The future....

[Adam]

Hey Steve.... Hope you don't mind me asking ....Just wondering what the plans are for this site – you know “what’s next”? It’s a very slick site – well laid out, and the Registry’s are a truly great piece of historic research work. I can’t even imagine how time consuming they must have been….

I’d think that eventually this site would work very closely with the HMM. I know they have your link up, but it’s – well – difficult to find and unless you happen to place your curser over it, you wouldn’t even know it’s a link. I would think HMM making note of this site, the registries and the forum would be mutually beneficial. The info you collected and being this is (as far as I can tell) the only Net forum on all things Herreshoff, make your site a great resource for those of us obsessed.

This is such a great  place to “put and take” Herreshoff info for later query - and of course re-connecting with an old childhood sailing buddy after nearly two decades is pretty nice as well - I'd be curious what lies ahead.....(hope I didn't overstep any my internet etiquette with this).

[Steve]

Hi Adam.  Thanks for the encouraging words.  My plans for this site, in addition to continuous updates to the information on each boat, are a little amorphous.  Things that I have in the works include a link to the Of Brothers And Boats video at the National Sailing Hall Of Fame, an article on how to determine the vintage of your 12-1/2 without a manufacturer's plate, and a series of brief articles describing the various classes.

This evolved from my original efforts to chronicle the history of the 12.  The Museum oftentimes refers inquiries about the 12 my way, and I am thankful they put a link to the 12-1/2 Registry on their site.  I would like to merge the 2 sites into 1 at some point (they both use the same database, so it is technically very feasible).  The value of having an Internet site is that more people can both learn about their own boat and contribute information to the record.  On several occasions we have been able to combine a few discrete pieces of background to identify a boat, which is very satisfying.  The more people that know about the site, the greater is the chance that more data can be found.

I have a real interest in the research itself and in turning the gathered data into a tool that people can use to learn about their own vessel.  An extremely valuable source of data is the Beverly Yacht Club Yearbooks.  They are hard to come by.  HMM has quite a few of them, and I have manually keyed in the data from about half of their collection (I hope to go up for the other half sometime this fall).  I had almost brokered a deal between the Villanova University Falvey Library and the Beverly Yacht Club in which VU would have electronically scanned the entire colllection and published it on their website at no charge, but the then-Commodore nixed the deal because he didn't like the language in the VU agreement.  What a major disappointment.  I recently tried to re-surface the deal, but nothing happened and I have now lost my connection with the Falvey Library.

I think that's about it for now in terms of future plans. Anything I can do to drive the visibility of this site improves the chances of harvesting more data.   Feel free to suggest any ideas.

-Steve

[Adam]

Encouragement not needed - the work speaks for itself. I find myself querying the databases quite a bit to validate info, or to follow the history and owners of a particular vessel I've seen or read about. Actually I'm a bit surprised - knowing the popularity of the HMCo's work - that it took this long for someone to document. To think how many of these boats are now gone - many of which are significant to American Yachting,  with little known as to there fate. But I guess I like a good mystery like everyone else  ...

I think the Forum would become a popular place if there was a direct link on HMM. Would love to hear from owners trials and tribulations of owning 75-100 year old boats (and those of us who dream!). Maybe even Halsey would make a guest appearance  .

Keep up the good work!

[Steve]

It would be great if HMM had links to the sites and to the Forum in prominent places.  Hopefully they will decide to do that one day.  The existing link to the 12-1/2 Registry came about when I was in their library researching the Beverly Yacht Club yearbooks.  John Palmieri, Peter Sterret, and I were talking when John mentioned the registry.  Peter volunteered to put the link on the new site (this was before they re-modeled).  The all-inclusive registry and forum were born after that discussion.

I am hoping that the HMM staff pick up on these resources and decide to make the connections.

-Steve