In 1931 William Crosby, Naval architect and editor of The Rudder magazine, introduced the Snipe sailboat. Crosby designed the 15 ½ ft boat to be affordable for the average family, suitable for racing and easily conveyed by trailer for dry sailing or towing to distant events. The small sailboat quickly caught on, and by the late 1930s had become one of the most popular one-design sailboats in the world.

The Emmons Boat Building firm of Brewerton, NY, operated by Nearing Emmons and his son Cory, began building Snipes in the 1930s. Over a 30-year period, until wooden boat manufacture was displaced by fiberglass, the Emmons shop built over 300 Snipes. The boats were built in a small barn behind the Emmons’ home on Rt. 11 just north of Brewerton.

This Snipe was built by Emmons in 1950 for two sisters who raced her extensively on Portage Lake in Michigan. It is a racing model with the cockpit placed aft of the dagger board trunk to provide unobstructed space for the crew. The boat was eventually passed along to other owners, and was placed in storage in the early 1970s where she remained until being donated to FLBM in 2009. The old sailboat underwent an extensive restoration by Museum volunteers in 2010, and was returned to near-original condition.