These classic boats, known affectionately in Casino waters as Foxeyes, bring broad smiles to summer sailors from Buzzard’s Bay to the Gulf of Maine, as the dear sturdy craft that taught them to ride the wind and to race. They were designed by Nathanial Herreshoff, an M.I.T. trained engineer who built superb boats for over 70 years, from America’s Cup winners to this little 1914 trainer. It immediately became a favorite at the Casino and has remained so ever since, passed down through generations within families. (The original order roster of the first twenty built includes the names Saltonstall and Hallowell, which still echo in North Haven today.)Herreshoff had a scientist’s insightful eye to construction, balance of weight load, and handling. The boat ghosts along with the slightest breath of air, yet shoots forward in a lively breeze. It is great fun as a racer, but for those of us who keep our boats tucked in other parts of the island with less traveled waters, its steady seaworthiness, ease of control even when solo, and its safe, welcoming feel are a particular comfort and delight.Generically most yacht clubs and sailors call this hull design the “H 12 1/2”, pronounced “H Twelve and half”. The trademark boat builder name Herreshoff is typically not used, because several boat builders build (or built) the hull without licensing the original designer’s firm name. The world wide class has several major design varieties and names. Broadly the world fleet is divided into wood or fiberglass hulls, and gaff rigged or Marconi rigged boats.Historically the most prevalent variety was the gaff rigged wood hulls sailed primarily in Massachusetts, and generically called a “H 12 1/2”, “H12”, or confusingly (given the number of boats designed by people with the name) “Herreshoffs”. The Marconi rigged wood hulls designed by Nathanael Herreshoff in the 1920s are reportedly called “Bullseyes”. The Marconi rigged wood hulls sailed in Fox Islands of Maine, including North Haven and Vinalhaven, are called “Foxeyes”.The Doughdish is a glass hull that is designed to be an exact replica and competitor with the legacy wood fleet, and have been rigged both gaff and Marconi, with traditional wood spars. Doughdish hulls are built by Eddy & Duff boat builders. The Doughdish name is suggested to be derived from an Italian gardener of a family in a Massachusetts fleet, that called them “dodici, dodici!”. “Dodici” means twelve in Italian, sounded like “Doughdish” to local non-italian speakers.In the 1950s another glass design hull was built, but modified the original design’s hull weight and therefore considered incompatible for racing against legacy wood hulls, and was designed by Nathanael Herreshoff’s son Sidney DeWolf Herreshoff, confusingly also called “Cape Cod Bullseye”. Today the Marconi rigged “Bullseyes” fleet encompasses many more yacht clubs than gaff rigged fleet, but it is unclear what the hulls are made of, and which designs are used in the fleet. Later H 12 1/2 hulls from Cape Cod Shipbuilding Co. are class compatible, like the Doughdish.There are two other varieties of largely incompatible boats in the world’s H 12 1/2 fleet, the “Fishers Island” boats, slower than the typical boats in the class, and “Haven” boats with a centerboard instead of a keel.