HMCo #1476s R. I. Red II [Rhode Island Red II]

"... The first of the Herreshoff 12 1/2 footers or (Bull's Eye) to be launched this year was the Gremlin [#???s], which in the absence of its youthful skipper's sailing the seas to Europe, has been put into shape by father and mother Pardee, and we hope will be sailed by them.
Second overboard in this class was Mr. and Mrs. Robert Miller's Papoose [#1173s] which has been in storage for about seven years and thus will be an addition to this year's fleet. Other 12 1/2 launched to date are Raven [#???s], Van Tingley; Bevis [#???s], Tony Corey; Raggety Ann [#943s???], Virginia Haffenreffer; Remora [#1092s], Stanley Livington; Minx [#1376s], Halsey Herreshoff; and Rhode Island Red [#1476s], Mrs. Halsey DeWolf. Also the Bristol Yacht Club's 12 1/2 footer, Cock Robin [#???s], is overboard." (Source: Anon ("See Weed"). "Ship Shape 'n Bristol Fashion." Bristol Phoenix, July 1, 1949, p. 3.)

"A 12 1/2 Come Back Story
By Frank Fulton
Those of us who have been blessed by the chance and the occasion to sail, manage, care for or even own one of these marvelous little boats, locally known as the Herreshoff 12 1/2, have many and varied stories to tell about our experiences with them. Most of these tales, of course, deal with adventures out on the waters of which ever bay wherever, and tell of daring tacking duels, fights for buoy room, green water over the side, too much or too little wind, and maybe even, once in a while, of actually winning that big race! But there are many other fascinating stories that surround our magical little vessels, of perhaps a little less adventuresome nature, but certainly ones no less fascinating, unique or heart rending. The stories of where our dear little boats came from, where they have been, what they have endured, and finally, how and why they are still here can be, I feel, some of the most exciting stories of them all. Let me tell you just such a story about our beloved Rhode Island Red.
In December of 1914, my grand mother, Edith Howe, received a letter from the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, telling of a new class of small sailing boats they were building. This was the birth of the 12 1/2 class, and they were selling for a modest $475. It was, of course some years later, when my mother, Mary Howe DeWolf, was old enough, and had proven herself able enough as well, that her mother gave her the original Rhode Island Red. She sailed and raced the 'Red' [#1117s] regularly for several years, and just as we have all so done with our boats today, she quite fell in love with her dear little boat and the times they had together.
Sadly, however, the Hurricane of 1938 brought this all to an abrupt end, and the Rhode Island Red was lost without a trace. But in true Bristol fashion, perhaps, the summer of ‘39 brought new weather, new hope, and it also brought Rhode Island Red II. And as the years passed a new love affair developed and grew. And as we Fulton children appeared and grew, our mother taught us all how to sail in this same, wonderful boat. We were taught how to mind the skipper when she barked, and we were taught the disciplines of sailing, boat management, and team play. We were taught how to be cold, wet and miserable, and still be productive and able at the same time. But there was one thing we were never taught, nor had to be taught. We all learned to love The Rhode Island Red by ourselves. The chores of scrubbing the hull, keeping her clean, bailing her out, and just keeping her right were no more duties than just jumping in the water or going to dig clams. It was all just part of summer!
But the pain and agony our mother experienced in 1938 became ours late in the summer of 1960. Although Hurricane Donna was not nearly as powerful or as damaging as either the Hurricane of 1938 or Hurricane Carol in 1954, the Red’s mooring line broke, and she was dashed and battered on the rocks on shore and the pilings of a nearby dock. I will never forget looking in horror at her as she lay in the shallow water, with her aft quarter bashed and broken off, and her beautiful red topsides all grated and ground to an unsightly mix of planks and ribs. There was our beautiful Rhode Island Red, bare, bruised and broken. My mother had her appraised and repairs evaluated, but the inevitable decision was made. She was sold to Jack Tiplady, who ran and managed the Bristol Boat Yard back then, for the tidy sum of $1.00, to hail her off as salvage. School took us away and as it always does, life went on. But it was easily a few years at very least before any of us were really able to finally realize and accept that the Red was gone.
The story resumes sixteen years later, in the early fall of 1976, when I was at what was then Hawkins & Fales boat yard, in Walker’s Cove, having an old 26 ft. wooden boat I had bought pulled out of the water for Joe Ginalski to take it to its winter berth at Ferrycliffe Farm. While waiting for the legendary Ginalski to arrive, I was chatting with a marvelous, older yard hand who worked there, and who did not know me any more than I knew him. There was a reddishorange 12 1/2 in a cradle nearby, and I asked him if he knew which boat she was. He said, 'That one? Oh, that’s Barnacle. She lives out on Hog Island these days.' I jokingly asked, 'These days? Where did she live before that?'
His reply was very quick. 'Well, before that she used to live at the Nicholson’s over there. She used to be a pretty blue boat named Shohola.' Wow, I immediately thought, this guy knows his stuff......or did he just happen to know that one? So I responded, 'Oh yeah, I knew Shohola. We used to race against her when I was young.' And here it came, the big test to see just how good he really was. 'We used to own a 12 1/2 called Rhode Island Red that we all learned to sail in,' I said.
His response was swift and sure. 'The Rhode Island Red II, perhaps,' he said, 'because the Rhode Island Red was lost in ‘38.' Whoa! This guy really was good! He continued, saying, 'Yeah, that boat was wrecked in Donna, and your mom sold her to Jack Tiplady for salvage. And then, well after quite a while, maybe a year or so, he fixed her back up.' I gasped. 'He fixed her up?' I asked. 'Yup,' he said, 'fixed her up pretty good.' I remember so very clearly that instead of joy and delight and rejoicing that our dear boat might actually be alive and well, I felt frustration and pain, fearing that if it were so and the Red did exist, I would still never be able to either find her or have her again.
But of course I had to ask him, 'You don’t happen to know where she is, do you?' I could not believe my ears as he rolled his eyes, thought a bit and calmly rambled on, 'Yeah, she’s over in Warwick now......she’s a white boat now, and her name is Spindrift. Yup, she belongs to a fella named Williams, and you know what, I believe that boat’s for sale.'
Well that was it. I was due to leave Rhode Island about a week later to get back out to Colorado. But I spent the next few days calling every marina, boatyard and yacht club on the other side of the bay, asking for the man named Williams who owned a Herreshoff 12 1/2 named Spindrift. And I found him. He said she was indeed for sale, and I told him of our past history with the boat, and he agreed to hold it for a little while, until I could get word to my mother, to see what she might want to do. About two weeks later I was in Colorado, with tears in my eyes as I read the letter from my mother, telling me she had bought the Red back, that it was ours again, and that I was to see to it that we never let her go again.....ever!
The Spindrift was taken to Unc Allen’s yard at Bullock’s Point where she became The Rhode Island Red once again. Lost and gone for sixteen years, but found again by incredible dumb luck and a willingness to ask a few questions to a dear and genius yard hand who did, indeed know his stuff. And she has been back with us again now for the thirty-five years since. All seven of my brothers and sisters and I have taught our children how to sail in her, just as our mother taught us. We have used her to help instill in them the value of maritime discipline, practice, lore and knowledge. She has become another bit of the glue that helps bond us all together as a family. By sailing in her, or just by her being there, resting on her mooring, she takes us all back to those happy summer days of our youth. And lastly, even as we sail and race in her today, she allows us to feel and be part of the past as well. She is one small boat, serving and teaching three generations so far, and one that will hopefully go on to serve and thrill several more." (Source: Fulton, Frank. "A 12 1/2 Come Back Story." NBH12 Newsletter. The Narragansett Bay Herreshoff 12 1/2 Footer Association. August 8, 2007. http://members.cox.net/nbh12/2007/welcome2007.pdf, retrieved October 28, 2008.)

