21' Herreshoff/White Flatfish Sloop (2021) - WANDERER

WANDERER, a Joel White Flatfish, a keel/centerboard daysailer.

Particulars:
LOA 20’ 9”
LWL 16’ 1”
Beam 7’ 6”
Draft (cb up) 2’ 2”
(cb down) 4’3”
Displacement 3094 lbs.
Sail area (gaff) 268 sq ft

Designed by Joel White in 1995, the Flatfish is based directly on Nathanael Herreshoff’s Fish class sloop (1916) and is essentially a centerboard version of that boat.

Herreshoff developed the offsets and construction drawings for the Fish class from the half model for the smaller 12-1/2 (1914) also known as the “Buzzard Bay Boys Boat”. 75 years later Joel White reimagined that boat as a centerboarder giving us the Haven 12-1/2. He gave the Fish class the same treatment six years later to produce the design for the Flatfish.

The original Fish class boats had a full keel, drawing 3’-2” while the Flatfish with its centerboard up, draws 2’-2”. (4’-3” with the board down) An additional 4-1/2” of beam and the accompanying lessened deadrise completes the hull transformation.

The profile above the waterline, the sail plan, the stability and the displacement remain unchanged from Herreshoff’s original.

WANDERER was built by Bob Thayer over a 6 years emerging from the shed last August (2021) just in time to go to the 39th Annual WoodenBoat Show in Mystic, Connecticut where she was honored with a Best In Show award in the owner built sail category. She has yet to be launched and Nat Wilson is making her suit of sails as I write this. We are anticipating a spring launch in Kingston, NY on the Hudson River.

The boat was built in the Herreshoff style – upside down over 22 molds whose shape was determined from the lofting– one for each pair of frames. The frames are steam-bent white oak, with white oak floors and bedlogs.

The inner and outer keelson and inner and outer stem are all sapele, the latter glued up from multiple laminations.

The hull is strip planked in Western red cedar (5/8” x 1-1/4”) strips epoxied to each other and bronze screw fastened to the frames. The hull is covered in 6 oz. glass cloth set in epoxy. The molded sheerstrake is sapele and the transom is African mahogany.

The coamings, covering boards, and cabin doors are all African mahogany as well. The cockpit sole, margins, and bench seats are all teak.

The decks and cabin top are 3/8” okoume marine ply sheathed with Dynel set in epoxy on laminated Douglas fir frames.

The mast is Sitka spruce and the gaff, main boom and jib boom are all Douglas fir.

UPDATE:
Wanderer was launched in June of 2022 with a lovely suit of Nat Wilson sails.
Her home is the Rondout Creek in Kingston, NY and she sails regularly on the Hudson River.