Westward

FROM
Westward
TO
Eleonora
1910
A
NOBLE LEGEND SAILS ON
2000
“She’s a wonder.”
So declared Captain Charlie Barr at the launching of the dazzling 160foot schooner Westward. His prophetic pronouncement would reverberate
throughout the career of this awe-inspiring vessel as she sailed her way to
super stardom during the Golden Age of Big Class racing.
The press heralded Westward as “the new Herreshoff flyer,” and fly
she did. Less than a month after her launching on March 31, 1910, she
sailed to Europe to challenge the world’s most formidable schooners in
the premier regattas of England and Germany. Sailing fast, strong, and
proud, she took first place in all eleven starts during her first season.
In ensuing years, she regularly showed her stern to all of her exalted
contemporaries, including Lulworth, Meteor II, and Germania, and raced
against King George V’s cutter Britannia no fewer than 174 times. She
even took on the towering cutters built as America’s Cup challengers,
and left them all in her wake more than once.
Conceived by “The Wizard of Bristol,” built for “the world’s richest
bachelor,” and originally helmed by the finest captain of all time,
Westward was indeed a wonder.
Westward charging along in a 1910 race (opposite)
Photo by Beken of Cowes.
Drawing courtesy of Hart Nautical Collections of MIT Museum.
3
The Wizard of Bristol
Westward on her launching day, March 31, 1910 (above) and
racing off the Isle of Wight in the summer of 1910 (below)
4
Launch photo courtesy of The Herreshoff Marine Museum.
Photo of Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, 1894, ©Mystic Seaport, Rosenfeld Collection, Mystic, CT,
#B443; photographer: James Burton. Sailing photos, above and opposite, by Beken of Cowes.
Alexander Cochran, Westward’s first owner, was an
avid yachtsman who had already owned several
competitive vessels. He had been especially
impressed by the performance of the America’s
Cup contender Defender, designed and built by
Nathanael Herreshoff, and so he put the creation
of his stunning new schooner in the hands of “the
Wizard of Bristol,” giving him free rein to specify
the very best of everything for her.
Nathanael Greene Herreshoff is certainly the
most famous and most accomplished American yacht
designer and builder of all time. Many believe that he
is the most outstanding in the world. For some 75
Nathanael Greene Herreshoff
years, Captain Nat, as he was called, dominated the
naval design fraternity as an innovator who created vessels that were advanced and
extreme, but always, always beautiful.
He and his brother John founded the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company in
Bristol, Rhode Island, in 1876. Educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Nathanael was the Chief Designer and Engineer while John primarily ran the business.
John had gone blind at the age of fifteen, but he never lost his natural ability to evaluate
the seaworthiness and speed of a design.
Together, the brothers turned out several thousand vessels ranging from steam
torpedo boats for the U.S. Navy, to storied sailing and power yachts, to fine little
catboats and dinghies. Most prominently, the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company
designed and built all the America’s Cup defenders — all of them of course successful
— from 1893 through 1920 (Vigilant, Defender, Columbia, Reliance, and Resolute), and
those years are commonly referred to as “The Herreshoff Era.” The defenders they
created were the largest, fastest, and most expensive ever to sail in the America’s Cup
races. As if designing and building these vessels weren’t enough, Captain Nat also
helmed some of them. The Herreshoff Manufacturing Company also built America’s
Cup defenders designed by Starling Burgess in 1930 (Enterprise)and 1934 (Rainbow)
and, between 1890 and 1938, Herreshoff designs also won the Astor Cup (won by
Westward in 1911), the Puritan Cup, and the King’s Cup.
Captain Nat was quiet to the point of being nearly uncommunicative. Considering
the range of his inventions, it is perhaps not surprising that he kept his cards close to his
chest. Among the many innovations with which he is credited are hydrodynamic fin and
bulb keels, below-deck winches, folding propellers, sail tracks and slides, cross-cut sails,
metal masts, and the formula for handicapping dissimilar yachts for racing. Captain Nat
even received the first patent for a catamaran sailboat way back in 1876.
