Sail Number: A–7
Vessel Type: Buzzards Bay 30
“Mashnee” Specifications:
LOA: 46′ 6″ / 14.17m – LWL: 30′ 0″ / 9.14m – Beam: 10′ 10″ / 3.30m – Draft: 5′ 3″ / 1.60m – Hull Number: 569 – Displacement: 20,160 lbs
D/L: 323 – Sail Area: 1,400 ft² / 130.06 m² – Designer: N.G. Herreshoff – Built: 1902 – Built By: Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, Bristol, RI – Original Owner: Robert W. Emmons – Current Owner: Donated to MIT Sailing (2018) – Current Location: Boston, MA
Historical:
Buzzards Bay 30s were originally built in the spring of 1902 by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company of Bristol, Rhode Island. The 47-foot yachts were ordered by the Beverly, Massachusetts Yacht Club and were raced as a class.
Found abandoned in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. At the time of Mashnee’s restoration in Vermont, three other 30s (Young Miss, Lady M, and Quakeress III) were being restored by French and Webb in Belfast, Maine, and all four were launched in time for the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta in 2008.
The Buzzards Bay 30 Fleet (Fourteen identical Buzzards Bay 30s (30′ on the waterline and 46’6″ overall) were built over the winter of 1901–02 for members of the Beverly Yacht Club, then of Monument Beach, Massachusetts.)
- A–0 YOUNG MISS D.L. Whittemore
- A–1 NOTOS C.H. Taylor
- A–2 EVELYN John Hitchcock
- A–3 PRAXILLA John Parkinson, Jr.
- A–4 ARABIAN Robert Winsor
- A–5 QUAKERESS II W.F. Harrison
- A–6 PONTIAC J. Arthur Beebe
- A–7 MASHNEE R.W. Emmons
- A–8 ZINGARA E.M. Farnsworth
- A–9 LARIKIN Robert Bacon
- A–10 ANITA R.T. Crane III
- A–11 GAMECOCK Louis Bacon
- A–12 WAHTAWAH A. Rogers
- X-XX ARRIA Walter Cotton
Restoration:
2005 – Darling Boatworks, Shelburne, VT – Began a three plus year restoration, moulds were made to retain her hull shape. New backbone, keel, stem and horntimber, and frames were made of white oak. New engine was installed, and new planking began in October 2006, double planked above the waterline, 9/16″ cyprus on the inside and 9/16″ douglas fir on the outside, the whole planking process took four months. Port orford cedar deck planking was fastened to the deck beams, then marine plywood, the covered in epoxy/dynel. The mahogany deck house was built by French and Webb Boatbuilders. Coamings, toerails, and hatches were made of Honduran mahogany. The lead keel was sent up to Mars, melted down and recast. A new interior was fitted and installed.
May 20th, 2008 Mashnee was sent to Point Bay Marina, and launched May 31st, 2008
Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):
Owner/Guardian: (1902) Robert W. Emmons
Owner/Guardian: (2018) MIT Sailing
The Mashnee Project from steven rozendaal on Vimeo.
Comments
Harris Gruber – July 23, 2016
Just lovely! ………Harris Gruber, Guide, Herreshoff Marine Museum.
Anne Johansson – September 15, 2022
My father, then a thirteen year old boy, and his eleven year old cousin, served as cabin boys on the Mashnee in the summer of 1931. My father kept a log and a personal journal of the trip which I have in my possession along with photographs.
Inspired by this experience he went on to become a yacht owner and avid sailor well into his old age. But he always insisted that of all his sailing adventures, it was those wonderful days aboard the Mashnee tha were his finest. Towards the end of his life he made several unsuccessful attempts to locate Mashnee. Unsuccessful, no doubt, because he did not know how to make good use of the internet. After looking through some old papers today I found the log and journal of his Mashnee trip and of the accompanying photos.
If you have any interest in them I would be more than happy to send you copies.
I’m so glad to find that Mashnee is still afloat (or at least as of 2008). My father would have been too.
