Looking for info on a S&S 44' yawl

[Clif]

Hi all,

My father-in-law had a boat that S&S designed and that was built in 1939 by Lawley Yachts.

She was a 44 feet long jib headed yawl that was a great lakes racer and apparently there were only 7 of these boats built.

I have some photos posted at:

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b4da34b3127ccebc82af2336360000001610

I am trying to locate any information on this boat in the way of line drawings or offsets in order to build a half hull of her for his birthday. This was an important boat to the family with lots of fond memories and I really hope to create something special for him.

I have emailed S&S but as of yet I have gotten no response. You folks are pretty amazing at what you have filed away so I thought that I would inquire here as well.I really appreciate any information or suggestions that you can provide.

Clif Thompson
svmoxie at hotmail dot com

[rbgarr]

Clif-

In the 1930's S&S had a design and brokerage office in Boston as well as New York. Aage Nielsen was the designer in Boston and he worked under the supervision of Olin Stephens in New York, IIRC. The boat shown in the pictures may have been one of the designs that came out of the Boston office. The only reason I say this is that the boat was built in the nearby Lawley's yard, and thus the construction may have been supervised from there. Or if not designed there, the Boston office might have had plans for supervising construction of numerous boats. Do you know if any of the other boats in the 'class' were built at Lawley's? I believe Mystic Seaport has some of Lawley's plans collection and they might have an old set of plans from when she was built at Lawley's.

OTOH, the hull shape bears similarities to Olin's own designs of the thirties (flattish sheer, distinctive bow profile and moderate size transom) and the design and supervision may have been handled entirely out of New York.

Another suggestion: There's an S&S Association in the early stages of getting organized. They are looking for owners of S&S boats to join, send pictures, etc. Perhaps they could help.

Try a google search and you may be able to find them... or someone here might chime in with more.

Good luck-

[ 04-16-2004, 10:04 AM: Message edited by: rbgarr ]