MIT’s Bluewater boats

The MIT Bluewater program has been sailing since 1981, thanks to the generosity of community members who have donated Bluewater boats over the years. Each boat has provided a unique learning environment and expanded MIT’s sailing horizons.

Our current Bluewater boat: Mashnee

Mashnee was designed by MIT alum Nathanael Greene Herreshoff (class of 1870) and launched by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company in 1902. Mashnee is a Buzzard’s Bay 30, one of the earliest one-design racing classes in the United States. The Buzzard’s Bay 30s were commissioned by the Beverly Yacht Club, who wanted shallower-draft racing boats for sailing Buzzard’s Bay, accommodations for cruising to other regattas, and, not insignificantly, a chance to race on an equal basis without being outclassed every year or two by a newly-designed yacht. The Herreshoff Manufacturing Company built 14 Buzzard’s Bay 30s. To ensure absolute fairness in a world not used to mass production, the boats were assigned to the owners by drawing lots.

Construction plan for the Buzzard’s Bay 30 class. MIT Museum

Downwind leg, Buzzard’s Bay 30 class, 1902. MIT Museum

Mashnee has sailed almost continuously since 1902. Her first engine was installed in 1926, and her gaff rig was changed for the present Marconi rig in the 1930s. In 2005, Jan Rozendaal rescued Mashnee from abandonment in South Carolina and brought her to Darling Boatworks in Vermont for a complete restoration. Jan and Mary Rozendaal kindly donated this museum quality yacht to the MIT Sailing Program to be sailed and raced in 2018 and beyond.

Mashnee is thirty feet long at the waterline, but, in keeping with racing designs of her day, is forty-six feet six inches on deck and about 50 feet with her bowsprit.

*Mashnee* in the Flip Flop regatta, 2023. Photo by Luke Boelitz.

X-Dimension – C&C 43 – Thanks to David Collins ’59

X-Dimension was built 1973, and sailed and raced at MIT 2011-2017. In addition to harbor sailing and racing, X-Dimension sailed on Maine cruises, raced on the Block Island Race Week, and three Marblehead-Halifax races. View the wiki page here.

Nevermore – Tartan 37 — Thanks to Ralph Reis ’48 !!

Built 1980; sailed & raced at MIT 2007-2010.

Hermes – San Juan 24

Sailed at MIT at least 1984 – 1989.

Aleida – Hinckley 38 — Thanks to Albert Hopeman ’34

Built 1970; sailed at MIT 1981-2005, raced 2001-2005.