Description
The Herreshoff S-Class (commonly called the “S boat”) is one of the most beautiful and enduring one-design racing keelboats ever created. Designed in 1919 by Nathanael G. Herreshoff for the wealthy summer sailors of Narragansett Bay and built 1919–1939 (with a brief revival in fiberglass 1979–1983), exactly 100 wooden hulls were completed, of which about 92 still exist today.
At 27 ft 6 in LOA (17 ft 6 in LWL), 7 ft 2 in beam, and 4 ft 2 in draft, the S boat is a long-overhang, full-keel sloop with a dramatic sheer, low freeboard, and a gaff or (later) Marconi rig carrying 450–475 sq ft upwind. Displacement is 6,200 lbs. with 3,600 lbs. of outside lead ballast, giving a very high ballast ratio (~58%) and legendary stiffness; the boats sail almost rail-up in 20 knots and carry full sail comfortably to 25+. Below decks is pure racing minimalism: two short settee berths, a tiny forepeak, and no head or galley—these are strict day-racers.
From the 1920s through the 1950s, the S-Class fleets in Quisset, Marblehead, Buzzards Bay, and western Long Island Sound were among the most competitive and glamorous in American yachting. After a long quiet period, the class has enjoyed a strong renaissance since the 1990s; today more than 60 boats are actively racing in New England, with national championships rotating among the historic fleets each year. Immaculately restored and maintained (many still with their original cotton sails and bronze hardware), the Herreshoff S remains the gold standard of classic wooden one-design racing: fast, unforgiving, breathtakingly pretty, and still winning major regattas more than a century after the first launch.
