View non-flash version
April 2013 www.sname.org/sname/mt blind brother, J.B., in starting their own engi- neering and manufacturing rm. (In business start-ups, strong partnerships have a much higher chance of success; Hewlett-Packard, Jobs and Wozniak, and Gates and Allen are modern examples of this.) In pursuing high performance, Herresho also tasted failure on a very per- sonal level. While supervising speed trials of a steamer in 1888 he closed a safety valve that had released so that the vessel would attain speed, and a crew member was fatally injured when a tube in the boiler subse- quently exploded. is kind of thing is, of course, devastating. In Herresho s case, he lost his steam operating engineers license, but was not further restricted in his design/ engineering activities. No doubt the event heavily influenced Herreshoff in his fur- ther development as an engineer, o ering a sobering lesson in risk. He continued to innovate, quite probably even more e ec- tively than before the accident. He was supported by, and supported, excellent craftsmen and technicians, who could e ciently turn his designs into reliable realities. He also became a patient improver and rarely swung for the rafters. Herreshoff never became sufficiently wealthy to have to make the switch from entrepreneurial engineer to business leader, and thereby had a very long and produc- tive engineering career. He also managed to shorten the path between concept and implementation to the shortest possible dis- tance. Nothing is more important for being able to implement high performance than being able to conceive of an innovation; to be able to design and build it; and to be able to test it without undue interference by out- siders. With the Herresho Manufacturing Company, Herreshoff went one step past omas Edisons labs. He saw, he built, and he conquered. Still achievable? ere is not a naval architect or marine engi- neer who has visited the Herresho museum in Bristol, Rhode Island and not felt both inadequate when comparing himself or her- self to Herresho s brilliance, but also envious of his luck. Todays engineer may well look at all the goodies that Herresho managed to surround himself with and think, If only today we could work in such an incredible environment,? and believe that such excep- tional greatness is no longer achievable. But even in Herresho s day, he was an exception. He was known as the Wizard of Bristol and nobody came close. While he may have been lucky, he (and his brother and all his employees) must have fought every day to achieve what they did. And what about his sacri ces? Are we as prepared to sacri ce short-term glory for long-term achievements? There was only one Wizard of Bristol, and hes been gone for more than 70 years. But in our profession, we continue to be sur- rounded by wizards apprentices, and the path to becoming the next wizard still exists. There are people working in our industry today who live as charmed a life as Herresho and easily rate as wizards apprentices. A good example (albeit slightly outside our industry) of the fact that real engineering wiz- ards still emerge is Burt Rutan. We may not quite have a Rutan or a Herresho in the mar- itime community (or perhaps we do and we just havent noticed yet). But take time to go through this issue of (mt) and read the work of our authors. Youll see that each and every one gets to play in one great playground, and everything they work on ultimately is some- thing of which Nathanael Herresho would have approved and in which he would have taken a great interest. MTRik van Hemmen is president of marine consulting ? rm Martin & Ottaway. For more on his background, see From the Editorial Board? on page 4 in this issue.Nathanael Greene Herresho continued (historical note) GO DEEPER To learn more about the life of Nathanael Herresho , visit the Web site of the Herresho museum (located in Bristol, Rhode Island), at www.herresho .org. Cleats designed by Herresho are still used today. Photo courtesy Jamestown Distributors.