When Alexander Smith Cochran asked his captain, Charlie Barr, how he might
prevail upon Nathanael Herreshoff to design and build a schooner that could cross the
Atlantic and race in Europe, Barr’s advice was as follows: “All you will have to do is run
up to Bristol and tell N. G. Herreshoff you want a yacht for that purpose and be sure
not to tell him how to design her for if you do he probably will not take the order. You
may have to show him some credentials for he doesn’t like to design a large yacht unless
he thinks the owner can afford it.” Captain Nat began the design for Westward in the
autumn of 1909, and she was launched just six months later, the longest sailing yacht
that Herreshoff had built at the time.
Westward, carrying a spectacular amount of sail, leads Britannia
on a downwind leg in 1927
The Wonder
When Charlie Barr called Westward “a wonder,” he knew whereof he spoke. Many years
later, in Yachting, A Pictorial History (Viking Press 1972), author Peter Heaton hailed
Westward as “perhaps the most famous of all racing schooners.” She was also the swiftest
schooner in the world in 1910, and remains one of the fastest ever to cross a finish line.
Also the largest Class-A racing schooner of her time, Westward measured 41,50
meters/135 feet on deck and 49 meters/160 feet overall.
Herreshoff hull number 692 was made of riveted steel, with pine decks over the steel
plating. Westward’s masts were of solid Oregon pine, and when the mainmast was
stepped, it weighed four tons including the rigging and hardware. Launched on March
31, 1910, Westward was a breathtaking sight to behold, her long bowsprit and tapering
overhangs creating a vision of gracefulness and a sleek and slender profile to be reckoned
with on the racecourse. Overhead, canvas blossomed like a magnificent, many-petaled
flower from her towering masts as she sailed before the wind.
For nearly four decades, from 1910 until 1947, Westward’s name was always in the
forefront of any discussion of yacht-racing’s grandest spectacles. She not only was the
fastest schooner, she also regularly left the biggest cutters behind. Even today, no account
of the greatest moments in yacht racing is complete without a deep bow to the sublime
Westward.
Newsclip (with misspelling of Cochran’s name) from The New York Times, April 1, 1910.
5
Westward and Her Owners
Westward was owned, treasured, and raced by a series of owners,
each with his own intriguing story. Her first owner,
Alexander Smith Cochran, was the heir to a family
fortune, while her last owner, T. B. Davis, was a selfmade multimillionaire. These two men, more than
any of the others, savored the excitement of owning
one of the world’s most spectacular vessels and sailing
her to victory on the racecourse.
1910–1911: Alexander Smith Cochran
Alexander Cochran, Westward’s first owner, at her helm with Captain Charlie Barr (above)
Cochran helps the crew raise the mainsail (below)
Cochran in the uniform of a commander in the Royal Navy, a commission he received
in 1917 (in oval). Cochran was very pro-British and donated his large steam yacht Warrior to the
Admiralty right after the start of the war in 1914. He subsequently ordered the building of five
motor torpedo boats for the Royal Navy. These must have been among their first PT-type boats.
6
Photos courtesy of the Cochran family.
Westward was commissioned by Alexander Smith
Cochran of New York City, fabulously wealthy heir to
the Alexander Smith carpet-manufacturing empire. His
maternal grandfather, Alexander Smith, had invented the
motorized Moquette loom and founded a very successful
Alexander Cochran
carpet factory in Yonkers, New York. In later years, Cochran
became active in the progressive Republican Party and ran for the U.S. Congress.
Cochran only briefly abdicated his position as “world’s richest bachelor,” a moniker
given him by the press, when, in 1920, he fell under the spell of the glamorous Madame
Ganna Walska. Ravishingly beautiful, Walska fancied herself an opera singer, but her
talent was questionable at best. People came to her concerts primarily to gaze on her and
her elaborate costumes; they winced at the sound of her voice, which was described
generously as “tiny,” and less generously as “screeching.”
Cochran was the third of Walska’s six husbands, and their marriage lasted mere
months. Her lawyer stated that “Alexander Smith Cochran has been joy riding all over
the world, buying and selling houses and yachts by whim and caprice. If Mr. Cochran
thinks that he can dispose of his wife the way he disposes of toys and playthings, he is
much mistaken.” Walska declared “If Cochran wants to get rid of me he must pay until
it hurts for his own good.” The divorce cost him $3,000,000. By her fifth divorce,
Walska was an extremely wealthy woman.
