“Look at this,” I said to no one in particular. I was alone on the dock at the Newport Shipyard admiring some of the yachts in the 2010 Newport Brokerage Show. The profile looked familiar — short ketch rig, springy sheer line, upright pilothouse, cambered coach roof and the sweetly curved stem struggling to go plumb. A heartbeat before I congratulated my power of recall, I read the name board on the side of the house — William Hand. Of course.
Capt. Joe Talbot of Midcoast Yacht Brokerage in Camden, Maine, poked his head out of the pilothouse door to say hello.
“Permission to come aboard?”
Talbot nodded, and by then, my colleagues were at my back, sighing more loudly than a 15-knot wind in the rigging. Maybe 20 seconds after I stepped into the salon, I was ready to move aboard. Failing that, which was inevitable because she’s on the market for $2.3 million, I wanted to write a feature story about this 60-foot motorsailer — 63 feet if you count the bowsprit and anchor roller. Everyone agreed, so here we are — a year and most of a day aboard William Hand later — to share with you (view the complete photo gallery).
The Hodgdon Brothers, East Boothbay, Maine, built William Hand in 1933/1934. Her owner christened her Bluebill II, since she was a replacement for his first Bluebill, a 55-footer also designed by Hand and built by Hodgdon in 1928. I found the first Bluebill listed for sale, without a price quoted, in Hand’s brokerage advertisement in the January 1933 issue of Yachting.
William Hand was a versatile and prolific designer who frequently took inspiration for his designs from workboats of the period, and the focus of his enthusiasm at a given time determined the type of boat he designed and marketed. He also built and used boats he designed, which allowed him to evaluate them and make changes to subsequent yachts for his clients. 
Prior to World War I, Hand focused on V-bottom powerboats, which he based on the Chesapeake Bay deadrise workboats. After the war, schooners caught his fancy, and he studied the Gloucester fishing schooners for inspiration. Compared with the Gloucester’s relatively deep forefoot and shallow keel, Hand’s schooners have a cutaway forefoot and a deeper keel, the foot of which gets deeper as it goes aft. Hand avidly liked swordfishing and drew Whistler, a 61-footer, for that purpose. In fact, he made a successful business of fishing and every year built a new schooner, used her for a season and then sold her.
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