The sky above Schwerin Castle is overcast on this late summer's day; the lake in front of it is empty, with no one on the water apart from a passenger boat. Except Franz Köhn. Clad in a yellow Frisian mink, the fit pensioner pulls his boat out of the harbour with two long oars and sets about hoisting the tiny jib and the huge gaff sail. Satisfied, he then takes the tiller in his hand, the sheets tight, and watches as his recently launched piece of jewellery gets underway with hardly any wind to speak of.
Köhn can still clearly remember the first day of sailing on his "Therapy", the faithful replica of an American standard class called Buzzard's Bay 15. A sublime moment. For six years, he had spent every spare minute in the workshop and - the boat's name says it all - recharged his batteries by building boats. Listening to him, you get the impression that the first stroke under sail alone was worth the effort: "And then suddenly we were rushing across the lake, it was fast. I thought to myself, that's what it must be like to sail a Star boat."
This association is by no means far-fetched. The Buzzard's Bay 15, also known as the Herreshoff 15 because of its 15-foot waterline length, may seem to walkers on the shores of Lake Schwerin like a fantasy prop for a film scene in front of the historic castle, but in fact it can be traced back to the same mentality that produced the star boat.
Herreshoff responsible for One-Design
The design of the Buzzard's Bay 15 was commissioned by several members of the Beverly Yacht Club of Marion, Massachusetts. The year was 1898, regatta sailing was all the rage, but the club members were tired of sailing against each other on very different boats according to the half-baked remuneration formulae of the time. They commission none other than star designer Nathanael Greene Herreshoff to create a one-design for the yacht club.
An "NGH design" was the dream of every sailor at the time. Around the turn of the century, the name of the designer, who was born in 1848, became internationally synonymous with innovation in yacht building. The Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, founded with brother John Brown in Bristol in 1878, produced several of the largest regatta yachts of the time in addition to numerous steam-powered craft. The company had long since become a conglomerate of different specialised companies, with more than 300 employees producing everything that needed to be on board for launching.
Above all, however, under the talented engineer Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, the company quickly developed into a yachting laboratory, bringing the most incredible inventions to the water. Continuous battens, hollow masts, extremely lightweight construction, aluminium hulls, fin keels and multihulls - at Herreshoff, fiction soon becomes reality.
In addition to being a designer, Herreshoff is also a regatta sailor
And so, at that time, the name stood worldwide for the depths of the art of engineering, which in the burgeoning industrial age seemed to many to be a secret science - earning Herreshoff the nickname "Magician of Bristol". Of the six yachts he designed for the America's Cup, five went on to win. And for generations after him, it was still common practice among designers to check whether Herreshoff had already come up with the same idea when a supposedly new idea was presented.
Among sailors, however, the magician has another nickname. His numerous regatta successes as helmsman led Herreshoff's opponents to speak respectfully of "Captain Nat". When his first America's Cup design, "Vigilant", actually won the silver jug in 1893, the designer himself was at the helm. And it is said that Charlie Barr, the most successful professional skipper at the time, had the utmost respect for Herreshoff's sailing skills.
But work leaves little time for a career as a regatta sailor. Entrepreneur Herreshoff has a seven-day week, and so small boats dominate his private life, during which he goes out on the water with his family for short breaks. Numerous open keelboat classes are created for the sailors of the surrounding region on the Bristol magician's drawing board at this time.
Creation of the "Compromise Sloop"
The specifications for the standardised class planned in Massachusetts in 1898 - the second in a whole series of Herreshoff One designs - were primarily based on local conditions, as was customary at the time. The result was a 15-foot-long centreboard - called a "Compromise Sloop" at the time. The oversized gaff rig was designed to make it possible to race even in light winds. On the other hand, the sail's centre of pressure should be able to be quickly shifted downwards by means of an uncomplicated reefing device when a breeze arises, so that the boat can then continue sailing with a respectable surface area.
In the winter of 1898/99, eleven boats of the new type were built at Herreshoff's shipyard in Bristol, Rhode Island. "Captain Nat" - a point of honour for him - delivers them himself, in tow of his steam yacht "Squib".
After the club members raffled off the boats among themselves, enthusiasm for the small sloop grew in the very first season. A total of 70 new boats left the shipyard in the following years. An extremely large number by the standards of the time. Especially in view of the fact that a member of the club was behind every order.
The history of Herreshoff design falls to Schwerin
Only a few of these boats from back then have survived to this day. The situation is different with the plans. And so new boats are built from time to time. Like the one built by Franz Köhn. He had just taken early retirement when he started "therapy". "As my wife was still working, I also wanted to have something to do," recalls the now 67-year-old. He learnt the craft of boatbuilding in the early seventies at a boatyard in Schwerin, where he was employed until the fall of the Berlin Wall. He then built boats for customers as a freelancer.
He put the "therapy" on keel six years ago. At the time, he wanted to bridge four years with the project, and the plans had already been in the drawer for some time. "In 1993, I was on holiday in Holland with my family," he recalls. "I came across 'The Boat Man' magazine, which had a great story about the Buzzard's Bay 15. I liked the boat straight away. Not least because, with its centreboard, it fits perfectly on Lake Schwerin."