Cochran gave his money to the arts far more willingly. He donated an important
collection of Near Eastern tapestries, books, and miniatures to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art and, at his alma mater Yale University, he founded the Elizabethan Club
with his donation of a collection of astoundingly rare manuscripts including the first four
Shakespeare folios, a 1604 copy of Hamlet, and original essays by Francis Bacon. He
was also a major benefactor to his hometown of Yonkers, giving the city, among other
things, a hospital.
Cochran was on board for Westward’s maiden voyage from Rhode Island to
Southampton, deciding as he embarked to quit smoking in a dramatic way by throwing
all of his cigarettes overboard. Even a man of his wealth could not purchase more
cigarettes in the midst of the Atlantic, so his fate was sealed. As the story goes, he was
less than pleasant during his smoking abstinence and, as soon as they had anchored in
the Solent fourteen days later, set off to find a tobacconist.
1911-1924: Norddeutschen Regatta Verein Seefahrt, Hamburg;
Clarence Charles Hatry; and Warwick Brookes
When Cochran’s captain and friend, Charlie Barr, died of a heart attack in January
1911, he was dejected and his interest in racing Westward began to languish. He had
Barr’s former mate, Chris Christensen, bring her back across the Atlantic to the U.S.,
where she won the Astor Cup. At the end of the 1911 season, however, Cochran sold
Westward to Norddeutschen Regatta Verein Seefahrt, Hamburg, a syndicate of German
sailors who renamed her Hamburg II. In 1912, she sailed away to join the German fleet
of steel schooners. There she continued to earn first-place finishes, but her time there
would be cut short by the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
In 1919, Westward was purchased as a war prize by the flamboyant London financier
Clarence Hatry, who restored her original name. Hatry had begun his rise to success by
transporting Eastern European immigrants to the United States and Canada. He
subsequently enriched his vast fortune with investments in photographic supplies,
vending machines, and loan offices.
Unfortunately, Hatry was able to race Westward for just one season, the summer of
1919. In the slump that followed the end of the First World War, his empire had become
increasingly shaky, and he had been forced to turn his attention away from Westward as
he found himself in dire financial and legal circumstances. By the time he sold her in
1924, she had spent four seasons in retirement, mostly in a mud berth near
Southampton. Westward’s next owner was London businessman Warwick Brookes, a
keen yachtsman known for racing six-meters. He had also owned and raced a famous Fife
schooner, and other yachtsmen were hopeful that he would soon be racing Westward.
Instead, she moved on to her fourth owner the same year.
Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt and other
guests being welcomed aboard Westward by
Alexander Cochran for the Emperor’s Cup Race
on August 3, 1910 (above)
Cochran and his guests enjoying the downwind leg
as Westward leads the fleet with Charlie Barr
at the helm (below)
Newsclip above from The New York Times, June 21, 1910.
Photos courtesy of the Cochran family.
7
1924–1947: T. B. Davis
T. B. Davis at the helm of Westward (above)
Westward leading Britannia, center, and White Heather, left, in a 1926 race (below)
8
Photo of T. B. Davis courtesy of Société Jersiaise. Racing photo by Beken of Cowes.
Background information on T. B. Davis’s life provided by Philip Jeune of Jersey.
Westward’s final and most devoted owner was the hero of a true rags-to-riches story.
Thomas Benjamin Frederick Davis was born on Jersey, in the Channel Islands, the
son of a fisherman and ship’s carpenter. When just fifteen, he went to sea on board the
merchant schooner Satellite. Off the Norfolk coast, the ship encountered a March gale
and ran aground on the Haisborough Sands, and young Davis was ordered into the
longboat, tied to the ship by a painter, to stand by to receive the ship’s papers. Suddenly
a huge wave struck the Satellite, broke the longboat free, and swept Davis out of sight.
The Satellite managed to survive the storm and subsequently floated free, but Davis’s
family was notified that he was lost and presumed dead. However, after nineteen hours
at sea, a frostbitten Davis was rescued by the crew of a Norwegian trading schooner.
Davis arrived back on Jersey just in time to attend his own memorial service.
Davis was undeterred by his near-death experience and soon returned to the sea,
served in the Royal Naval Reserve for three years, and attained his Extra Master’s ticket.
