Uncharted Waters | Timeless New England

Among the most remarkable things about the 1903 America’s Cup defender Reliance, the largest racing yacht that had yet been built, was that they ever found 64 sailors crazy enough to crew it. With the power of 16,000-plus square feet of sails counteracted by a keel weighing 102 tons, it would be subject to an ungodly amount of torsion—and in ocean waves, no less. The creaking of the rigging alone must have been hair-raising.

“It’s not a boat form that I think is wholesome,” its designer, N.G. Herreshoff, admitted to one of the owners, “but it’s what is necessary to win.”

And win it did, sweeping Shamrock III in the best-of-five series and becoming the fourth Cup winner in a row from Bristol, Rhode Island–based Herreshoff Manufacturing Co. (A fifth winner, Resolute, would come in 1920.)

Impressive as that is, dreaming up unbeatable racing yachts was only part of N.G. Herreshoff’s genius. “He was one of the world’s most prolific boat designers, yes,” says Kurt Hasselbalch, curator of the Hart Nautical Collections at the MIT Museum. “But he was also in charge of the construction of his designs—around 400, all told—and he trial-sailed them all. He even helmed one of the America’s Cup yachts to victory.”

This fall the MIT Museum spotlights the legacy of the so-called “Wizard of Bristol”—as well as his brother and partner, John, an innovator in his own right—as it debuts both a major exhibit, “Lighter, Stronger, Faster,” and a sprawling online archive of Herreshoff designs, which span rowing, sailing, and power vessels of every stripe.

You might find another tribute to this New England icon, though, just by checking your pockets: The yacht sailing toward the Pell Bridge on the Rhode Island state quarter is none other than Reliance. —Jenn Johnson

“Lighter, Stronger, Faster: The Herreshoff Legacy” opens 10/18 at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, MA. To learn more about the exhibit and online archive, go to newengland.com/herreshoff-MIT.