#1222s Tigress

[HerreshoffHistory]

DaveHub recently wrote in another post:
>I grew up in Bridgeport and Fairfield CT, and when I was born the
>family boat was the picture I have used for my Avatar here, an HMC
>Fishers Island 23, "Tigress" Sail # 2.  I moved to Long Island out of
>college, so with family in CT I have probably taken the Port Jeff
>ferry 100 times or more!

I am intrigued by your mentioning of Tigress.

May I ask, how long she stayed in your family?

And do you have any idea if she has survived or where she might be
now?

All I know about her is a quote from Jeff Davis from 1946:
"1940. ... Web Rooks sold his Fisher's Island 21-foot [sic, i.e. 23?]
class Tigress [apparently #1222s] to go to Bridgeport. ..." (Source:
Davis, Jeff. Yachting in Narragansett Bay. Providence, 1946, p. 96.)

Is that when she came into your family?

I'd love to see some early photos...

[DaveHub]

I was pretty young... In fact, my christening cup is engraved with the honorary title "Bilge Boy"!

She was owned by my grandfather, George R. Hubbard Jr., and we sailed her from Black Rock Yacht Club in Bridgeport CT.

He probably owned her from the mid-late 40's until about 1960 or 61 I would guess.  I'm going to check with my father and my uncle on this.

There is some speculation about her being the "Tigress" hull #1222 .  Only because she was sail #2 of the series of 13 boats (12 keel and one centerboard as I understand it), and we aren't sure it matches with the registry?

We don't know where she is now.  But I'll see if we can find any remembrances of who she came from and who she went to.

For a picture, see:  http://www.lihubbards.com/pics/Tigress.jpg

That is my uncle at the helm, my Grandfather sitting on the port side, and my father to starboard.  Circa 1950.

Dave

[HerreshoffHistory]

Thank you for sharing the history of Tigress!

The sailnumber 2 is indeed puzzling.  I think it had been assigned to
#1213s Fairway which was lost in the hurricane of 1938. Her owner
subsequently acquired a Rhodes 27 and left the H23 class.

Now, what's interesting is that Fairway's owner had been William H.
Hubbard. Were he and Tigress' owner George R. Hubbard, Jr. related?
And might he have given Fairway's mainsail (which may well have
survived the hurricane) to George R. Hubbard, Jr.?

Also, some quick Googling shows that George R. Hubbard, Jr. was
commodore of the Black Rock YC in 1951 when he owned Tigress. The
previous year's commodore, Richard G. Demarest, Jr., also owned a H23,
named Home Run. I wish we knew which boat that was for I am unable to
assign a Herreshoff building number to her. Unlike Tigress, she was
even listed in Lloyd's Register. Her name became Chantey or Chanty
later on and she was listed well into the 1970s...

Researching H23 provenance is difficult. The 1970 Lloyds Register
still lists 6 boats and only one of them can be safely traced back to
her original name and building number.

[DaveHub]

Interesting info.

Yes my grandfather was commodore.

I was unaware that Dick Demarest had an H23, although as I mentioned I was young.  The Demarests were close friends of my grand parents.  I'll dig into that a bit too.

[John Hutchison]

I'm sure sails were shared often.  Our H23 Crusader #1225 was the 12th boat built (according to the Register), however she was sold to us in 2008 with sail #3. We have since suited her with new sails under #12.

[DaveHub]

More info from the family...

The owner before George Hubbard was Harry Hansen who probably got her about 1940.  Sold to my grandfather for about $3,500 in 1946.  Harry was a professional rigger, and apparently kept her immaculate, and was able to single hand her like nobody's business.   There were 3 H23s at Black Rock YC.  Harry's and then our "Tigress", Dick Demarest's "Home Run" (possibly sail #9), and another we can't recall the name of, owned by "Doc" (Anthony?) Vita.

We believe that Tigress went to someone perhaps in Oyster Bay, LI.  Trying to run that down.

As for "Home Run", we still have family contacts with the Demarest family, and will try and dig up a little more info there.

An old friend remembered that another H23, name unknown, owned by a Larry Jacobsen, was lost in a hurricane, but didn't remember which storm.

More as it turns up...
Dave

[HerreshoffHistory]

Wonderful, thank you for the information!

Let's see:

Home Run, Richard Demarest's H-23:
Home Run was listed in the 1955 Lloyd's Register as being owned by Richard G. Demarest of Black Rock, CT.
By 1967 she had become Chantey (or Chanty) and was owned by John W. Ross of Stratford, Conn.
Still listed as such in 1970.
It is not known how Home Run was named before the 1950s nor is her building number known.
I do notice that a Luders 16 named Home Run was raced on Fishers Island by Howard Ferguson in 1936. One might surmise that he later traded up and acquired a H-23 which he also named Home Run.

Larry Jacobsen's H-23, the one which is believed to have been lost in a hurricane:
She was named Red Cap and raced by L. R. Jacobsen in the first half of the 1960s.
#1217s Padick was renamed Red Cap after WW II. At that time she was apparently raced by Eliot [H.?] Porter. Did he sell her on to L. R. Jacobsen?

And finally Tigress, the H-23 owned by George R. Hubbard Jr. from Black Rock Yacht Club:
She was acquired in 1939 by Web[ster] Rooks of Providence, RI. (From whom?)
Rooks sold her through John Alden's office to Harry Hansen of Bridgeport, CT in 1940.
Hansen was reported to have raced her in 1948 which would contradict the Hubbards acquiring her in 1946.
And the Hubbard family sold Tigress in 1960 or 1961 to whom?

Wouldn't it be nice to pick up even more loose ends...

[DaveHub]

We will keep digging!

Dave

[John Hutchison]

If any info turns up on Crusader #1225, we'd love to know. Unfortunately, we don't have much history on her.
Thanks!

[DaveHub]

The name Chantey was familiar, so I think that is correct.

Also, there is no knowledge of a William Hubbard in our family.  So that would just be a coincidence.

Dave