He then moved to East London, on the East Coast of South Africa, where he
established a stevedoring company that in a few short years was handling all stevedoring
business from East London to Mombassa. Having amassed a fortune, he returned to
Jersey following the First World War. A few years later, in 1924, he purchased Westward.
For the next eleven years, he raced her against the leading yachts of the era,
including King George V’s cutter Britannia. These two behemoths went head to head no
less than 174 times, usually leaving the rest of the fleet far behind. The king and the exstevedore became friends, with a mutual respect based on the fact that they were both
true seamen, the former trained in the Royal Navy, the latter in commercial shipping.
T. B. Davis was known for his gruff exterior and colorful language, but it was his
competitive nature that became legendary. A particularly memorable match took place in
1932, when a southwesterly gale kept all the competitors except Britannia and Westward
at anchor. The two tacked and jockeyed for 45 miles, and when they came out from the
lee of the Isle of Wight, Westward’s greater sail area not only propelled her to giddy
speeds, but also made her nearly unmanageable, requiring at times three men on the
helm. The two great ladies finally crossed the line at Southsea in a virtual photo finish.
In those days, Westward carried a crew of twenty for cruising, with another ten strong
sailors coming aboard for races. In addition, she carried a sailmaker, shipwright,
electrician, two chefs, two stewards, two officers, and her sailing master.
One member of the crew later recalled the day when Davis took Westward out on a
90-mile course despite the race’s having been canceled for rough weather. “We weren’t far
out when the wind really got up and the rain started and she lay over so far in the water
that it seemed she would never get up again. It was really exciting, I can tell you, and Mr.
Davis was so proud of the way she was getting along. He called for the log to be streamed
and they did for an hour, and it recorded that we were going at eighteen-and-a-half knots!”
Despite the fact that Davis is said to have called out “Women below, ready about, lee
ho!” when tacking, he encouraged his daughter Marjorie to take the wheel, and she
became so proficient she sometimes helmed when racing. When Nathanael Herreshoff
read a press account of her ability, he was so charmed by the thought of the young woman
at the helm that he wrote a letter of congratulations to Davis.
Westward spent her racing seasons away from Jersey, competing in Mediterranean
and British waters, but she was laid up every winter in St. Helier Harbour with a huge
wooden cradle below her bow to keep her stable at low tide. It was in the off-season that
Davis himself masterminded all repairs, maintenance, and improvements to Westward.
Unlike other wealthy owners of Big Class yachts, he was very much a hands-on owner.
He even traveled to America to select two trees for Westward’s new masts.
King George withdrew Britannia from racing in 1935. Without his favorite
opponent, Davis decided to retire his racing flag as well. The King died the following year
and, according to his will, Britannia was sunk near the Isle of Wight in the English
Channel.
From then on, Davis only used Westward for cruising, fitting her with two Ailsa
Craig 48–60-hp six-cylinder diesel engines as well as other accoutrements designed to
enhance comfort on board. Davis continued to cruise, including an extended trip to
Norway and Sweden, until Westward was laid up in Dartmouth at the start of World War
II and remained there for the duration.
Davis had moved back to South Africa, and died in Durban in 1942 at the age of
75. His will specified that if a new owner with sufficient means to maintain Westward
could not be found, she should be sunk. Sadly, no member of his family felt capable of
looking after Westward and, after she had also been offered unsuccessfully to three
different sail-training establishments, the final clause of Davis’s will came into play. On
July 15, 1947, stripped of all hardware, equipment, and interior fittings, she was towed
out to the Hurd Deep in a shroud of fog. At 12:45 p.m., the dynamite was ignited and
Westward sank to her grave some 60 miles from her old friend Britannia.
For 37 years, Westward had graced the international yachting scene with her
grandeur, embodying the very best in design, workmanship, beauty, and speed. Her
departure left a very large void.
Marjorie Davis, at right facing camera, and guests (above)
Crew and guests of the Davises stretched out on the windward deck
while racing (below)
Photos from The Racing Schooner Westward, by C.P. Hamilton-Adams.
9
Westward’s Most Famous Captain
Westward’s most celebrated captain was her first: Charlie
Barr. A Scot who was apprenticed as a grocery clerk in
Gourock, a seaside fishing village on the Firth of
Clyde, Barr eventually yielded to the siren song of
the sea, joining a flounder trawler and subsequently
following his older brother to the U.S. to become a
yacht skipper.
