William Hand

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Photo by: Billy Black

His experience swordfishing taught him that the deep body of a schooner’s hull made a steady platform for a harpooner and his lookout aloft, but the fishing boat didn’t need the deep keel and large sail plan of his schooners. Although the shapely underbody of Hand’s schooners made them easily driven and seakindly under sail, the motorsailers he envisioned would spend more time upright or at a moderate angle of heel and required different waterlines. He got the underbody he wanted by extending the waterline of the schooners, which shortened the overhangs. The cutaway forefoot and substantial drag of the schooners’ keel evolved into a relatively deep forefoot and nearly level keel on the motorsailer. He switched the rig to a ketch, decreased the total sail area and relied on powerful Hall-Scott gasoline engines for most of the motive force. The smaller rig would stabilize the boats in beam seas and allow the skipper to heave-to.

Even at maximum speed, these hulls barely disturbed the water’s surface — the modest bow wave dissipating long before it developed into a noticeable quarter wave. On the other hand, the slack bilges and narrow beam at the waterline allowed the motorsailers to roll in beam seas, especially under power with the sails furled. Hoisting the sails reduced the roll, but not significantly unless the wind blew hard enough to keep the sails full and drawing.

Capt. Philippe Sée (pronounced “say”) welcomed me aboard William Hand at Strouts Point Wharf Co., South Freeport, Maine, on a bright, warm and nearly windless morning this past August. Exploring a bit of Casco Bay seemed like the perfect way to get acquainted with the William Hand, because it’s a lovely place to cruise and Mr. Hand was born in Portland in 1875.



From the float to the boarding step to the wide side deck, climbing aboard the William Hand was easy. On the other hand, I had to step over a fairly high sill and duck through the height-challenged door to reach the pilothouse. That little bit of effort rewarded me with sights and smells of another era. Just as I remembered from my first visit a year before, the woodwork glowed like the finest U.S. Grade-A Light Amber maple syrup, the chrome-plated instrument bezels scattered spikes of reflected sunlight in every direction, and the six-spoke chrome-plated steering wheel still made me think of Vitruvian Man. The vintage instruments set into a chrome-plated panel on the dashboard were in place when the current owner bought the boat. They may be original, or at least from the correct period. A vintage brass binnacle, housing a rebuilt compass from the 1930s, sits forward of the dashboard, and its height, I discovered later, let me “see” the heading while I scanned the water in front of the bow. A taller helmsman may not be able to do this, because the compass probably would be out of his peripheral vision.

A pair of wicker chairs beckoned from the starboard side of the house. I settled onto the soft cushion of the forward one and leafed through an album of photos from the restoration work. The William Hand had been rebuilt below the waterline, using Monel fastenings, before the current owner bought her. Green Marine did the remaining work at the Royal River Boat Yard, because Walter Green’s yard didn’t have the physical space. Workers hauled the boat and built a shed around her, where she lived for more than two years while work progressed. She received new deck beams, carlins, ribs and an entirely new deck, using two layers of marine plywood set in epoxy resin, and finished with three-quarter-inch teak, also set in epoxy. Epoxy mixed with graphite forms the black seams between the teak planks. Her laminated oak stem is new and so is the double-planked teak transom. About a third of the original planking above the waterline was in great shape and was retained. All of the new fastenings above the waterline are made of silicon bronze. Although the pilothouse was in good condition, the trunk cabin and a lot of the interior joinery required refurbishing.



Old wooden boats captivate us for a wide variety of reasons: Most of the structure is right there to see, reassuring us of the boats’ integrity; their relatively narrow beam creates a wonderful coziness; the general arrangement plans are logical and suit the boat’s use; the wood absorbs sound and insulates the accommodations from the cold sea; and the smell of oil-based paint and varnish always lingers, however faintly.

The beam of William Hand is about a quarter of the waterline length, and the hull is deep. Descending the steps to the salon forward of the pilothouse took me to what seemed like an impossible depth. The stairs are fairly narrow and the pitch a bit steeper than is customary aboard modern yachts, but the salon surprised me. Although it’s deep within the hull, the white tongue-and-groove overhead and ceilings reflect most of the natural light streaming through the portholes in the topsides, the deadlights along each side of the trunk cabin and the butterfly hatch in the overhead. All this whiteness also makes the best of the electric light at night. The dinette on the port side seems large enough to seat six at the drop-leaf table if you place a couple of chairs at the inboard side. Opposite the dinette is the pilot berth/settee.