Temple to the Wind:
The Story of America’s greatest naval architect, Nathanael G. Herreshoff and his masterpiece, Reliance

Illustrated talk, presented at the Museum July 13, 2025 by Christopher L. Pastore, author and Associate Professor of History at the University at Albany, State University of New York, where he teaches courses in environmental history, early America, and the Atlantic world.

Hosted by HLFM director Pierce Rafferty

Christopher Pastore shares the Story of Reliance – drawing from Herreshoff’s sketches, photos, original models and plans, as well as Herreshoff’s personal papers and letters. Designed and built in 1903, Reliance was a yacht like no other. A marvel of her time, Reliance’s topsail yard towered nearly 190 feet above the water, with sails stretching 202 feet from the bowsprit to the boom’s end. Many said Reliance, carrying more sail than any single-masted boat before, was simply too dangerous to sail, but the stakes were awesome. By the turn of the century racing for the America’s Cup had become more than a gentleman’s game. In 1903 it was an all-or-nothing contest—fraught with political tension—between two great rivals, Britain and America. Anticipating the acrimonious battles over the America’s Cup today, the story of Reliance explores the ways big yachts and even bigger personalities have defined the contest since its inception.

Christopher L. Pastore

Christopher L. Pastore is Associate Professor of History at the University at Albany, State University of New York, where he teaches courses in environmental history, early America, and the Atlantic world. He holds a Ph.D. in American History and M.S. in college teaching from the University of New Hampshire, an M.F.A. in nonfiction Creative Writing from New School University, and a B.A. in Biology from Bowdoin College. He has held research fellowships at the University of Munich, Trinity College Dublin, and most recently at the Yale Center for British Art and as a Fulbright scholar at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.

A Rhode Island native, Pastore grew up sailing, fishing and exploring Narragansett Bay. His journalistic work has appeared in the New York Times, Boat International, Cruising World, Newport Life, Offshore, Restoration Quarterly, Real Simple, and Sailing World, where he worked as Associate Editor. He also served as Editor of American Sailor and Junior Sailor, the official publications of U.S. Sailing, the sport’s national governing body. In 2005, he published a biography of Rhode Island yacht designer Nathanael G. Herreshoff (1848-1938) titled Temple to the Wind: The Story of America’s Greatest Naval Architect and His Masterpiece, Reliance (Lyons Press, 2005), early selections from which earned him the 2003 National Arts Club Annual Award for Nonfiction. He is currently writing an environmental history of the early modern Atlantic world with a special focus on slimy things in the sea.

PHOTO CREDIT: Reliance Crossing Finish Line, photo work of Detroit Publishing Co., collection at the Library of Congress, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.