schooner yacht america 1851

Published on December 4th, 2019 | by Editor

Beginning and end of the yacht America

Published on December 4th, 2019 by Editor -->

With the frequent sighting of the yacht America on San Diego Bay, well-handled and beautiful under sail, the history of the America’s Cup is never far from view. In this report by Dr. Hamish Ross , he provides the detailed version.

On the 15 November 1850, George Schuyler on behalf of a syndicate of five, including himself and Commodore John Cox Stevens and William Brown, signed a contract to build a New York pilot schooner for the Great Exhibition, due to be opened by Queen Victoria in Hyde Park, London on Thursday 1 May 1851. The contract was for $30,000.00, conditioned on her being the fastest yacht in the United States. Unfortunately, she was delivered a month late and failed to defeat Commodore Stevens’ Maria during her trials. Left with the prospect of selling a failed yacht and in deep financial trouble, Brown had little option but to accept a ‘take it or leave it’ price reduction of $10,000.00 by Schuyler.

America under construction in New York in 1851.

During the building, her owner’s plans for England changed and the America would be diverted to the Royal Yacht Squadron (RYS) in Cowes after an invitation was received from RYS Commodore, the 2nd Earl of Wilton, inviting the owners to enjoy the hospitality of the Squadron during the yachting season.

The Earl had been born Thomas Grosvenor, the second son of the Marquess of Westminster (the title was later elevated to a dukedom in 1874 – the last non-royal dukedom to be created). Wilton served as Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron for thirty-two years between 1849 to 1881.

On 22 August 1851, America raced against 15 yachts in the Royal Yacht Squadron’s “all nations” race around the Isle of Wight. America won, finishing 8 minutes ahead of the closest rival. After 1851, the America went through a number of owners, including service as a Confederate blockade runner under the name of the Memphis, being scuttled in Jacksonville, later raised to serve in the US Navy, and was raced by the Navy in the 1870 America’s Cup fleet race match (winning fourth place).

She was sold into private ownership in 1873 to Benjamin Butler, a controversial Union Army Major-General and later a colorful politician and lawyer. Under Butler’s ownership, the America underwent two major refits in 1875 and again in 1885.

© Dani Tagen

She was donated to the US Navy in 1921 and was towed to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, as an on-water exhibit, where her condition gradually decayed. The onset of the Great Depression delayed the expenditure of an estimated $80,000.00 for a necessary refit.

Charles Francis Adams Jr., the America’s Cup winning skipper of Resolute in 1920, great-great grandson of the second US President John Adams, great grandson of the sixth President, John Quincy Adams, serving as the Secretary of the Navy, felt unable to approve the expenditure of such money in 1930 during the onset of the Depression.

She was classified as a Navy relic in 1941 (IX-41) and hauled out at the Annapolis Yacht Yard for work. Some preliminary was carried out on her from time to time, mainly stripping her back to sound timbers, but only around other more urgent work which took precedence.

The outbreak of the Second World War further delayed any thoughts of a determined restoration and her fate was sealed after a shed in which she was being housed in Annapolis collapsed during a severe snowstorm on the night of Palm Sunday, 29 March 1942.

The America being towed to Annapolis on what was to be her last voyage in 1921

When the War ended, the Navy was forced to cut back from its wartime budget and was busy decommissioning many of its ships. Nostalgia was in short supply in 1945 when it came to preserving famous ships. Her end was sealed on 20th November 1945 when the US Navy signed an order for her scrapping, when faced with a repair bill of $300,000.00.

The Navy received $990.90 for the scrapping of an icon.

One of the last photographs of the remains of the America before she was scrapped in 1945.

Many pieces of the America were souvenired and every now and then, pieces of the America come on the market, but rather like a ‘grandfather’s hammer’, it is rather hard to know if any piece offered dates from 1851 or was added later during one of its many refits. It is said, like relics of the ‘cross’, there are more pieces of wood claiming to be from the America than in a New England forest.

Three replicas of the America have been built. They were built in 1967 (Boothby, Maine), 1995 (Albany, New York), and in 2005 (Varna, Bulgaria) with varying degrees of authenticity some having an additional four feet of beam to increase accommodation and additional skylights. The first two are based in the US and the latter in Rostock, Germany sailing as the Skythia.

The America, the most famous yacht in the history of the sport of sailing, has bequeathed us a competition which represents the pinnacle of the sport in terms of technology, design, sailing skill, management, all these necessarily infused with smart strategic and tactical planning and execution, in which only the very best will win.

