Photograph of Whirlwind’s new Park Avenue Mast Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

Whirlwind was designed by Lewis Francis Herreshoff and built by George Lawley and Son for a New York Yacht Club syndicate headed by Landon Ketchum Thorne to compete in the 1930 America’s Cup race.

For the 1930 Defense, four boats were built and launched in quick succession within a four-month period; Enterprise, Weetamoe, Yankee, and Whirlwind. Whirlwind had the longest keel, tallest rig, and was the heaviest of the four defenders.

Some more specifications:

• Year Built: 1930
• Builder: George Lawley and Son.
• Designer: Lewis Francis Herreshoff
• original owner: Landon Ketchum Thorne/li>
• Yacht Club: New York Yacht Club
• LOA: 130 feet
• LWL: 86 feet
• Beam: 21.7 feet
• Draught: 15 feet six inches
• Displacement: 158 tons
• Sail Area: 7,335 square feet

Unfortunately, the boat was scrapped in 1935.

Our kit number MW119 is a future project and will come with:

• the laser-cut elements to build the hull
• a laser-cut deck with correct openings for winches
• laser-cut deck houses
• a T-rail structure to ease alignment

Please note the kit does not include strip wood, ballast, spars, mast, rigging, or electronics.

For a blog entry on the construction of a J-Class model, please click here.

Our hulls are designed to allow you to add ballast where necessary and the depths of the keels are tweaked for better handling. This J-Class sailboat hull is deepened by approximately two inches below the scale depth. This is in concordance with the rules of the official J-Class R/C website which can be found here Currently, we have plenty of information about the construction of this model. We also have many pictures of models as well as pictures of the real boat. This material will be made available to you if you decide to build this wonderful model.

Thanks for looking!

The Modeller’s Workshop
Montreal, Canada