The design has been built by Cape Cod Shipbuilding and Seafarer Yachts in the United States, as well as by Abeking & Rasmussen in Bremen, Germany.

[2][3][4][5][6][7] In 1928, Starling Burgess, then a well-known naval architect age 50, decided to try to design and establish a one-design sailboat that would be raced in fleets along the eastern seaboard of the United States.

[8] Working with German boat yard Abeking & Rasmussen, he designed a prototype which he showed to yacht clubs along the east coast.

It has a fractional sloop rig; a raked stem; a raised counter, angled transom; an open cockpit with no cabin; a keel-mounted rudder controlled by a tiller and a fixed fin keel.

[8]: 13 Three Atlantic sailors went on to win as skippers on America's Cup boats: Briggs Cunningham, Bus Mosbacher, and Bob Bavier.