This dinghy’s design came about when N.G.H. needed a tender for his new sloop ALERION. Both boats were to be shipped by steamer to Bermuda in early 1913 for his vacation. He made the dinghy’s length, beam and seating such that it would fit upside down in ALERION’s cockpit with its bow projecting into the cabin and over the top of ALERION’s centerboard trunk. Thus, the ‘package’ could travel as a single boat.

52 dinghies were built to this model between the winter of 1912-1913 and 1928. They ranged in size from the original 8’6” designed to fit in ALERION’s cockpit up to 18’0”. Of the 52, only one other ALERION dinghy is known to survive, a 10’3” dinghy in the collection at the Mystic Seaport Museum, and only three 8’6” dinghies were built. It is possible there are additional surviving ALERION type dinghies “in the wild,” but we have not identified any others at this time.

This dinghy is not Captain Nat’s own tender, as that one was destroyed in Florida during a hurricane in 1922. Captain Nat was in Bristol at the time, but his friend and neighbor Commodore Monroe wrote to him that, sadly, “[his] dinghy was found in pieces opposite the public library.” Instead, we believe this dinghy was originally commissioned for either Commodore E.T. Gerry or W.H. Angevine, based on its construction details and scantlings as compared to the ALERION dinghy drawing in the collection at MIT.

This tender was generously donated to HMM by David Coit in 2023.