During a visit to the Mystic Seaport Museum, a customer who often has business in the USA brings the boat builder two drawings of the Buzzard's Bay 15 to be purchased there, a sail plan and a line plan, which also contains some details such as the rudder system, centreboard box and fitting arrangement. But nothing more. The dimensions, choice of wood, quality of the rigging and fittings are all questions that need to be clarified in the context of a replica.
Enough room for individual decisions
"Herreshoff never even drew a line plan," is the museum's simple explanation. The plan was created based on the measurement of an original. The trained engineer did not develop his ships on paper, but in the workshop - as a true-to-scale half-model. Using specially developed precision mechanical equipment, he then took the figures for the measurement table from the model hull. If questions of detail were raised later in the construction process, he spontaneously produced sketches and always handed them over to his employees with the words: "This should be enough."
Franz Köhn has no one to ask when he starts his "therapy" - which is what particularly appeals to him about the project at the time. Today, he sits at the tiller, looks out over the immaculate deck and seems completely satisfied. "Thinking about how to build it in detail was always great fun for me," says the passionate boat builder.
At the time, he did not realise that the estimated four years would ultimately turn into six, because the detailed solutions he had found himself and health problems would slow him down. At the time, Köhn decided in favour of the strip construction method. He screwed the Khaya planks, which were glued together, onto oak frames bent under steam. After cleaning the entire hull with a plane and sandpaper, he laminates two layers of glass fibre mat onto the underwater hull using epoxy resin.
Deviations from the Herreshoff original
No thoughts of his own flow into the design language. "I meticulously adhered to the drawings so as not to distort the beautiful design," says Köhn. And even if, according to the Mystic Seaport Museum, replicas based on the plans may not officially be labelled as Herreshoff designs, the "Therapy" clearly bears the signature of the German-born old master from overseas thanks to Köhn's attitude. The design of such style-defining elements as the coaming and washboard was modelled just as naturally as the huge gaff rig.
"It's different with the dimensions of the keel, frames, wings and the like," says Köhn. He added more dimensions there. "The mast track, for example, is only on three of the floor frames in the original, which was too short for me, so I made them longer to better transfer the force from the rig to the hull. I followed Lloyd's specifications for the frames and cradles, deck beams and knees."
Köhn bolts the mahogany deadwood under the ship with the lead ballast he cast himself and treats it with a conventional paint finish. "It will work," he explains, so a coating would eventually come off. "And you can also repair it much better this way," says Köhn.
Boat name "Therapy" is the programme
At the end of 2015, the overhead hull is finished and turned. Franz Köhn then uses softwood and oak to make the deck substructure and then covers it with ten-millimetre-thick marine plywood.
The floorboards are made from larch, the rudder blade from mahogany and carbon fibre. Franz Köhn, who takes as much pleasure in the theory as he does in the craftsmanship itself, is occupied with numerous such solutions. For example, he gives the moulded wooden sword a sheath of thin lead so that it can be lowered easily. For stylish bronze fittings, Köhn travels to Dauelsberg in Delmenhorst and to Toplicht in Hamburg. What he can't get there, he makes himself.
Köhn glues the hollow mast profile from 16 spruce slats and builds the wooden blocks himself. And once all the painting work has been completed, the fittings fitted and the sails delivered and attached, he and his wife set off on their maiden voyage across the local Lake Schwerin. But not without first celebrating a perfect christening. "When I disappeared into the workshop, my wife always said: 'Well, are you going to therapy again?" says Franz Köhn and laughs. And as he tightens the sheet and brings his dream boat up to the wind, a smile flits across his face. And it's clear to see: His therapy is working.
The construction
The open keelboat was developed by the famous American designer Nathanael Greene Herreshoff in 1898 for regatta sailing according to the ideas of the time. The gaff rig was considered favourable for various reasons. The centreboard is due to the home area, the shallow coastal area of Buzzard's Bay on the American east coast in the south-east of the state of Massachusetts. The boat was the second in a series of one-designs by Herreshoff, which were very common in the region. Today, only a few historical examples still exist. The complete plans are at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), simple drawings are available at Mystic Sea Port ( www.mysticseaport.com ).
Technical details of the Buzzard's Bay 15
- Design engineer:Nathanael Greene Herreshoff
- Year of construction:1898
- Building yard:Franz Köhn/Schwerin
- Year of construction:2013-2020
- Total length:7,50 m
- Waterline length:4,60 m
- Width:2,10 m
- Depth:0,7-1,50 m
- Sail area on the wind: 30,7 m²
- Hull material:Mahogany on oak
The designer
Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, known as the "Magician of Bristol" or simply "Captain Nat", dominated international yachting at the turn of the century. His designs usually won the America's Cup when they competed, and many pioneering inventions in yacht building first appeared on his designs. The shipyard conglomerate Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, founded together with brother John Brown Herreshoff, employed more than 300 people at its peak and was able to manufacture everything that belonged on a ship itself. The company was also pioneering in other respects. Extremely lightweight constructions, unusual materials and unimaginably short construction times made it a legendary forge for the extraordinary even during the owners' lifetime. NGH" also enjoyed an excellent reputation as a sailor, and he followed the regattas in his home waters off Newport from aboard his own steam yacht well into old age. Today, the estate of the great designer is in the Herreshoff Museum to admire.
This article first appeared in YACHT issue 21/2020 and has been revised for this online version.
