SALTY SIMPLICITY

Situated between Cape Cod, the Elizabeth Islands and the Massachusetts mainland, Buzzards Bay has a reputation for being a bit of a nautical grumpypants. Tides average 4 feet, tidal currents rip, and the prevailing winds often blow straight up or down its 25-nautical-mile-long fetch. The bay can go from calm to snotty in a few minutes.

So, it comes as no surprise that in 1898, when Robert W. Emmons II and his sailing pals were looking for a craft to race on Buzzards Bay, they approached someone who knew a thing or two about fast, seaworthy sailboats: Nathanael Greene Herreshoff.

The design Herreshoff drew, and that his manufacturing company ultimately built, was a 24-foot, 6-inch gaff-rigged sailboat with a 15-foot waterline. It would become widely known as the Buzzards Bay 15, according to the H Class Association. It was fast, nimble and seakindly, but often proved too much for younger skippers to handle.

So, in 1914, Emmons again approached Herreshoff, this time with a request for a smaller boat that would allow