Sail Number
N.G. Herreshoff “Athene” Specifications:
LOA: 106′ 0″ / 32.30m – LOD: 83′ 4 / 25.40m – LWL: 70′ 0″ / 21.33m – Beam: 19′ 3″ / 5.86m – Draft: 10′ 10″ (centerboarder) / 3.30m – Displacement: 75 gross 67 net tonnes – Sail Area: 6,000 sq ft – Yard Number: 520 – Hull Material: – Designer: N.G. Herreshoff – Built by: Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, Bristol, RI – Year Built: 1899 – Original Owner: William Otis Gay, Boston, MA – Homeport: Marblehead, Massachusetts – Former name(s): Talayha (1928-1935), Athene (1935-) – Original Price: $27,125 – Status: Lost May 31, 1943 off Miami, Florida after a collision with the steamship John Owen
Historical:
Athene was built just before the all-out racers, the Herreshoff 70s, as a centerboarder with bulwarks.
Mr. Gay once asked his yachts designer “Mr. Herreshoff isn’t there some condition when the Athene could beat the new 70s?,” Herreshoff replied “Yes, when there is less than 15 feet of water.”
Athene was to be delivered by Decoration Day, but it wouldn’t be until late October that she arrived from Bristol to her new home in Marblehead, Massachusetts, just in time for her first sail in a snowstorm.
June 30, 1900 Eastern Yacht Club’s Puritan Cup Race (off Marblehead): in ‘hurricane-like’ conditions….. All boats dropped out but two…. ‘Athene’ (106′) and schooner, ‘Constellation’ at 136 feet……. In Herreshoff’s words ….
“Twice around the course they went, thirty miles in a howling northwest gale. ‘Constellation’ parted a halyard and ‘Athene’ broke her gaff jaw but they carried on and finished with ‘Athene’ winning seven minutes boat for boat and twenty-four minutes corrected time.”
”As ‘Athene’ approached the finish line she got a heavy knockdown and became partly unmanageable. Although her topmast was housed and she was under jib and mainsail, the water came way up to her hatches; they could not get at the jib sheets to let her up in the wind and had to chop them with an ax. There was a remarkable photograph taken of ‘Athene’ in this race, and no doubt some of the readers have seen it at the Eastern Yacht Club…………..”
1915 – First private yacht to pass through the Panama Canal, enroute to San Francisco – Rammed in 1941 off Miami, Fl and sunk. Similar to the NYYCs seventies.
Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):
Owner/Guardian: (1899-xxxx) William Otis Gay, Boston, MA
Owner/Guardian: (1908-1915) TP Burgess
Resources
Photo and text courtesy of Androck Washburn, Great Grandson of Theodore P. Burgess.
Herreshoff, L. Francis. The Wizard of Bristol. The Life and Achievements of Nathanael Greene Herreshoff)