Dear Fellow H-28 Devotees,

Greetings from the Northern Hemisphere! I hope that you might be able to help me. I discovered on-line that the H-28 seems to quite popular in your part of the world and am hoping this includes her history.

I am currrently doing a research project about an H-28 of L. Francis Herreshoff design. I am trying to acquire copies of the articles(s) that L. Francis Herreshoff wrote in 1942 or 1943 in the Rudder magazine about her design. My grandpa read about her and was inspired to purchase the plans and build one himself. It took him 6 yrs (weekends and holidays) in the backyard but she was finished around 1952 and launched her on an inland lake and then onto the Great Lakes around Michigan in the US. She gave us all many happy and enjoyable years but finally her care was too much for Grandpa and we grandkids weren't quite old enough to take her on. So to our sorrow, she had to sold but we never forgot her. Happily, my brother Tom and I recently re-discovered her and have chatted over the phone with her new owner. He is a generous guy that bought her after being abandoned in storage for a number of years and plans to restore some needed things. He admires the careful workmanship that Grandpa lavished on her and even plans to re-name her the name that she was christened with after our Grandma. (We are so excited!)

So now the family has tasked me with researching and writing about her beginnings and try to find out about her "lost years" to the present. So I do need copies of those Rudder article(s) but to my frustration and dismay, they seem to be hot trading commodities that people are having gun fights over and I haven't been able to discover any digitized versions as yet. Mystic Seaport seems like they might have them but at $50 an hour, this is beyond my buget. Can you help me acquire copies of these articles and record our story?

Thanks for assistance!


Su Mejeur
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Hi Mejeur,
Thanks for contacting us on the other side of the world. Unfortunately our association does not have any of the Rudder articles or any plans for the original H28. We are mainly an association for the NZ Compass yachts GRP versions, but we do have a few members with wooden versions. There is a very active H28 club in Australia who may be able to help you.
Here is their website www . h28 . com . au

Good luck