old wooden atkins sailboat,circa 1890

[jamesfox]

Searching for any information about an old sailing vessel I have recently acquired.According to the last owner she was built in England in 1890 and brought to the USA,and titled here in 1930.She is 36 feet,made of african mahogany,teak,and white pine.Mast is one solid piece of spruce.Have been told she is an Atkins.She is presently in drydock in Miami,for refastening,recaulking,etc.I have tried researching the Atkins name,but have not found out much.Would welcome any suggestions regarding how to find out more about this old beauty.You may e-mail me direct at standrew@hotmail.com or here is fine.Thanks.

[John B]

I always tend to lump Atkins ( William Atkins ) in with Colin Archer for the general type ( Norwegian pilot boat type)but I thought Archer was the early designer and Atkins was later. I thought Atkins was more 1940's or so.

[Bob Cleek]

William Atkin and his son, John, recently deceased, were prolific designers here on the US East Coast. William was not designing boats in the 1890's, that's for sure. The bulk of his design work was in the 30's and afterwards. I have many of the Atkin designs in my library. He drew a number of boats in the 36' range. You will have to be more specific about the design of your boat before I would guess. (Hull shape,etc. A solid spar isn't going to tell us much.) It is rather unlikely that an Atkin design would be built in England, since they had many comparable designers of their own. Tell us more and maybe we can steer you in the right direction. (Give hull shape, length, beam, draft, displacement) Your boat is likely not anywhere near as old as you have been told, but still may be an Atkin design. There aren't a lot of 36' boats that old in the world, you know.