“Onboard Weetamoe 1930”
By Russ Kramer
Oil on canvas, 44” x 30”
Russ Kramer writes: Inspiration for this painting came from some grainy, vintage black & white film shot aboard the great Herreshoff J Boat. What a thrill to watch the crew work and feel like you were among them! And so I imagined a much more dramatic scene than was pictured in the film, creating a composition with new crew figures, a close-in Enterprise and much additional detail researched at the Herreshoff Museum in Bristol, RI.
History
Launched May 10, 1930. Name: “Weetamoe” was an American Indian Queen; Tobin bronze plating. Triple-headed rig. Morgan Syndicate: George Nichols, J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Arthur Curtiss James, George T. Bowdoin, Henry Walters, Gerard Lambert. Cost estimated at $300,000 for hulls, rig, and sails. Narrowest of the four 1930 US boats. Sold to Fredrick Henry Prince, October, 1930. Hull modified for 1934, including larger and heavier keel; believed to be slower, later restored to original configuration. Weetamoe also raced in the off-years between defenses.
This original oil painting on canvas, 44” x 30”, was sold into private collection during the 2005 Modern Marine Masters exhibition at the gallery at Mystic Seaport, May 2005.
