Coquina

Benjamin Mendlowitz

Nathanael Greene Herreshoff designed the original Coquina for his own use. Excellent balance and sailing characteristics—and above all, simplicity—made the 16’8” LOA boat one of his favorites.

It can be a bit difficult sometimes to get beyond the mystique of a great yacht designer’s hallowed reputation, never more so than with Nathanael Greene Herreshoff (1848–1938). “Genius” is appended to his name as routinely as it is to Mozart’s. It’s best, if you can, to try to forget the history surrounding such a designer’s boat—like trying to listen to a famous string quartet as if you were hearing it for the first time. Instead, get inside his mind by using the boat plainly and simply for what it was meant to do. And when it comes to N.G. Herreshoff, no design makes that easier than a Coquina.Like all of Herreshoff’s designs, formal lines drawings never existed for this 16'8" LOA hull because he measured his own half models to develop tables of offsets that he handed directly to his yard’s boatbuilders for lofting the hull full-sized. The Herreshoff Mfg. Co. built the first boat of this design in 1889 for Herreshoff’s own use, and only one other was built in the designer’s time.