Wooden Boat AtlasDesigners, builders & classes · v3.0

Atlas / Designers

1875 – 1946 · New Bedford and Fairhaven, Massachusetts

William H. Hand Jr.

Naval architect — New Bedford and Fairhaven

Went from small sailboats to V-bottom powerboats to schooners to motorsailers, and effectively invented the last of those as a type.

Sequence
Small sailboats from about 1900; V-bottom powerboats; schooners after WWI; motorsailers in the 1930s
1938
The New England hurricane destroyed his records and damaged his practice; the office moved from New Bedford to Fairhaven
Archive
Davis-Hand Collection, Hart Nautical Collections, MIT Museum
  • 1921Bowdoin — Arctic schooner; now Maine Maritime Academy
  • Steadfast — 56-ft ketch, built by Wheeler Shipyard, Brooklyn

Wooden Boat Atlas v3.0 · built 30 July 2026 · a project of the Golden Gate Wooden Boat Foundation · licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · open data · corrections