UPDATE 1 (Dec. 5, 2019) : Troy Sears, who owns and sails the replica in San Diego, CA, provides an update on the three boats:

The 1967 replica, commonly known as the “Rudy Schaefer” boat that you correctly state being built in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, was broken up several years ago due to rot. She spent most of her later years of her life in the Med, mostly in Barcelona and Genoa. She was a full-sized replica.

The Bulgarian replica, Skythia, is a fractional replica being about 60 tons as compared to ours which is 113 tons. I would say her design was inspired by the America but not so much a replica.

There are no original drawing available so nobody can be certain of the actual dimensions, but ours is thought to be as accurate as possible in terms of size. Also, I am happy to say that we are totally rot free and as long as I take good care of her, she will outlive me.

UPDATE 2 (Dec. 12, 2019): Marcello Grimaudo, who is Captain of the 1967 replica (below), informed us  the yacht is still sailing and in good shape but is now on drydock in Italy for a major restoration.

Tags: america , America's Cup , Hamish Ross

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Fitz Henry Lane's Yacht America from Three Views: Vessel Portrait or Artist's Concept

This archive article was originally published in the summer/autumn 2010 issue of antiques & fine art magazine..

The schooner yacht America has been the subject of more paintings than any other pleasure or commercial vessel, perhaps rivaled only by the frigate Constitution. In 1851, the year of her victorious race off Cowes, England, she was portrayed by many of the most noted American and British marine artists of the day, and remains a favorite subject in paintings by many of today’s marine artists. Conceived at the instigation of an English businessman, built in one of New York’s foremost shipyards, and sailed by a syndicate of New York yachtsmen, the America was intended to demonstrate the United States’ shipbuilding skill at Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition at London in 1851. America was designed by George Steers, who was then employed at the shipyard of William H. Brown and assigned by Brown to supervise the schooner’s construction. Brown had agreed to build the vessel under a contract that made him its owner unless or until the syndicate decided it had a winner and agreed to purchase it. After different trial races, America was purchased by the syndicate and sailed to England to race for, and win, a trophy which we know today as the America’s Cup.1 Two paintings of America are associated with Fitz Henry Lane (1804–1865). The more widely known painting, signed by Lane and dated 1851, is based on the lithograph by Thomas G. Dutton  (1819–1891), which in turn was copied from an eye-witness drawing by Oswald Brierly (1817–1894) (Figs. 1, 1a).2 The other is an undated attribution to Lane, showing the yacht under sail in three views (Fig. 2).3  When, in 2009, the latter painting was loaned for public display for the first time at  the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester, Massachusetts, it raised a number of important questions.

For Three Views, the attribution to Lane is strong for reasons of close attention to correct ship handling and details of rigging and sails. Lane was without peer (after the departure of Robert Salmon) in his attention to wind direction and velocity, making sure that cloud formations, sail trim, wave patterns, and minor details of flags, smoke from steamships, and buoy pennants are in close agreement. Similarly, the play of light on sails shows his thorough understanding of how light reveals sail contours, casts shadows on overlapping sails, and the translucency of canvas when backlit. Combining these effects with Lane’s mastery of hull form and proportions of rig, we see a brilliant demonstration of Lane’s mastery of nautical imagery. A close examination of Three Views reveals discrepancies of detail between the artist’s depiction of America and other reliable pictures and plans of her as fitted out in her first year. Differences include details of rigging (Figs. 2, 4); the deck arrangement (Figs. 3, 4); and the ornamental carvings at the bow (Figs. 1a, 3) 4 and stern (Figs. 5, 6). Since these discrepancies do not exist in Lane’s 1851 version of the Dutton lithograph (figs. 1, 1a), it is conceivable that Yacht America in Three Views was executed earlier, and was based not on the actual finished vessel, but on incomplete information provided while the yacht was under construction or even still at the design stage.

