A Bit of History

 A boat like Prudence has two disadvantages, for people will constantly want to borrow her and she is apt to be stolen. L. Francis Herreshoff - Sensible Cruising Designs

The Prudence class was designed by L. Francis Herreshoff and the first example was built in 1937.  The plans were published in the September 1942 edition of the Rudder magazine  as part of his series of "how to build" articles (both the H-28 and Rozinante designs also appeared as part of this series).  The class is highlighted in the introduction to Sensible Cruising Designs published in 1973 (just after Herreshoff's death) by International Marine Publishing Company and appears in a painting on the dust jacket of the book.

In his description Herreshoff indicates that the rational for the Prudence class was that it should be simple to build without compromising in any way on strength and durability; that the rig should be simple such that the boat would be quick to setup, easy to handle, and cheap to operate in order to maximize sailing time; that the boat should be a capable sailor and able to stand up to any conditions that the North East Coast of North America might throw at it; and that the boat should maintain its value well.  By most accounts he was successful.  The Prudences were originally designed to be built in wood although several examples in fibreglass have also been made.

Wing is a fairly late addition to the class of wooden Prudences and I don't know a great deal about her history.  She was home-built in 1981 in Farmington, Connecticut, USA by a German marine engineer by the name of Alfred Mathis.  Since then she has had several owners and over the years has made her way up to Nova Scotia, Canada.  Her previous owner, from whom I bought her, lives in Massachusetts but purchased Wing in Nova Scotia and kept her here as a summer boat.

Wing is about 23' on deck and about 25' overall including bowsprit.  She has a beam of about 8'.  She has a draft of only 3' but has fairly firm bilges and should have good form stability.  She has an external lead keel that nominally weighs 3150 lbs. and, although I have not actually had the opportunity to wight it to confirm, it looks to be of the correct dimensions so it should actually come in at about that weight.  The nominal displacement for the class is 6888 lbs. so this gives a respectable ballast ratio of 0.46.  I suspect Wing is a bit overweight but her actual ballast ratio should still be greater than 0.4.

Wing is well-built: she is planked in mahogany with steam-bent white oak frames and is bronze-fastened.  She has a teak deck laid over plywood which is attractive, non-slip, an probably a bit heavy.  There is no sign of freshwater ingress anywhere and she appears to be in very good condition.  She has a Volvo Penta MD5A engine installed but it has reached the end of its life and needs to be replaced.  This is the only truly major work that needs to be done on her.

She displays two obvious deviations from the Prudence design as described in Sensible Cruising Designs.  The first is that her coachroof is truncated forward.  In the design the coachroof extends forward of the mast while on Wing the coachroof stops just aft of the mast as shown below (diagram taken from my copy of Sensible Cruising Designs):

The second is the cockpit: the Prudence design shows a large, open cockpit with bench seats along the sides and that goes all the way forward to the companionway.  That cockpit would not be self-draining.  Wing, by contrast, has a self-draining well-type cockpit with a bridge deck between it and the companionway.

I am very pleased by both changes.  I don't need the extra space offered by the extended coachroof and I think the shortened version is infinitely more aesthetically appealing.  Indeed if I am honest I don't think I would have immediately fallen in love with Wing in the way I did if the coachroof had been as is shown in the original design.  The self-draining cockpit seems much safer to me than the original design and I still find it very comfortable to sit in.

I am very happy with Wing and I am excited to be a part of the history of this somewhat forgotten Herreshoff design.