The oral surgeon's masterpiece

Carastee was a L. Francis Herreshoff design similar to this Herreshoff ketch with its graceful sheer.

- DAVID BERSON

The 16-millimeter projector whirs, displaying a flickering, scratchy movie from 1957. It’s a gathering of suburbanites in a backyard, nothing unusual there, except that in the midst of them is the wooden hull of a 37-foot sailboat. The scene is from a film taken the day Carastee, a 37-foot L. Francis Herreshoff design boat of the Nereia class, was launched at Marshall’s Shipyard in Port Washington, N.Y. The result of more than seven years and 14,000 hours of effort by one man: Maxwell Simkin (19162020). Mac to his friends, professional oral surgeon and boat builder extraordinaire, was so taken by the design that he knew he had to build it. Carastee — named after his children Carol and Steven — has a graceful bow and slightly raked spars. Her LOA is 36 feet, beam 11 feet, with a fivefoot, three-inch draft.