All the best,
Anne Johansson
“Herreshoff Sloop Being Refurbished.” Bristol Phoenix, March 5-6, 1970, p. 39
The call of the open sea, the water rushing beyond the transom, the sight of 1,200 square feet of working sails filled by a stiff breeze have inspired a labor of love. For three years Dick Dalessio, his father and friends have been rebuilding the 46-ft Mashnee sailing boat, one of 12 Buzzards Bay 30s built in 1902 by Nathaniel Herreshoff in Bristol.
Dick, a sailing enthusiast, and his Dad, Emilio, bought the boat in 1965, an investment of $3,000. Getting her ship-shape to sail that summer amounted to a thorough cleaning and a fresh coat of paint. However the years had taken a toll and Dick found that the structural ribs needed replacing. The boat worked when under sail and old timbers rotted with age, loosened. When the Mashnee was hauled out that fall, a complete rebuilding project began.
Dick noted that he was living and working in Boston at the time. The project became a weekend affair. Dick recalled that the rebuilding began with a great deal of research.
Emilio Dalessio is the proprietor of a service station and auto repair shop on Maple Ave, Barrington, located next door to their residence. Dick is a Barrington High School graduate, class of 1956. During his years as a student he was the accompanist for the Barrington Boys’ Choir for nine years. He graduated from Brown Univ in 1963 and from Harvard Business School with a master’s degree in 1969. He married Paula Thomsen, in 1967. They now reside in Marblehead, Mass and Dick commutes to Boston where he is associated with IBM.
The arduous weekend task has taken well over three years. Guided by a good friend and experienced boatsman, Godfrey ‘Unk’ Allen, owner of the Narragansett Terrace Boat Yard, Riverside, work began.
The cabin and top deck were stripped off, frames were removed one screw at a time. Shaping the new ribs made of green oak was a tedious task Dick explained ‘Notches were cut in the timbers. We then coated them with kerosene which helped retain the heat when steamed in a specially built steam box heated by an old boiler. Each rib, steamed for three hours, was carefully lifted out with the aid of rubber gloves. The rib was bent over a metal wheel to give it direction,’ Dick said, ‘and then run into the boat, forced against the hull with the use of jacks and then fastenings were put on from the outside, before it was left to cool; 85 of 92 ribs were replaced with one out of every third attempt going astray as ribs cracked under the strain,’ he added.
During these three years, summer and winter, work continued. All butt blocks, garboard strakes, bilge stringers and keel boards were replaced. The boat was launched last May, and remained dockside for cabin and deck completion. The deck was laid over a plywood base and completely fiberglassed.
Built in the Dalessio garage, a deck house of mahogany was transported to the boat yard and lifted onto the superstructure with a cranelike device and bolted down. ‘This took quite a bit of engineering,’ Dick recalled. He related that two side boards of the cabin are of African mahogany 2 inches thick by 28 feet long and 3 feet wide. They were obtained from the Ichabod T. Williams & Sons Co of NY City, dealers in mahogany, after an intensive search. Transportation, by the senior Dalessio in a station wagon from the N J lumber yard, proved quite a feat and the trip back to R I was not without difficulty.
Dick said that the boat had an original gaff rig on it and he believes it was the first boat to use a Genoa sail, a large jib that overlaps the mast. The rigging has since been changed to the more modern Marconi. The new sails are from Thurston Co of Warren.
Dick credits several of his friends for their help. His first mate, David Howe, Tom Pezzullo and Domenic DiOrio, all of Barrington; and two teenagers from the Terrace who became interested. One, young Steve McInnis handcut a half-model of the Mashnee for Dick at Christmas.
This spring when the Mashnee, now covered over and stored next to the Dalessio home, is launched it should be finished. Final, inside cabin work and details are in process. Furnishings are being procured and the steering wheel, a work of art, is being pieced together and fondly sanded from African mahogany. The boat will again take to the seas as she once did for her original owner, R. W. Emmons of Beverly, Mass. when She sailed from the Beverly Yacht Club along with her 11 other sister yachts back in 1902.
Source: “Herreshoff Sloop Being Refurbished.” Bristol Phoenix, March 5-6, 1970, p. 39.