L Francis
Herreshoff
described
Rozinante as a
beautiful modelFew yachts have attracted more lavish praise,
but is it deserved?
THEO RYE
F
ew boats have earned such lavish praise as
L Francis Herreshoff’s ‘canoe yawl’ Rozinante;
L Francis himself wrote immodestly “you will
fi nd her a beautiful model” and elsewhere
you’ll fi nd her lauded as “one the most beautiful and
graceful vessels ever designed” and “hypnotically
beautiful”. At the risk of prompting outrage from her
admirers, I’m not sure I’d go that far; certainly, the
hull is very pretty (and better in photos than on
paper), but while the original rig with her club gaffs
may be practical, to my eye it’s nothing very special in
the aesthetic department. He evidently returned to the
design later in life; the original version was published in
The Rudder and ‘The Compleat Cruiser’ (1956), but he
published (posthumously) a prettier bermudan version
(Design No. 98) in the 1973 ‘Sensible Cruising Designs’,
by which time the hull was a fraction longer and deeper
and had a lot more sail area.
In ‘The Compleat Cruiser’ L Francis described her as
a whaleboat type, ketch rigged cruiser, but in The
Rudder he described her as “of a type that used to be
described as canoe yawls”. That canoe yawls are not
canoes (or necessarily yawls) is a truism; the consensus
seems to be that they should be slim and small enough to
row if necessary, double-ended, partly decked, have a
mizzen, and if the accommodation is anything other than
snug it won’t count. Albert Strange is often cited as the
inventor of the breed, but more prosaically they seem to
have evolved during the 1870s; Strange did much to
popularise them with his artistic drawings and articles
though, a tradition that L Francis followed.
Herreshoff also described Rozinante as “non-
capsizeable” but I would suggest that potentially
self-righting would be more accurate; no boat of this size
is truly uncapsizeable, but she is very slim for her length
and has a good ballast ratio (in most versions 50 per cent
or more), so should come back up pretty readily one
would imagine, assuming she doesn’t down-fl ood. The
original had a long (8ft) cockpit which looks a nice
space, but it wasn’t self-draining; and that would suggest
her ideal milieu would be inshore or at best reasonably
sheltered coastal or estuarial use rather than offshore.
The cost of the decent cockpit with such a narrow boat
is next to non-existent side decks, which with her lowsheer will bring her crew into regular and intimate
proximity with the water; which again suggests
relatively sheltered waters would be her forte. In the
same vein, the sail area at 265sq ft was originally
pretty mean; with a sail area/displacement ratio of 129
she would often have been sluggish, despite her slim
hull. Presumably refl ecting that, the redrawn versions
have 348sq ft (32.3m^2 ) and the SA/disp ratio jumps to
a healthier 169 as a result; since nearly all the examples
built follow the later rig plan it’s not surprising she has
a reputation for scooting along pretty well.
As an aside, it is surprising that such a renowned
draughtsman as L Francis produced the published lines
plan with some defi nite anomalies: have a look at where
the fi rst buttock crosses waterline 1 near station 20, for
example; (the later version is much fairer). The general
form of the hull is delightful though; L Francis was a fi ne
proponent of double-enders and this is a sweet example.
The very slim aft waterlines might cause a little tendency
to hobby-horse in a chop, and make her sensitive to a
cockpit full of crew, but then he designed her to be
rowable and hence gave her those slim quarters. Given a
decent pair of oars she will probably move along OK,
but at three tons it would take a pretty determined crew
to keep it up for any length of time or into breeze or tide.
Following canoe yawl tradition, the accommodation
is comically snug (as Herreshoff demonstrates in the
original illustration), but with her moderate draft and
low coachroof that is inevitable; concentrate on
enjoying the cockpit space. Her fi xed keel makes her a
potentially more capable pocket cruiser perhaps, but
she is not truly shallow draught as a result.
The draught is necessary to compensate for the lack
of beam, a feature predominantly related to being
row-able, which confi rms that fi tting an inboard
(which Herreshoff was volubly against here) would be
largely missing the point.
There is a purity of intent about the design which is
nicely mirrored in L Francis’ general style. The hull shape
is determined overwhelmingly by the need to be able to
row her, which in a three-ton, 28ft boat places a hard
compromise on most other aspects. Putting the
hyperbole on one side, Rozinante is clearly a highly
focused design, which will suit a few people perfectly.ROZINANTE
L FRANCIS HERRESHOFF
CLASSIC DESIGNS