Lane was clearly depicting America before her arrival in England. The steam vessel in the extreme right of the background (Fig. 7) is a large side-wheel towboat flying the American flag; the small boat in the left foreground (Fig. 8) is an American dory, then widely used in the coastal fisheries from Long Island north to the Canadian maritime provinces. These two craft, combined with the low rolling coastal terrain in the background, suggest offshore of western Long Island and not the rugged Cowes coastline as the likely setting. Following her victory at Cowes and a couple of other races, America came under British ownership, not to return to the United States until 1862.5 Her appearance from that date is documented in photographs, ruling out any possibility that this painting depicts her in a later state. Perhaps the most persuasive evidence for an earlier dating is the flag flown at America’s masthead in the right view (Fig. 9). The pennants in the middle and left views are  blurred, but the house flag with the letter B is clearly delineated, without doubt the owner’s initial. No other person involved with America’s construction or syndicate ownership had a last name with that initial. Moreover, as noted above, the contract for building the yacht made Brown the sole owner until the contract terms were met and the vessel was sold. A shipbuilder’s house flag (really a business logo in flag form), was certainly appropriate in this circumstance.

Period documents provide evidence of Brown’s sole ownership of America until the date of her sale on June 20, 1851. When registered at the New York customs house three days previously, Certificate No. 290, dated June 17, 1851, gave “William H. Brown, only owner of the ship or vessel called the ‘America,’” adding that she was built at New York during the year 1851 under the direction of Brown, master builder.6 In 1849, Brown hired George Steers as his chief loftsman,7 and in the following two years had Steers design yachts and pilot schooners, which went on to set standards for seaworthiness and speed.8 Steers designed America as he had designed his previous, and later, vessels: by carving a half-hull model that could be disassembled and traced to provide offsets (measurements of breadth at specific intervals) for shaping the molds (full-size patterns) for the hull frames. No drawn plans as we know them today were made after the hull had been framed. After examining the hull in this stage, client and builder could then better judge the available space and how best to apportion it.9 Similarly, Steers’ original sail plan for America was little more than outlines of the sails, including the masts and spars superimposed over a simple profile of the hull. Details were left to the sparmakers, riggers, and sailmakers who drew from their knowledge and experience. Steers did not get around to drawing a sail plan of America until 1851, and it was sent to the sail maker in whose loft it remained until discovered in the 1930s (Fig. 10).10

Assuming Lane was commissioned by Brown to paint a portrait of a proposed or partially built yacht, with only a half-model and some incomplete sail plans to study (Fig. 10), he would have been very much on his own. If a copy of the plan was made for Lane’s use, there is no record of its existence. But presumably he would have gone to New York to inspect and sketch Steer’s half-model and refer to existing sail plans of pilot schooners. Under this scenario, when could Lane have been in New York to discuss this project? The year 1850 was one of Lane’s busiest years. He made trips to New York, Baltimore, possibly Puerto Rico, and to Maine. Travel to New York was likely taken in the late spring in time for the openings of the Düsseldorf School and the American Art Union exhibitions in New York, where several of his most recent paintings were hung to considerable acclaim.11 While in New York, it is quite possible that his presence came to the attention of Brown, by then in search of an artist to create an image of the proposed schooner. For Brown, with his unerring sense of how to attract business, only a first-rate artist would have done. By the summer of 1850, Lane was traveling and sketching in Maine, probably from the beginning in August to early in September.12 We know he worked on several major paintings based on his sketches of New York and other southern ports made earlier in the year. Among them is the monumental 36 x 60-inch panoramic view of New York harbor, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. So it is unlikely that he made another trip to New York, and since no correspondence exists between Lane and Brown or Steers for this period, it is most likely that meager plans already described are all with which he had to work. Meager though Lane’s source material may have been, he made the most of the information. The subtle shading and highlights of the hull in each view leave no doubt that he understood America’s hull form perfectly. Lane had to have seen and studied Steers’ half-model very carefully at Brown’s shipyard during his late spring visit to New York, when he certainly would have had the opportunity to see and measure sail plans from other Steers’ designs, making adjustments for size and proportion of the designer’s advice. The foregoing considered, it seems possible, even likely, that Lane’s painting, Yacht America fromThree Views, was commissioned by William H. Brown in 1850 as an artist’s concept of a proposed schooner yet to represent American shipbuilding at the Great Exposition in 1851. Brown may have had it in mind for the syndicate that eventually commissioned him to build it, or perhaps to attract other clients. Having such a painting to show to his clientele was certainly in keeping with his business methods. In the tight circle of New York’s yachtsmen, such a painting would have been noticed and its purpose appreciated. Artists’ renditions of new commercial products tend nowadays to be derided as mere “commercial art.” But in the nineteenth-century, respected artists like Lane engaged in such projects alongside their more serious work, and this reason for painting ship portraits warrants serious consideration as advertising. Painted before the yacht was completed, Fitz Henry Lane’s Yacht America from Three Views would have served William H. Brown’s efforts to attract business and funding for the building of future vessels of this type and purpose. The only thing that is missing from this argument is irrefutable evidence in the form of a contract or correspondence between the artist and Brown. But perhaps evidence of this sort may yet come to light. ----- Erik A. R. Ronnberg Jr. is a model maker and nautical historian whose research has led to extensive study of marine art, particularly ship portraiture, from the seventeenth through twentieth centuries. In the past he served as curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, curatorial advisor at the Essex Shipbuilding Museum, board member of Cape Ann Museum, and editor of Nautical Research Journal.

