Frank Paine Q-Class 52 ft Sloop Q-16 1930/2007

Nathanael G. Herreshoff’s Universal Rule addressed concerns raised by the trend in extreme and impractical designs engendered by the previous Seawanhaka Rule. The Q-Class, exemplars of the Universal Rule, amply revealed their designers’ pedigrees - among the best of the period - and were typically very well built, proving moreover to be fast, firm – and very beautiful. FALCON, Q-16 (ex JOUR DE FÊTE, ex HAYDAY, ex FALCON II, ex FALCON [II]) owes her origins to the Roaring Twenties Q-Class swansong at Marblehead, Massachusetts, and was a famous double Chicago-Mackinac Race winner of the 1940s. FALCON, Q16 was meticulously restored by John Anderson and Konrad Ulbrich in Maine, and in current ownership has won many of Europe’s classics including the 2025 CIM Trophy Overall. Perhaps most importantly, she has rewarded her crews with the exhilarating sailing for which the Q-Class is rightly famed.

2022
ABSOLUTE PROJECTS, PORTUGAL
- Refresh refit
- Optimisation to CIM Rating

2011-2012
IN FRANCE
- Work to address long term storage at Newport, RI
- Optimisation to CIM Rating

2003-2007
KONRAD ULBRICH & JOHN ANDERSON, WARREN, MAINE, USA
- Thorough rebuild/ restoration

2025
- Overall winner CIM Trophy
- 11 x Firsts in 11 x regattas (and several line-honours)
- including Cassis, Sanremo and Les Voiles d’Antibes

2023-2024
AFYT French Championship
- 1st, 2023
- 2nd 2024
- 3rd 2025
First at:
- Porquerolle's Classics
- Les Voiles du Vieux-Port, Marseille
- Régates Royales, Cannes

2019
First at:
- Calanques Classique

2015
- First in Class, Panerai British Classic Week, Cowes
- Les Voiles du Vieux-Port, Marseille

2014
First at:
- Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez
- Les Voiles du Vieux-Port, Marseille
- Calanques Classiques
- Porquerolles
- Les Voiles d'Antibes
Second at:
- Vele d'Epoca, Imperia

2013
- Les Voiles du Vieux-Port, Marseille

2012
- Vele d'Epoca, Imperia

PAINE, BELKNAP & SKENE DESIGN No. 336
Q-CLASS SAIL No. Q-16

FALCON (II) : 1930 - c1941
FALCON II : c1941 - 2007
HAYDAY : 2007 - 2012
JOUR DE FÊTE : 2012 - 2022
FALCON : 2022 - Present

Is FALCON a living little sister to the mighty J-Class YANKEE?

Post-1927 Universal Rule builds may have benefitted structurally from the introduction of Nathanael G. Herreshoff 's scantling rules -- and, eventually, the powerful brains competing to design the fastest J-Class defender of the America's Cup in answer to Sir Thomas Lipton's SHAMROCK V challenge for 1930. The J-Class influence in FALCON (II) is indisputable, built by Lawley Corp. during winter/ spring 1929-30 alongside the Eastern Yacht Club's 125 ft potential America's Cup defender YANKEE - Frank C. Paine design no. 335.

The 'Q' size level-rating band was among the first to get started, in the spring of 1904, to Nathanael Herreshoff's new, alphabetically ordered Universal Rule - the same rating rule that the larger 'J' Class boats were eventually built to. Q-Class fleets initially developed on Long Island Sound and its extensions, and at Marblehead, Massachusetts. But, perhaps because of competition from newer classes, growth stalled after about five years.

However, the Roaring Twenties saw a strong Q-Class revival at Marblehead. By the time major Westford, Mass. carpet yarn manufacturer and Eastern Yacht Club member Edward M. Abbot commissioned his second FALCON from Boston yacht designer Frank C. Paine -- relatively recently 'divorced' in business from the mercurial Starling Burgess, and holding a controlling financial interest in FALCON's builder George F. Lawley Corp. -- the Marblehead fleet strength was around fourteen of these beautiful, state of the art and lightening quick 50-footers by a spread of American designers and Norway's Johan Anker. Paine is said to have majored on finding the perfect immersed waterline length and his Universal Rule designs were among the longest in their respective classes. FALCON (II) is thought to be the second longest Q built.

In her first season, FALCON (II) joined an exceptionally hot Q-Class at Marblehead that included 22-year-old yacht-design prodigy (and Frank C. Paine protégé) Ray Hunt at the helm of the first FALCON either on loan or charter from Abbot, John G. Alden with his own 1929 design HOPE, and serial J-Class owner Chandler Hovey's Paine-designed 1928 boat ROBIN.

