USA 53 Cherokee is a thoroughbred among Six Metre yachts. She is an early design by the most successful architect of Sixes, Olin J. Stephens II.
She performed well in the early 1930’s, but had disappeared.
In anticipation of the Six Metre World Championship to be held at Newport, Rhode Island (USA) in September 2009, the Museum of Yachting commissioned a replica of Cherokee and put her up for sale.
Boothbay Harbor Shipyard (BHS) of Boothbay Harbor, Maine became co-sponsor of the project. Its general manager, David Stimson, moved to Newport to lead the construction team and BHS also contributed the wood required.
The project is located at the International Yacht Restoration School (IYRS) in Newport, with the other team members being recent graduates or students of the school.
One of them is Tom Daniels, a Ph.D. psychologist, who re-cycled himself after 20 years of clinical practice as a budding shipwright. Tom had already written the blog “A Shipwright in Training” which details his progress through the two year program of the IYRS.
He has done the same for Cherokee and, in so doing, has set a new standard for the documentation of the construction of rebuilt or replica Sixes.
It is hugely informative, highly pictorial and fun to read.
It’s at http://www.moy.org/Exhibits/6MetreNewBuildCherokee/CherokeeBlog/tabid/500/Default.aspx.