This article was originally published in the Summer/Autumn 2010 issue of Antiques & Fine Art magazine. AFA is affiliated with Incollect.

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Great yacht designs 13 – America

The schooner America’s exact dimensions are hard to pin down, but was she really so radical?

F or a yacht that existed for the best part of 100 years and was measured numerous times, not to mention having won the most famous yacht race of all time, it is extraordinarily difficult to fix even the most basic dimensions of the famous schooner America . The dimensions shown here are one set but it is pretty clear that there are plenty of others; her waterline in particular is very variable in the record. However, if precision is lacking, it is all in keeping with the general story of America , which is so beset with misapprehension.

One of the first myths is that America represented some sort of revolutionary hull design; plenty of writers (including WP Stephens) have fallen into the fallacy that before 1849 all yachts were modelled on the ‘cod’s head and mackerel’s tail’ principle; a gross over-simplification. America was in fact claimed in some contemporary articles as a ‘wave-line’ design, a ‘system’ which was achieving prominence after about 1835 thanks to the work of J Scott Russell (who later claimed America as “one of his own”). Even accepting that she bore some relation to wave-line hull forms (which her designer George Steers was silent about), even that method was not revolutionary in terms of the hull shapes it created.

There were dozens of examples of yachts (and revenue cutters) that shared America ’s long hollow bows, “sharp” sections and with their midship sections aft of amidships. Tom Waterman’s Mosquito (1848) was a prime example, along with Asheton-Smith’s much earlier Menai and many others. America was fairly modern in some respects, but not that radical. Certainly her success did mean that some owners wanted to emulate her and went in for hull extensions to hollow their bows, but that was mostly in the spirit of adoration rather than anything more considered; (although in some cases it could hardly help but be an improvement). As GL Watson noted in his essay on the evolution of modern racing craft (1893), it may just have been that America was foreign that caused the British to examine her hull so closely and be so amazed; the examples from closer to home simply lacked a sufficiently exotic air. It is very likely that Steers had heard of Scott Russell and knew something of his work, but whether he was prompted by theory or as a result of practical experiment is not known; he does seem to have had something of an epiphany in 1848, but the cause is unknown. Certainly our later knowledge enables us to say America probably succeeded in spite of her hollow bow and not because of it.

Steers, who died aged just 36 after a road accident, said very little himself about the design of America . It was certainly derived from his successful pilot schooners Mary Taylor and Moses H Grinnell , and Steers’ method was quite well known; he worked from a carved model, then lofted the hull full-size and made small adjustments at that stage. What calculations he did, if any, are unknown; but the contract for America stated she was to be at least 140 tons “Custom house measurement” so at least that would have been calculated.

America lost in trials to the “out and out” sloop Maria ; but nobody was very dismayed. The syndicate cannily got a hefty discount on her price, while knowing that it was hardly a fair test of a schooner that had to cross the Atlantic; Maria was extreme in every respect. Like Maria though, America had a hollow bowsprit, which was something the British wouldn’t even attempt for years to come. America also had a secret weapon; cotton sails. Almost all British yachts of the period had flax sails; and GL Watson himself noted that this was probably America ’s greatest advantage; that and the fact they were laced to the spars.

America won that important (and to many observers highly unsatisfactory) race on 22 August 1851 not because she was a revolutionary hull. Instead, she was a very fine design, well resolved and fitted with nice sails. Not least, she had a dedicated and skilled team of determined sailors (and a pilot prepared to go inside the Nab). There have been a few replicas built; and given the confusion over her original dimensions, perhaps we should not judge the decision of one of them to add four feet (1.2m) to the beam; it’s still probably as close as you can get to George Steers’ masterpiece today.