Into the second half of the 1930s, despite the threat of the Great Depression, the Marblehead Q-Class more than held its own, always stronger than the potentially advancing International Rule 8-Metre Class. Perhaps a weathervane might be the fact that young-gun Ray Hunt stuck with the class, guest helming on FALCON (II) and eventually purchasing the 1925 Frank Paine (when with Starling Burgess) design, HORNET. Another of FALCON (II)'s guest helms at Marblehead was John Silbee Lawrence - also big in the textile trade - who had been manager of the YANKEE project.

During the late 1920s a group of Chicago yachtsmen had started a Q-Class fleet on Lake Michigan. As Massachusetts Q-Class activity waned after the mid-1930s, a significant number of Marblehead boat found their way to fresh water, including both FALCONs, where they became 1940s and beyond winning legends of Lake Michigan's famous long distance handicap races (FALCON [I] as LIVELY LADY), in particular the Chicago-Mackinac. As FALCON II, Q-16 arrived on Lake Michigan in the fall of 1941 in the ownership of Chicago Yacht Club's Clare Udell and Leland L. 'Ole' Karas.

FALCON II's name is engraved twice on Chicago Yacht Club's Mackinac Trophy: 1942 and 1944 (yes - yacht racing re-commenced there well before the end of World War Two).

SELECTED FALCON II GREAT LAKES RESULTS
1942 (Udell & Karas) - Chicago-Mackinac Trophy - corrected time winner
1942 (Udell & Karas) - 3rd in Lake Michigan Q-Class Championship
1943 (Udell) - Chicago-Saugatuck - corrected time winner
1944 (Udell) - Chicago-Mackinac Trophy - corrected time winner
1945 (Levering Cartwright, Henry Holsman & J.Russell McGee) - Saugatuck - Milwaukee
1946 (Holsman, Cartwight & Jean Bates) - Black Lake to Belmont
1952 (Cartwright) - Chicago-Saugatuck - corrected time winner
1962 Port Huron - Mackinac - Winner

FALCON II continued to offer a thrilling ride to generations of 20th Century Lakes sailors, but by the turn of the present century, now into her 60s, she was tired and needing rescued near Milwaukee. Enter Konrad Ulbrich in 2003. He stabilised the boat and began the restoration at Warren, Maine, together with serial -- in particular Universal Rule -- yacht restorer John Anderson, his future son-in-law.

Restoration was completed in 2007, and she was re-launched as HAYDAY, but very sadly Konrad Ulbrich didn't live to sail her. His family raced HAYDAY at the foggy 2007 edition of the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta and then she was sold to Tom Hill who raced her at Newport, Rhode Island. It was here that she was spotted in 2011 by French former Olympic and America's Cup helmsman Bruno Trouble who persuaded his friend Pascal Oddo to purchase HAYDAY. She was shipped to France in 2012 and refit-optimised for CIM Rating. As JOUR DE FÊTE, she became the scourge of the Mediterranean.

In present ownership since 2022 as FALCON again (positively the 1930 one - Q-16), after a refresh refit in Portugal by Absolute Projects, she has continued as she only knows - as a thriller and a winner.

©2026 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

"One of the staunchest supporters of the Q class for many years was L. Francis Herreshoff, a son of the famous Bristol designer, Nathaniel G. Herreshoff, and a naval architect of distinguished ability and originality. The younger Herreshoff based his advocacy of the Q class on the following propositions:
(a) That the yachts have more cubic room for use as a cabin in the hull than any other racing or cruising boat of the same sail area in the world.
(b) That the class has more freeboard for the sail-area than any other racing yacht.
(c) That the class is longer on the waterline and overall for the amount of sail-area than any type of boat of her size used in America.
(d) That Q boats are not only very able, but very dry.
(e) That they are seldom reefed.
(f) That the average speed for sail-area is very high.
(g) That they are capable boats, well adapted to long life, are built well, and are extremely desirable as an afternoon sailing as well as a cruising boat.
(h) That they cost 25% less than boats of the same amount of headroom and cabin capacity designed under the International or European rule."

