Owen's background and the Herreshoff Mfg. Co.'s standards. For example, the steam-bent wraparound caps on the centerboard trunks are a distinctive, but elaborate, feature. ..." (Source: Bray, Maynard and Carlton Pinheiro. Herreshoff of Bristol. Brooklin, Maine, 1989, p. 193.)

• Gramp (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: 1936
E/P/S: S
No.: 1360
Name: Gramp
Amount: 325.00
Notes Constr. Record: 5 more M.I.T. dinghies.
Last Name: Duane
First Name: J. M.

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.

"Displacement 150lbs (475lbs with 2 persons aboard) as per Owen, George. 'Owen Collection of Half Models.' Catalog, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 1939." (Source: van der Linde, Claas. September 25, 2014.)

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