• 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.

• R I Red II (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.

Month: Mar.
Day: 01
Year: 1939
E/P/S: S
No.: 1476
Name: R.I. Red II
Rig: Marconi
Amount: 791.40
Notes Constr. Record: Allowed $98.60-old keel & sails.
Last Name: DeWolf
First Name: Dr. Halsey

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.

Hull No.: 1476
Contract Date: 1939-03-01
Org. Name: R.I. Red II
Org. Owner: Dr. Halsey De Wolf
Org. Rig: Marconi
Current Rig: Marconi
Mast Partner: One-Piece
Home Port: Bristol, RI
Prior Owners: Jack Tiplady - 1960 - ???? - Bristol, RI - ; Williams - ???? - 1976 - Warwick, RI - Spindrift
Current Name: Rhode Island Red II
Current Owner: Mary Howe DeWolf Shepherd
Owner Since: 1976
Sheer-strake: Mahogany
Restored By: George W. Zachorne, Jr.
Note: Owned by Mary Howe DeWolf Shepherd of Bristol, RI. It has plywood fore and aft decks that are canvas covered. It was bought to replace Rhode Island Red (Hull # 1117, built in 1929), which was lost in the 1938 Hurricane. She was damaged in the 1960 hurricane, and the wreck was bought and restored by Jack Tiplady. Eventually, she was re-purchased by Mary Howe DeWolfe, her original owner and is still in the DeWolfe family. George W. Zachorne, Jr. started working on her in 1990.

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.)

"Owned by Mary Howe DeWolf Shepherd of Bristol, RI. It has plywood fore and aft decks that are canvas covered. It was bought to replace Rhode Island Red (Hull #1117, built in 1929), which was lost in the 1938 Hurricane. She was damaged in the 1960 hurricane, and the wreck was bought and restored by Jack Tiplady. Eventually, she was re-purchased by Mary Howe DeWolfe, her original owner and is still in the DeWolfe family. George W. Zachorne, Jr. started working on her in 1990." (Source: Nagy, Steve. Herreshoff Registry, s. v. Rhode Island Red II 1476. http://www.herreshoffregistry.org/detail.php?hull=1476, retrieved May 10, 2014.)

"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.