VIGILANT: DATA TABLE & LINES

Category: VIGILANT

A miniature ivory model of the America's Cup defender VigilantFirst Herreshoff's design of a series of 5 winners

When the question of building a cup defender came forward yachtsmen naturally looked for a designer worthy of the highest accomplishment of which the country was capable. The star of Burgess had set, but in its place had risen that of Nathaniel G. Herreshoff, of Bristol, R. I., designer of the forty six-footers Gloriana and Wasp and other racers with good records.

To Herreshoff, therefore, the New York yachtsmen went with orders for two cup-defence vessels, and he produced Vigilant, centre-board, and Colonia, a keel boat, although building at that time Navahoe, his first large yacht.

Vigilant was built for a syndicate consisting of C. Oliver Iselin. Commodore E. D. Morgan, August Belmont, Oliver Belmont, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Charles R. Flint, Chester W. Chapin, George C. Clark, the estate of Henry Astor Carey, Dr. Barton Hopkins, and E. M. Fulton, Jr. She was a distinct innovation in various ways, and was so different from the fuller-bodied Burgess yachts that she may best be described as the first cup-defence boat in which the hull was one distinct member and the keel, or fin, another, although this part of her was by no means so far developed as in boats that came later, where it amounted to a fixed centre-board, on a shoal hull, with a high centre of buoyancy and low centre of gravity.

Vigilant half hull wooden hand crafted

Vigilant's model embraced the long overhanging bow of Gloriana, which a few years later was to become the "spoon" bow in its fullest development. Her under-water body was of Tobin bronze, a metal new in yacht-building, which from its smoothness, strength, and tendency not to foul, was an ideal metal for the purpose. Her top strakes were of steel. She had a bronze centre-board, sixteen feet long and ten feet deep, plated, with ribs between filled with cement to the weight of 7750 pounds, and operated from below decks by differential lifts capable of raising six tons. Her rudder was of bronze, and solid. Her principal dimensions were: Length overall 124 feet ; load water-line 86.19 feet ; beam 26.25 feet ; draft 13.50 feet. She was built at the Herreshoff works, in Bristol and was launched June 14th, 1893.

The sailing-master of the Vigilant is William Hansen. He is a Norwegian, forty -six years old, He went to sea when seventeen years old and began yachting on this side of the water in 1870 in the schooner Alice. He was formerly the sailing-master of the schooner Sachem and in her won many races.

During the races for the Cup, Vigilant was sailed in her races by Nathaniel G. Herreshoff.

Vigilant : DATA TABLE
Designer Nathanael Greene Herreshoff
Builder Herreshoff Manufacturing Company
Owner Syndicat mené par C. Oliver Iselin
Club New York Yacht Club
Cup Edition 8 (1893)
Skipper Nathanael Greene Herreshoff
Afterguard William Hansen (sailing master) - Capt Terry
Launching June 14th, 1893
Type fin keel centre-board
Hull material Iron and Tobin bronze
Mast material Iron
L.O.A. 128' 0"
L.W.L. 86' 3"
Beam 26' 2"
Draft 3,96 / 7,32 m
Mainmast 26,67 m
Mainboom 30,29 m
Bowsprit 10,06 m (outboard)
Maintopmast 17,34 m
Maingaff 16,69
Displacement 138 tons
Sail area 11.312 sq. feet
Rating 96,78
End of life 1910: Sold and broken up in a junkyard in New London

 

Plan created with DELFTSHIP
Lines of Vigilant created with DELFTSHIP

 

Front view of Vigilant created with DELFTSHIP

Download the MODEL FOR DELFTSHIP : Hull only

Download the MODEL FOR DELFTSHIP : Full model

Back view of Vigilant created with DELFTSHIP

Sail plan of Vigilant