“Wee Charlie,” as he was fondly called, stood
barely five feet three inches tall, but he was a
towering force among the racing elite. A dapper man
with a waxed moustache and a cigar usually clenched
in his teeth, Barr quickly came to be regarded by all as
the best professional captain ever, in the U.S. or Europe.
Known for his unflinching determination to win, he drove
Captain Charlie Barr
the grandest of yachts to the very limit in the world’s most
famous races. When Cochran asked him to take command of Westward, Barr had already
defeated America’s Cup contenders Shamrock I, II, and III and, in 1905, set the
transatlantic record aboard the noble three-masted schooner Atlantic — a record that
would be challenged many times but not broken until a century later. In 1992, this
legendary captain was inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame located on the site
of the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company in Bristol, Rhode Island.
Barr was known for giving no quarter to his opponents. In fact, in one of Westward’s
first competitions, in the 1910 Kiel Regatta in Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm’s schooner
Nordstern (originally Meteor III) bore down on Westward, the helmsman fully expecting
Barr to bear away, but that wasn’t Barr’s style. Altering course only at the last minute,
Barr took no more than a glancing blow on Westward’s main rigging and steel boom.
Nordstern, on the other hand, limped home with a broken bowsprit and severely damaged
mast.
Famous yachting writer W. P. Stephens said of him “he took chances that would
have been dangerous in extreme for the average good skipper.” For this tough little Scot,
however, such limitations didn’t apply.
10
Newsclip above from The New York Times, January 25, 1911.
Photo of Captain Charles Barr, 1903 ©Mystic Seaport, Rosenfeld Collection,
Mystic, CT, #B426; photographer: James Burton.
Westward on the Racecourse
From the moment she arrived in Europe in April 1910, Westward set sail on an
astounding succession of victories on the racecourse beginning with the Emperor’s Cup
in the Kiel Regatta. Outsailing and outmaneuvering the other vessels, she showed her
superiority both to windward and downwind.
With the wind blowing a steady twenty knots or more, Westward could run downwind
carrying as many as ten sails. When she came hard onto the wind, the crew would
scramble to get the huge headsails changed as fast as possible and trim in the acres and
acres of Egyptian cotton loudly going taut overhead. As the mighty hull leaned its
shoulder into the waves, the hardy crew, perhaps still gasping for breath after their
exertion (without the assistance of modern winches), would grab hold of the safety line
attached to the port and starboard bulwarks to keep then from being washed down the
dramatically heeled deck into the waves rushing along the lee rail.
So intimidating was Westward that by the time she headed back to the English Channel
in the summer of 1910, the owners of the British yachts she would confront next were
already planning to impose an arbitrary and sizable handicap on her. Outraged, Cochran
declared he would not sail in their handicapped races; he would only compete in races
governed by the A-Class of the International Rule for which Westward was built. Cochran
got his way and Westward spent the rest of the summer demonstrating her amazing prowess.
When Cochran’s captain, Charlie Barr, died suddenly in January 1911, Cochran was
devastated and sold Westward the following autumn. Except for a brief interlude racing
as Hamburg II in the fleet of German schooners, she was not fully exercised on the
racecourse again until the mid 1920s, when she was purchased by T. B. Davis.
By the 1930s, most of the grand schooners she’d competed against in earlier days
were no longer racing, and she set her cap instead for the great cutters of the day. In the
1933 Lymington Cup, Westward came in first ahead of Britannia, Astra, Candida, White
Heather, and Shamrock V. To mark the King’s Silver Jubilee in 1934, one more great
schooner race was organized off the Isle of Wight. Competing against Altair, Cetonia,
Golden Hind, and Bluenose, Westward slipped across the finish line well over a minute
ahead of her closest competitor.
Westward defeated all of the cutters in the 1934 King’s Cup, and soon after
conquered every other vessel in the Royal Yacht Squadron’s Regatta, including several Jboats. Until Westward and Britannia both retired, the two rivals continued to race
regularly, with Westward usually taking line honors. King George was once heard to
declare, “Whatever we do to improve Britannia, we must beat that damned schooner.”
