Review of Herreshoff America
Basic specs.
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The hull is made of fibreglass. Generally, a hull made of fibreglass requires only a minimum of maintenance during the sailing season. And outside the sailing season, just bottom cleaning and perhaps anti-fouling painting once a year - a few hours of work, that's all.
CentreBoard
The Herreshoff America is equipped with a centreboard keel. A centreboard keel is a pivoting lifting keel, allowing to sail both coastal and inland waters.
The keel is made of lead. Compared with iron, lead has the advantage of being 44% heavier, which allows a smaller keel and hence less water resistance and higher speed.
The boat can enter even shallow marinas as the draft is just about 0.56 - 0.66 meter (1.84 - 2.14 ft) dependent on the load. See immersion rate below.
Sailing characteristics
This section covers widely used rules of thumb to describe the sailing characteristics. Please note that even though the calculations are correct, the interpretation of the results might not be valid for extreme boats.
What is Capsize Screening Formula (CSF)?
The capsize screening value for Herreshoff America is 2.36, indicating that this boat would not be accepted to participate in ocean races.
What is Theoretical Maximum Hull Speed?
The theoretical maximal speed of a displacement boat of this length is 5.6 knots. The term "Theoretical Maximum Hull Speed" is widely used even though a boat can sail faster. The term shall be interpreted as above the theoretical speed a great additional power is necessary for a small gain in speed.
The immersion rate is defined as the weight required to sink the boat a certain level.
The immersion rate for Herreshoff America is about 88 kg/cm, alternatively 495 lbs/inch.
Meaning: if you load 88 kg cargo on the boat then it will sink 1 cm.
Alternatively, if you load 495 lbs cargo on the boat it will sink 1 inch.
Sailing statistics
This section is statistical comparison with similar boats of the same category. The basis of the following statistical computations is our unique database with more than 26,000 different boat types and 350,000 data points.
What is Motion Comfort Ratio (MCR)?
The Motion Comfort Ratio for Herreshoff America is 13.4.
What is L/B (Length Beam Ratio)?
The l/b ratio for Herreshoff America is 2.27.
The ballast ratio for Herreshoff America is 20%.
What is Displacement Length Ratio?
The DL-ratio for Herreshoff America is 199 which categorizes this boat among 'light racers'.
SA/D (Sail Area Displacement ratio)
Indicates how fast the boat is in light wind:
- Cruising Boats have ratios 10-15
- Cruiser-Racers have ratios 16-20
- Racers have ratios above 20
- High-Performance Racers have ratios above 24
Sail-area/displacement ratio (SA/D ratio): 22.58
Maintenance
If you need to renew parts of your running rig and is not quite sure of the dimensions, you may find the estimates computed below useful.
| Usage | Length | Diameter | ||
| Jib sheet | 5.5 m | (18.2 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Genoa sheet | 5.5 m | (18.2 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Mainsheet | 13.8 m | (45.4 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
| Spinnaker sheet | 12.2 m | (40.0 feet) | 8 mm | (5/16 inch) |
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