Sail Number: A/9
Type: A Class Racing Schooner
LOA: 180′ 5″ / 55.00m – LOD: 136’ 6” /41.60m – LWL: 96′ 0″ / 29.60m – Beam: 26’ 8” / 8.14m – Draft: 17′ 0″ / 5.20m – Yard Number: #706/Y103 – Displacement: 215 tons – Sail Area Upwind: 1.180 m2 – Air Draft: Main mast is 42 m above waterline – Designer: Nathanael G. Herreshoff Replica / ACUBENS Naval Architects Madrid
Interior Design: Steve McLaren – Built By: Factoria Naval de Marin, Galicia, Spain – Hull: AH36 High Tensile Steel – Flag: United Kingdom [GB] – Launched: 2009 – Club: YCM (Yacht Club de Monaco) – Marine Trafic
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 Rebirth
To resurrect this maritime legend, today’s engineers and designers not only had hundreds of hand-drawn plans donated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, MA. but were also provided with the resources of Herreshoff Design Office located in Bristol, RI which is overseen by Halsey Herreshoff, the grandson of Nathaniel Greene Herreshoff ’s.
In addition to the information provided by MIT and the Herreshoff Design Office, historic images of Elena were painstakingly studied to ensure that every detail was replicated to near perfection. These details include her towering wooden masts and sail plan identical in dimensions to the original. Her beautiful classic styled interior will be like a journey back in time.
Elena’s Rig
Elena’s original rigging plan, as drawn by Herreshoff in 1911, has been tested through a purpose-made computer program, for Brasker masts and spars. Surprisingly the results confirmed that despite nearly 100 years of developments in rigging design the Wizard of Bristol’s original concept could not be improved upon in both strength and lightness. After calculating hundreds of situations in every conceivable weather circumstance and applying those circumstances to every possible sail combination, the modeling results could only substantiate but not improve on his calculations. Therefore all the spars will be built to Herreshoff ’s original specifications.
Elena’s lower spars and booms will be constructed of carefully selected Oregon Pine. Her upper masts, gaff ’s, jackyards and spinnaker boom will be constructed of the finest quality Alaskan Sitka Spruce. New to Elena will be the booms that will be constructed of 16 staves instead of the more customary eight, giving a much stiffer and lighter boom despite thinner wall thicknesses. Given today’s modern technology to improve upon past designs, Herreshoff ’s original design specifications truly stand the test of time.
Provenance. (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Notable Guest, and Reunion Information):
Owner/Guardian: (2009) – Private
Skipper: (2019) – Stephen McLaren
Resources
Super Yacht Times
The New York Time (April 24, 1911)