The Big Class racing in 1926, from left:
Lulworth, Shamrock, Westward, Britannia,
and White Heather (above)
Royal London Yacht Club Race
August 1, 1910 — Cowes, Isle of Wight
Finishing Time Corrected Time
2.58.52
3.13.12
3.26.31
3.31.59
Westward
Shamrock (cutter)
Germania
Meteor IV
2.51.56
3.3.40
3.26.31
3.31.59
The King’s Cup
August 8, 1934 — Cowes, Isle of Wight
Finishing Time Corrected Time
Westward
Velsheda (cutter)
Candida (cutter)
Astra (cutter)
Shamrock V (cutter)
Britannia (cutter)
2.30.49
2.34.24
2.43.38
2.45.21
2.46.28
2.49.30
2.30.48
2.33.52
2.34.54
2.38.37
2.42.56
2.43.58
Newsclip at left from The New York Times, August 1, 1910.
Photo above by Beken of Cowes.
11
The Rebirth
Eleonora sailing in the 2006 Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez (above),
at anchor in the Caribbean (below left), and in Portofino (below right)
12
Photos by Franco Pace. Photo in oval by Gilles Martin-Raget.
On March 31, 2000 — exactly 90 years, to the day, after Westward was launched —
Eleonora slid down the ways at Van der Graaf Shipyard in the Netherlands.
Painstakingly planned and meticulously executed, this stunning reincarnation was
the vision of a Dutch entrepreneur and connoisseur of classic vessels who is dedicated to
bringing back to life the grande dames of the Golden Age of yachting. With the
assistance of the Hart Nautical Collections of MIT Museum, Eleonora’s designers and
builders were able to pay close attention to the original Herreshoff Manufacturing
Company drawings every step of the way. Truly a replica of Westward, Eleonora has exactly
the same lines as the original, and was constructed using the same materials.
The passion of Eleonora’s current owner is to perpetuate the spirit of Westward and
to bring to twenty-first-century admirers the amazing experience of seeing, sailing, and
racing on such an exquisite 160-foot schooner. Since purchasing her, his ongoing
mission has been to make Eleonora even more faithful to Westward. Through careful
study of Herreshoff’s plans and original Beken of Cowes photos of Westward, he has
made alterations to the sailplan, including installing a new jackyards topsail, some new
foresails, and a spinnaker pole based on Westward’s. New deck fittings and a classic
tender have been added, and the dimensions of new spars have been adjusted. He also
intends to install a replica of Westward’s last binnacle and bell (the originals are now in
the collection of Jersey’s Maritime Museum).
Today Eleonora continues to sail and compete in classic regattas in Europe, the
Caribbean, and the U.S. In keeping with Westward’s heritage, she is always raced with
style and sportsmanship, never forgetting that the ultimate goal is enjoyment. Eleonora
is also available for charter to discriminating clients.
Witnessing the awesome majesty of Eleonora, her sails filled as she surges forward,
her white wake streaming aft, no one could deny that such a captivating vessel truly
possesses a soul. Sadly, with very few exceptions, all of her predecessor’s contemporaries
from the Golden Age are, like Westward, lost today. Thus, the only way to recapture the
thrill of that era is through the creation of replicas like Eleonora. Following the original
plans as closely as possible, these carefully crafted vessels should only vary from their
forebears in regard to concessions for the safety and comfort of modern sailors and
guests.
Perhaps one day it will be possible to survey the heart-stopping panorama of an entire
fleet of Big Class replicas, all hoisting their massive sails to re-create those marvelous
days when kings and gentlemen competed in the grandest vessels of all time.
Eleonora on the Racecourse
Eleonora has become a tangible and exciting
reminder of Westward’s daunting performances
on the racecourse. Under her current owner’s
stewardship, she has had impressive finishes in
the foremost classic regattas on both sides of
the Atlantic, including those in Saint-Tropez,
Cannes, Monaco, Porto Rotondo, Palma,
Mahon, and Antigua.
A memorable vision thundering around the
marks, Eleonora’s most recent wins have
included, in 2006, three major trophies in the
Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta (Best Elapsed Time
of All Schooners, Best Elapsed Time in Classic Class,
and Best Elapsed Time in Vintage/Classic Class), and
third place in her class in Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez. In 2007,
she took second place in her class in the Vele d’Epoca in Porto Rotondo, sailed to a thirdplace finish in her class in the Regates Royales in Cannes, and culminated her 2007
racing season with a first-place win in her class in Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez. Eleonora
also came in second overall in a fleet of 52 sailing superyachts racing in the 2007
Superyacht Cup in Palma.