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The Schooner America – An Appreciation

The schooner yacht America of 1851 is arguably the most famous yacht in history. I have always wished people would identify and credit published photos, but I can’t tell where this picture has been hiding; perhaps in the archives of the US Naval Academy.

Until recently, we could not be sure exactly what she looked like in her racing rig. We do have an accurate set of lines taken off her while in an English dry-dock, but for overall appearance we had to go on newspaper sketches and stylized illustrations from the 1850s. America was modified after the Civil War; stern lengthened, rig modernized, and she was given a long spike jib-boom.

The detail is stunning. Here was America about 15 years after her historic race; the period before she was modified. I think she carried the flying jib-boom when she won the Cup, but not the fore-topmast. The camera was just above the height of the rail. The schooner is rolling gently to port in the buoyant manner of long keelers with internal ballast, unlike stiffer modern boats.

The standing foresail overlapped the main like a modern genoa jib. With the cable slipped, the vessel could be underway in short order simply by letting go the brails and sheeting home. This was a common arrangement in slavers and privateers, which I feel the original design reflected more so than the New York pilot schooner of anecdote. While the Steers brothers built pilot boats they built more than fifty yachts.

It is most gratifying to see that early engravings of her were not as exaggerated and stylized as we might have thought. Both the rig and the transom had much more rake than subsequent ‘replicas’. Crews of the schooners I sailed in thought a boom of 40ft a pretty fair length, but the one in the photograph has to be all of 60 feet, with stirrups and footropes like the mainyard of a square-rigged ship.

In the picture the coils of the main sheet are thrown over the boom to dry out. She does not have the luxury of a boom gallows, but it is probable that a portable iron boom crutch was hidden from view by the mainsheet coils. I am guessing they used the term “jib” for that huge sail on the forestay. One account says the 1851 racing crew did away with the club-foot boom. America was steered with a tiller of not particularly large proportions. We can just make it out abaft the main companionway. I seem to recall one example on display in the premises of the New York Yacht Club.

When I sailed in the Goudy & Stevens-built namesake, I was always trying to imagine what it would have been like in the original America . Obviously, our speed was compromised by an enormous propeller and two 400lb anchors dipping into every wave. Also, the new boat was deeper in the water by at least a foot due to the ballast keel which also meant steeper dead-rise. In her extremely hollow bow, the new America carried her anchors, all her chain-cable and a very large windlass. I am sure she is ‘wetter’ than the original when driven to windward. None the less, she is a very pretty boat under the water. The narrowness forward of the beam is implied by the ‘channels’ carrying the foremast shrouds outside the rail in both vessels.

A detail this photograph of the old America confirms is the use of one double sheaved block to carry both spans of the peak halyards. I would dearly love to know how olden-day bosuns dealt with the attendant problem. We found dangerous friction on the single shackle holding this block to the masthead and the original America would have had perhaps twice the weight suspended at that point. Carrying the load on the topping lift is impractical and causes problems in a seaway.

I love this old photograph of the America . Looking at her condition it is hard to believe she had been scuttled in a muddy river. Her ‘Bristol’ presentation was a credit to the US Navy in the days of sail. I am guessing the scene was somewhere off the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and not long after Grant took Richmond. Another photograph from the period at that spot is quite well known. It shows a side-wheeler, a turreted monitor and a schooner drying her sails after rainfall. I think we can say for sure this is also the schooner yacht America , pretty much as she would have appeared at Cowes.

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Lane’s depiction of the schooner yacht "America’s" victory at Cowes, England, is a close copy of Thomas Dutton’s lithograph, which in turn was based on an on-site drawing of the occasion by Oswald W. Brierly. The differences between the painting and its source are most noticeable in the sea and sky. The water in the Lane foreground is dark, enhancing the contrast between the schooner and the light green water surrounding it. Lane’s sky is also more dramatic, with a more defined bank of cumulus clouds on the horizon and whisps of cirrocumulus above. On the horizon at left are The Needles, a striking formation of chalk rising out of the sea at the far west end of the Isle of Wight. The Needles were the turning point for the final leg of the race for the Queen’s Cup (as the America’s Cup was then called). Most of the Royal Yacht Squadron’s participants have cleared this mark and are bearing off for the downwind run through the Solent, the strait separating the Isle of Wight from the English mainland.

