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INTRODUCTION 



^ On April lo, 1877, a letter from Nathanael Herreshoff appeared in the New 



l» York Herald. In it the man who came to be known as the "Wizard of 



Bristol" (R.I.) described the reasoning which led him to design and build 



the famous Amaryllis, one of the earliest American catamarans to make 



conventional yachts look like ice wagons.* 



"In the fall of 1875," said Herreshoff, "I was thinking and thinking how 

 to get great speed out of single-hulled boats, or the kind in common use. 

 To get great speed, thought I, one must have great power. To have great 

 power one must have great sail, you must have something to hold it up, and 

 that something must be large and wide, and have a large sectional surface, 

 and also a great deal of frictional surface. These properties in a hull to give 

 stability are not compatible with attaining great speed. Indeed, the more 

 one tries to make a stiff, stable hull the less speed will be attained, even if 

 corresponding additions are made to the sail. So, then, there are two im- 

 portant principles of speed which constantly work against each other. If we 

 increase the power to get more speed we must increase the stability of the 

 hull correspondingly. An increased hull has more resistance, both from 

 sectional area and surface friction. So what we would fain gain one way we 

 lose in the other. . . . 



"... A wide boat cannot have great speed, apply what power you will 

 to her, so the next thing that has to be done is to decrease the sectional area 

 and the frictional area. I thought I would raise the heel and the center line 

 of the boat, and make the bilges project downward and outward from it- 

 such a thing as a Dutchman might build. ... I kept on following this 

 principle, getting the keel higher and higher, when lo and behold! There 

 was a double boat! Nothing else to be done but take a saw and split her in 

 two, spread it apart a little way and cover all with a deck and there you are. 

 That was the rough road which I travelled, and having arrived thus far I 

 abandoned my ill-shaped hulls and in their place substituted two long, 

 narrow, very light boats and connected them at the bow, stern, and middle. 



* This letter was found when I was browsing around among the valuable collection of scrap- 

 books in the library of the New York Yacht Club. My purpose was to obtain background infor- 

 mation for my Block Island to Nantucket, published by D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., in April 

 1961. The story here is gleaned largely from that book, as it seemed especially appropriate 

 for the section on catamarans. 



INTRODUCTION 209 



