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Most of Them Dream

As a sailor dating back to my college days, I vaguely knew the Herreshoff name. A high-end manufactuer of sailboats, I thought. Until I visited the MIT Museum back in April and browsed the excellent Herreshoff exhibit, though, I didn’t know the compelling story behind the name.

John Brown Herreshoff was born in 1841. Blind in one eye from illness at the age of seven, J.B. lost sight in the other in a play accident with his brother Charles when he was fifteen. Enlisting his brother Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, seven years younger (and later MIT class of 1870), J.B. undertook the only reasonable course open to a man of his vision … starting a boat building business.

J.B. dictated specifications and built the business. Nat understood hydrodynamics and built boats. Together, their nautical genius, intuition, and effort reshaped a mode of transport and an industry.

Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call
Wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall
You've seen it all, you've seen it all
Watched the men who rode you switch from sails to steam
And in your belly you hold the treasures few have ever seen
Most of them dream, most of them dream
     - Jimmy Buffett, A Pirate Looks at Forty

Conversely, the Herreshoff's collective work switched from steam to sail. Their Herreshoff Manufacturing Company's steam-powered designs launched Navy torpedos. Later, their sailing vessels won America's Cups. For half a century, the Herreshoff's work redefined movement across water ... and their legacy influenced nautical innovation across the century that followed and that continues today.

my Herreshoff exhibit photos | MIT Museum
(exhibit available through May 2021)

Happy New Year 2020!