Only one cutter (left) is anywhere near "America" as she romps, with her sails wing and wing, to the finish line. In the right foreground, a small ketch-rigged pleasure boat hoists sail as its passengers raise their hats and cheer the schooner on. Neither of two large steam yachts in the background appear to be flying royal colors, so they are likely private yachts with guest observers packed closely on board. (1)

Ironically, Lane’s detailing of "America" dispenses with deck and rigging details shown in the Dutton lithograph and other reliable sources. The omitted details include: after companionway and cabin skylight, capstan, and main topmast stay, as well as foresail and fore-staysail bonnets. All are items with which Lane showed familiarity in his other depictions of schooners—both yachts and working craft. The absence of deck detail is not even consistent  with what we see  in his earlier “Three Views” depiction of "America" in her conceptual state (see Yacht "America" from Three Views , c.1851 (inv. 395) ). 

Earlier efforts to relate this painting to its subject have led to the conclusion that "America" was in an early stage of design or construction when (and if) Lane had the opportunity to inspect it. He therefore never saw the schooner in its complete state and may have decided to depict only those details of which he was certain. Lacking any information regarding the painting’s early provenance, it seems unwise to speculate further. (2) – Erik Ronnberg References: 1. John Rousmaniere, The Low Black Schooner: Yacht America, 1851–1945  (Mystic, CT: Mystic Seaport Museum Stores, Inc., 1986), 27–38. 2. Erik A.R. Ronnberg, Jr., “Fitz Henry Lane’s Yacht America from Three Views: Vessel Portrait or Artist’s Concept”, Antiques and Fine Arts  (Summer/Autumn 2010): 174–79.

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Additional material

• Essay by Ronnberg entitled: "Fitz Henry Lane's Yacht "America" from Three Views: Vessel Portrait or Artist's Concept" in Antiques and Fine Art.

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Historical materials below is historical information related to the lane work above. to see complete information on a subject on the historical materials page, click on the subject name (in bold and underlined)..

Filed under: "America" (Schooner Yacht) »

Yachting in New York Harbor had its beginnings in the early nineteenth century, largely through the efforts of John Stevens who, as a young man, built boats of his own designs with highly varied hull forms and rigs. By the early 1830s, he had others designing and building yachts to his specifications, including three notable schooners: “Wave”, “Onkahye”, and in 1844, the schooner “Gimcrack”. (Ref. 1) It was on board “Gimcrack” that the New York Yacht Club was formally organized on July 30, 1844. The following week, the club held its first cruise – to Newport, Rhode Island. Thereafter, cruises were a regular event, with annual regattas held in New York waters or nearby ports. Newport became the most popular and enduring (to this day) vacation port for members on their summer cruises. (Ref. 2) Perhaps the club’s most lasting mark on the world of yachting was the building of the schooner yacht “America” under the sponsorship of its members. In winning the “100 Guinea Cup”, this vessel caught the attention and respect of yacht builders and naval architects everywhere. The trophy was soon called “The America’s Cup” and became the most prestigious prize in international yachting – successfully defended by American yachts for over a century. (Ref. 3) “America” caught Lane’s attention too. The first time was in New York late in 1850, when he saw her under construction. George Steers probably granted him access to the half model and sail plan, and from that he depicted her under sail in three views (on the same canvas). After her victory at Cowes and the publication of Dutton’s lithograph, Lane painted a copy of that image The Yacht "America" Winning the International Race , 1851 (inv. 255) with some alterations to the deck arrangement. (Ref. 4) Growth of the club fleet was evident at its regatta at New Bedford in 1856, when eight sloops and five schooners participated to the delight of a large local audience. Lane’s depictions of the event and the vessels New York Yacht Club Regatta (1) , 1856 (inv. 66) and New York Yacht Club Regatta (2) , 1856 (inv. 270) , coupled with Robert Bennet Forbes’s newspaper account, offer what is possibly the most complete extant visual and verbal description of an early American yacht club regatta. (Ref. 5) New York Yacht Club’s growth was just beginning. From nine vessels in 1844, the fleet grew to eight sloops and five schooners at the New Bedford regatta. By 1860, their numbers grew to 24 sloops and 21 schooners, and by 1868 there were 13 sloops and 28 schooners. (Ref. 6) – Erik Ronnberg References: 1. William P. Stephens, “Traditions & Memories of American Yachting” (Camden, Maine:International Marine Publishing Co., 1981), pp. 5, 7. 2. Ibid., p. 7. 3. Ibid., pp. 8 – 10. 4. Erik A. R. Ronnberg, Jr., “Fitz Henry Lane”s ‘Yacht America’ from Three Views’: Vessel Portrait or Artist’s Concept” Antiques and Fine Art . (Summer/Autumn, 2010), pp. 174-179. 5. Robert Bennet Forbes, “Regatta at New Bedford, Massachusetts, 8 August, 1856” (Document contributed by Llewellyn Howland in The American Neptune , Vol. X, 1950), pp. 231-234. 6. Stephens, “Traditions & Memories of American Yachting”, pp. 7, 28.

