Rozinate (or Roz for short) was designed (Design # 98 ) by L. Francis Herreshoff – Nathaniel’s son – and Halsey’s Uncle (your Pilots designer). LFH was primarily an independent designer and only worked for HMCo. for a short time – living mostly in Boston and Marblehead. Beyond his designing skills he was a rather prolific writer for magazines of the day (Rudder especially), as well as publishing a number of books (many of which are still in print – see Amazon, et al). Some of the books were actually publish after his death by his estate. I love his writings! He was a rather – err…um…. ”opinionated” writer – what we would call… err…um…not very “PC” today. I highly recommend reading him though as I find he tends to be more right then wrong – even almost 40 years after he died.
It has been said the Roz represented his style or practice of yacht designing/boating best of all his designs – which simply put is, well, simple. Today we might refer to it as KISS….The book “The Complete Cruiser” is fictional story centered on Roz – and his simple concept. Wait till you read about the cedar bucket – and it’s multitude of uses….its a good read.
As far as I know they're only two production fiberglass builders Kenner (which is still in biz but makes CC outboards), and Cheoy Lee (Far East – still around but no longer makes recreational boats). Most were built out of wood – and even today there is a Kit you can buy to build one. I have pics of both on my Flickr site – as well as wood ones. Note…LFH was notorious for his dislike of Fiberglass – hate seems to be too kind – called it “Frozen Snot” and "unlovely". Interestingly I was once told that the Cheoy Lee version was the only Fiberglass boat he endorsed so to speak. Can’t tell you if it’s true…or why - but it may be that cheoy lee went to extreams to keep a number of the original design features that may be a bit disliked for most typical buyers -like the cabin hatch was not sliding (standard on most boats today - see the pic you show) but was two flush doors that swung up (I have pics on my site) keeping the original profile. LFH seemed to dislike when someone "improved" his designs - seemingly missing the point of his design.
Anyway Google L. Francis Herreshoff and you will get all the info you need….
