Sail Number:
Type: Schooner (centerboard)
LOA: 180′ 5″ / 54.99m – LOD: 136′ 6″ / 41.61m – LWL: 96′ 0″ / 29.26m – Beam: 26′ 8″ / 8.13m – Draft: 16′ 11″ / 5.16m – Displacement: 234.2 short tons – Sail Area Upwind: 1.180 m2 – Yard Number: 706/Y103 – Hull material: Steel – Designer: N.G. Herreshoff – Built by: Herreshoff Manufacturing Company – Year Launched: 4-24-1911 – Current Name: Elena – Original Owner: Morton F Plant – Current Owner: – Status: 1954 (sold for scrap)
Historical:
April 24, 1911, the New York Times recorded Elena’s launch: “The new steel racing yacht Elena, built for former Commodore Morton F Plant of the New York Yacht Club, went down the marine railway at the Herreshoff works to water today to the accompaniment of strains of orchestral music and the cheers of a score of the owner’s personal friends from New York. The Elena is named for Queen Helena of Italy. She is 135ft long overall and 96ft on the waterline, with a beam of 27ft 6in and 17ft draft.”
In the fall of 1910 Morton Plant placed an order with the Herreshoff Construction Company for a new yacht. Plant’s design request was simple, “Build me a schooner that can win!” and so the choice was made to copy, and where possible, improve upon the design of the S/Y Westward that Herreshoff had built the year before. The Westward was another benchmark yacht that swept the field at every race she took part in her first year racing and, with continued success, became one of the most famous and successful racing schooners of all time.
Above the waterline, Elena and Westward were identical. However, below the waterline, Elena was given a slightly fuller keel that lowered her center of ballast and improved her windward ability.
Elena was launched the following season (1911) and soon thereafter both yachts were going head-to-head in racing up and down the blustery Eastern Coast of the United States. Like her sister the year before, Elena immediately began winning the majority of her races against the best of the American schooner fleet, several of which included competing against the Westward.
After a successful 17 year racing season and cruising in American waters with distinguished owners such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and William B. Bell, it wasn’t until 1928 when Elena’s greatest moment of glory came during the King’s Cup Trans-Atlantic Race from New York to Santander, Spain. Elena won the race outright.
The Replica
A replica of the 1911 Herreshoff schooner Elena has been built in Galicia in northwest Spain, July 2009.
Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Notable Guest, and Reunion Information):
Owner/Guardian: (1911) – Morton F Plant
Owner/Guardian: (1917-1923) – Cornelius Vanderbilt
Owner/Guardian: (1928) – William B. Bell, New York, N.Y., chemical engineer, president of American Cyanamid Company from 1922 until his death in 1950
Skipper: (1928) – John Barr, nephew of Charlie Barr
Resources
Super Yacht Times
The New York Times (April 24, 1911)
The Herreshoff Registry