Contains brief announcement of the line-up of the August 8, 1856 race depicted by Lane.

Also filed under: "Julia" (Sloop Yacht) »    //  "Widgeon" (Sloop Yacht) »    //  Newspaper / Journal Articles »    //  Publications »    //  Regattas »

Article about the New-York Yacht Club regatta held at New Bedford on August 8, 1856, as painted by Lane. Includes lists of participating yachts and times in New Bedford.

View related Fitz Henry Lane catalog entries (2) »

Also filed under: "Julia" (Sloop Yacht) »    //  "Widgeon" (Sloop Yacht) »    //  New Bedford, Mass. »    //  Newspaper / Journal Articles »    //  Publications »    //  Regattas »

First-hand account by Robert Bennet Forbes of the 1856 New-York Yacht Club regatta. 

View related Fitz Henry Lane catalog entries (4) »

Also filed under: "Julia" (Sloop Yacht) »    //  "Widgeon" (Sloop Yacht) »    //  Forbes, Robert Bennet »    //  Regattas »

Also filed under: "Northern Light" (Yacht) »    //  Regattas »

While the schooner yacht "America" was built in 1851 for a syndicate of New York yachtsmen to race in England, her design concept appears to have originated in the previous year, when Fitz Henry Lane happened to be in New York City. Lane's painting, Yacht "America" from Three Views , c.1851 (inv. 395) , shows details he surely would have corrected had he seen the vessel as built in 1851, pointing to the likelihood that he was portraying the schooner in its design state. His later painting, based on the Dutton lithograph from a sketch by Brierly, clearly points out his attention to subsequent changes in the schooner's design. 

– Erik Ronnberg

Plaque reads: "Schooner Yacht America. Designed by George Steers and built by William H. Brown at New York City, 1851 Winner of the Royal Yacht Squadron £100 Cup in a race around the Isle of Wight, August 22, 1851." 

Also filed under: Ship Models »

Jonny and a Yankee:

Jonny: "Ho my Hi! 'ow she goes!! it his'nt fair I ham sure t'aint!!! She must 'av an engine hunder the keel..."

Yankee: "Where are your yachts now, Jonny? s-a-y- Do you think your wash tubs can come up to a real Yankee Clipper? Sorry for you, Jonny, but it can't be helped... A Yankee Ship a Yankee Crew, you know Jonny."

Also filed under: Steamship / Engine-Powered Vessel / Coastal Steamer »

"composed and inscribed to Colonel Baquiere, Owner of the "America" Schooner, 1851-1856"

Also filed under: Sheet Music by other artists »

Tiller used in navigating the yacht "America" across the Atlantic in 1851.

Also filed under: Objects »

While this painting of "America" might be regarded as "primitive," it contains much accurate detail of the sail plan and rigging which agrees closely with surviving documentation of these aspects. Note the jib and jib-boom which were set during the Cowes regatta, only to be quickly taken in when the jib-boom broke, and never used again.

"Engine-powered vessel" is a collective term used by nautical historians to include all vessel types using engine power of any type for propulsion, whether assisted by sails, oars, or other motive power. In Lane's time, steam reciprocating engines fueled by wood or coal were the only practical source of this power for ships using paddle-wheels or screw propellers to convert heat energy into motion.

For most of the nineteenth century, steamships had sails for auxiliary power; indeed the earliest examples relied principally on sails, using engine power in calm weather to shorten the voyage time or keep to a schedule. As engines became more efficient, powerful, and reliable, sail plans were reduced, to be used only to steady a vessel's motion in a seaway (for the sake of seasick passengers), or to maintain headway if the engine broke down. Only harbor craft, ferry boats, and coastwise passenger steamers relied solely on engine power.

