Perth’s Fleet of Herreshoff H28s

Western Australia is the home of a modest fleet of wooden-hulled sailboats that has its roots in the World War II pages of an American sailing magazine. Based at the South of Perth Yacht Club on the Swan River since the early 1960s, this fleet is not, unfortunately, as big as it was in its heyday, but the camaraderie remains strong among the enthusiastic owners and crews who race the boats twice a week and occasionally cruise on them.

In its December 1942 edition, The Rudder announced that it was “pleased to introduce as the latest ‘How To’,” a 28' auxiliary cruising ketch designed by L. Francis Herreshoff. This was the H28. “For some time past,” editor Boris Lauer-Leonardi wrote, “readers have been urging us to turn out a small round bottom auxiliary suitable for general coastwise cruising, yet able enough to take dirty weather she might encounter in some of her longer hops in open water.” Throughout 1943 and into January 1944, The Rudder included a series of detailed instructions to allow and encourage amateurs to build H28s. “It is thought a small transom is such a saving in expense and workmanship that the designer has adopted it, for particularly the amateur would have great difficulty with the sharp bends of a quickly tucked up stern,” Lauer-Leonardi wrote as one example of the consideration that was given to potential amateur builders.

Roughly 150 sets of plans were sold to Australia after World War II. The first to be produced there, in the state of Victoria, was MARLOO, and she was soon followed by the first Western Australian boat, SAGA, which was built in a Perth suburb in 1947 by R.E. Johansen, who soon afterward also built the next Australian H28, NOVA. MARLOO and SAGA were ketches, but NOVA and almost all of the subsequent Australian boats were built with a sloop rig, which Herreshoff drew about 18 months after he had produced his original H28 design.

In all, at least 18 different builders have built about 40 H28s in Western Australia, half of them before 1960. Ten or more of those builders were also their first owners, emphasizing that Herreshoff’s intention to make them suitable for amateur construction was successful.

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