Edwin J. Shoettle, The Sailing Yacht, 1928

- Above waterline: carvel double planked
- ⅝ in / 15 mm mahogany outer & ⅜ in / 9 mm cedar inner
- Below waterline: Single 1 in / 25 mm cedar planking
- Steam bent oak timbers
- Mahogany wood keel
- Angelique backbone
- All bronze fastenings
- Bronze keel and floors bolts
- Bronze plate hanging knees
- ⅝ in / 15 mm white pine deck planking
- over 2 x ¼ in / 6 mm marine ply substrate
- Laminated spruce deck beams
- Varnished coveringboards and toe rails
- Varnished king planks
- Ply over cedar coach roof

GENERAL
- Yellow/ white pine (Pinus strobus) laid deck on marine plywood substrate
- Varnished mahogany covering boards and toerails
- Varnished mahogany kingplanks
- Varnished mahogany superstructures

AFT DECK
- Backstay tang at taffrail
- Frank C. Paine/ Lawley custom bronze vent-bitt at kingplank
- Ash/ bronze mainsheet blocks, leathered

COCKPIT
- Self draining cockpit with coamings faired to trunk cabin
- Large and quite deep
- Seating is continuation of deck
- Varnished mahogany margins
- Lockers port & starboard under aft deck
- Laid pine on marine plywood sole with hatch
- No coaming aft
- Harken 46 two speed bronze mainsheet winch aft
- Tiller steering with extension
- 2 x Harken 46 2-speed secondary winches, bronze cleats inboard each side
- 2 x Harken 50 2-speed bronze primary winches
- 4 x Bronze cleats on coamings inboard
- Bridgedeck

TRUNK CABIN
- Low-profile trunk with 6 x typically American glazed panels each side
- Sheathed and painted roof
- Sliding hatch access below with bronze cleats each side

SIDE DECKS
- Merriman jib tracks on covering boards
- 4 x Bronze sheaves at covering boards
- Harken Genoa sheet blocks

MAST POSITION
- Bronze chainplates outboard

FOREDECK
- Merriman jib tracks fitted to deck forward
- Scandinavian style raised forehatch per original drawings
- Spinnaker pole stowed to starboard
- Varnished hand rail on king plank for foredeck hand’s security and tie-down
- Bronze forestay fitting
- Frank C. Paine/ Lawley custom bronze vent-bitt at king plank
- Custom bronze steamhead fitting incorporating 2 x mooring fairleads

GROUND TACKLE
- Fortress anchor and warp

GENERAL
- Single berths for 4
- Interior joinery is painted raised panels with mahogany trim
- Cedar ceilings
- Varnished Douglas fir cabin sole
- Pinstripe upholstery

FROM AFT
- Companionway steps down
- Isolator panel behind companionway steps; acrylic spray protection
- 2 x Single quarter berths aft

SALOON
- 2 x Settee berths; stowage under and outboard
- Book shelves and lockers outboard
- Sideboards forward with lockers outboard port & starboard

GALLEY FORWARD ATHWARTSHIPS
- Origo 4100 2-burner alcohol stove to port
- Stowage aft, under and glazed cabinet outboard
- Stainless steel sink with bronze hand pump to starboard
- Top loading fridge to starboard
- Stowage under and glazed cabinet outboard
- Doorway and step up forward

FO'C'SLE
- Head compartment to port (presently used for stowage)
- Stowage to starboard and forward
- Electric marine toilet to port under lifting shelf
- Forehatch in deckhead

RIG
Sloop rig built by John Anderson
- Hollow Sitka spruce mast; 2 x sets of spreaders
- Sitka spruce boom
- All bronze hardware
- 3 x Bronze Harken 33 halyard winches at mast
- Merriman track on leading edge of mast for spinnaker pole
- Sitka spruce spinnaker pole
- Stainless steel standing rigging
- Running rigging is all up to date: Spectra halyards; Dacron sheets

SAILS
Mainsails
- North (2025)
- North (2024)
- North (2023)
- Incidence (older)
Jib #1
- North (2025)
- North (2024)
- North (2023)
- Incidence (older)
Jib #2
- North (2025)
- North (2024)
- North (2023)
- North (older)
Jib #3
- North (2023)
Asymmetric Spinnakers
- North (2024)
- North (older)
- Other (older)
Spinnakers
- 1 x North SS (2024)
- 2 x North S1 (older)
- 1 x Incidence S1 (older)
- 1 x North S2 (2024)
- 1 x North S2 (2023)
- 1 x North S2 (older)

CANVASWORK
- Mainsail boom cover

MECHANICAL
- Volvo D1-30 30 hp diesel (2021)

ELECTRICAL
- Engine start battery

TANKAGE
Fuel
- 7 Gals / 32 L tank
Fresh Water
- 10 Gals / c 45 L tank

NAVIGATION
- Ritchie steering compass
- Raymarine ST 40 depth sounder
- GPS chart plotter

COMMUNICATIONS
- VHF radio

TBC

TBC