In the Concours d’Elegance at the 2003 Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta, Eleonora’s
incredible beauty and immaculate condition caught the eye of all the judges, who
presented her with the trophy for first place overall. She was also awarded the trophy for
Most Photogenic Yacht. At the 2007 Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta, she was again
chosen the winner in her class in the Concours d’Elegance.
Dazzling all with both her swiftness and her pulchritude, Eleonora will continue to
carry the spirit of Big Class racing to classic yacht gatherings wherever she goes.
Action on deck while racing during the 2006 Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta (above)
and Eleonora leading Lulworth in the 2007 Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez (below)
13
On Board Eleonora
Companionway leading aft to main saloon (above left), dining for eight (above right),
and the main saloon (below)
14
Photos at top and in oval by Gilles Martin-Raget. Photo on bottom by Franco Pace.
Opposite, photos of column, desk, and master stateroom by Gilles Martin-Raget.
Other three photos by Franco Pace.
Below Eleonora’s wide and uncluttered decks an
atmosphere of classic ambience and luxury envelops
her guests. As they descend the grand stairway to the
saloon, they are transported to an era when the
day’s racing was topped off with cucumber
sandwiches and tea poured from a silver teapot.
The interior is graced with refined period-style
furnishings and masterfully carved mahogany
paneling in the Herreshoff manner, all enhanced
with modern amenities to deliver the level of comfort
expected today on a yacht of this class. The main saloon
is appointed with a large L-shaped settee, card tables and
chairs, a bar with refrigerator, and fine cabinetry concealing a
state-of-the-art entertainment system. To port, the dining table seats up to eight guests.
While Westward also had an elegant saloon amidships as well as a comfortable
owner’s cabin, her original plan also included berths for more than 30 crew. In contrast,
Eleonora offers three double staterooms and one twin stateroom. The owner’s suite fills
the full width of the yacht aft of the main saloon. Well illuminated by multiple portholes
and a large skylight, this handsome compartment is fitted with a wide double berth, builtin wardrobes, a dressing table, settee, and seating area with desk. The adjoining
bathroom offers both a shower and a bathtub. The guest staterooms are similarly fitted
with built-in desks, wardrobes, and drawers. All three have their own private ensuite
bathrooms with showers.
The crew quarters, forward, feature comfortable, efficient accommodations. The
galley is outfitted with all-stainless steel appliances as well as all the tools required for the
chef to create superb meals in keeping with the five-star service always provided aboard
Eleonora.
On deck, Eleonora has broad spaces for sipping champagne at the end of another
exhilarating day on the racecourse, dining under the stars, or simply relaxing in a deck
chair at anchor in a picturesque bay. While the pace of modern life rushes on somewhere
else, Eleonora offers a dignified and exclusive escape. All is serene on board — that is,
until the starting gun is fired once again, and this majestic reincarnation of power and
beauty surges across the line as her competitors look on in admiration.
Four details showing the fine workmanship found throughout Eleonora’s elegant interior (above), the owner’s stateroom (below left), and one of three guest staterooms (below right)
15
Brochure by Mimi Steadman & Co. (mimi@midcoast.com) • Design by Tim Seymour • Large cover photo by Beken of Cowes; small cover photo by Franco Pace • Drawings by François Chevalier • Brochure © Peras Limited
Westward
Launched March 31, 1910
by Herreshoff Manufacturing Company
Bristol, Rhode Island, USA
Eleonora
Launched March 31, 2000
by Van der Graaf BV Shipyard
Hardinxveld-Giessendam, Netherlands
Designed by Nathanael Greene Herreshoff
Length overall — 49,50 m / 160 ft
Length on deck — 41,50 m / 135 ft
Length on waterline — 29,30 m / 96 ft 1 in
Beam — 8,20 m / 27 ft 1 in
Draft — 5,20 m / 17 ft 1 in
Sail area — 1,115 sq m / 12,000 sq ft
Displacement — 214 tons
Crew — 9 • Guests — 8
w w w. Ya c h t E l e o n o r a . c o m