A scant twenty-five horsepower “Standard” gas engine spinning a 23” propeller used to drive this narrow and lightly built hull at an impressive ten knots! After cabins and accommodations had made her over from a launch into a heavier cruiser, the power shot up to a 130 h.p. diesel, and she’d run at twelve knots instead of ten. A 17-year-old half model carved by N.G.H. in 1888 for a pair of steamers had its bow and stern altered and its scale changed to produce this craft and her near sister (also extant) named CANVASBACK as well as other types ranging from 50 to 78 feet in length.  

HMCo. #248, originally named TODDY WAX, was modified many times over her long life. The current pilot house, engine and aft cabin were all added by her third and final owner, Mr. Daniel A. Newhall, in the 1930s.

THANIA, named by Mr. Newhall as a play on Nathanael Herreshoff’s own name, had an active career: Mr. Newhall, a Harvard oarsman and alumni, provided THANIA as the judges boat for crew races throughout his ownership. This attests to her fine hull offering little or no wake of any significance. During WWII, THANIA was in service with the Coast Guard as a patrol boat in the Point Judith to No Man’s Ledge area and as a pilot boat to guide shipping through the mine fields of Narragansett Bay. In 1974 she served as a set piece in the Great Gatsby movie starring Robert Redford & Mia Farrow and shot in Newport, RI.

THANIA was bequeathed by Mr. Newhall to the Herreshoff Marine Museum, which did not yet exist (!) and prompted the establishment of the Museum in 1971.