Among Lane's depictions of steamships, the auxiliary steam packet Auxiliary Steam Packet Ship Massachusetts (inv. 442) is a good example of primary reliance on sails, while the steam demi-bark The "Britannia" Entering Boston Harbor , 1848 (inv. 49) and the Cunard Liner "Britannia" , 1842 (inv. 259) have relegated sails to secondary (or simply emergency) motive power.

Also filed under: Historic Photographs »    //  Steamers »

See p. 30 of directory.

Also filed under: "Britannia" (Cunard Steamship) »    //  "Caledonia" (Cunard Steamship) »    //  Trade Routes and Statistics »

Also filed under: "America" (Schooner Yacht) »

Design of side wheel steamer showing wheel mechanism, side view and cross-section in ten figures. This design proved a failure in the few vessels that employed it. The paddle wheel enclosures filled with water, causing resistance which greatly impaired efficiency and increased fuel consumption.

Also filed under: Castine »

Steamer schedules for 1855, including the schedule for the steamer, "T. F. Secor" which served Castine, see pp. 234–35.

Also filed under: "T. F. Secor" (Steamboat) »    //  Castine »    //  Publications »    //  Steamers »

Yachts and yachting in ninteenth-century America were the preserve of the wealthy, and in Lane's early career were just beginning to organize as yacht clubs with scheduled regattas. The New York Yacht Club, founded in 1844, was the first such organization and had few rival clubs for racing or cruising until after the Civil War. (1) In Boston, by contrast, yachts of any size were few. Instead of regattas, competition was in the form of match races, between two vessels, with cash prizes as a substitute for trophies. Often, the only serious competition for a Boston-owned yacht was one of the crack pilot schooners, and it was not uncommon for a yacht to be sold for pilot service or vice-versa. (2)

If Lane had opportunity to portray any yachts in Boston, only his depiction of schooner "Northern Light" (see  The Yacht "Northern Light" in Boston Harbor , 1845 (inv. 268) ) has been found to date, and that was based on a drawing by Robert Salmon. (3) It seems likely that he would have depicted more Boston yachts, some of which images might still exist in private collections not currently accessible. For more depictions of yachts by Lane, we must look to New York.

Lane is known to have made two paintings of the schooner yacht "America." The more familiar one The Yacht "America" Winning the International Race , 1851 (inv. 255) was based on a lithograph derived from a painting by Oswald Brierly who witnessed and sketched "America" as she raced for the trophy that now bears her name. (4)

The other painting Yacht "America" from Three Views , c.1851 (inv. 395) was very possibly based on sketches of the designer's half-model, or even the actual vessel under construction. In either case, Lane's drawings and any notes would have been made before the hull and deck details were finalized. (5)

It would not be until August 8, 1856 that Lane would see and sketch a major yacht regatta—held by the New York Yacht Club at New Bedford, Massachusetts. From this event, he painted four known views, each depicting a different moment in the race. The earliest New York Yacht Club Regatta (3) , After 1856 (inv. 396) shows the yachts under way to the starting line, with the smallest yachts (third class) starting at 10:50 a.m. The second class would start at 10:55 a.m. and the first (largest yachts) at 11:00 a.m. The second view New York Yacht Club Regatta (2) , 1856 (inv. 270) shows the start of the first class; the third New York Yacht Club Regatta (4) , 1857 (inv. 397) , the race after the start with the large sloops and schooners taking the lead. The fourth New York Yacht Club Regatta (1) , 1856 (inv. 66) , depicting the finish, shows the winning sloop "Julia" over the line, lowering her racing sails, while the rest of the fleet follows her to the finish line. (6 and 7)

As interest in yachting increased, so did leisure pursuits in smaller craft, using rowing and sailing boats for rowing, fishing, and day-sailing. These activities had a commercial side which is covered in the Party Boats descriptive essay, but this essay will deal with boats used for non-commercial recreation.

Hull types and rigs for small pleasure craft were varied, some being traditional work boat designs with a few added amenities for comfort. Others were designed and built for leisure boating, often in the styles of yachts, but smaller and simpler. Among rowing boats, the dory was a logical choice, the version in View of Gloucester, (From Rocky Neck) , 1846 (inv. 57) (right foreground) being smaller, with a wider bottom for greater stability. New England boats (see Norman's Woe, Gloucester Harbor , 1862 (inv. 1) , View of Gloucester , 1859 (inv. 91) , and Castine Harbor and Town , 1851 (inv. 272) ) are also to be found in settings more akin to leisure than to work. (8)

Sailing craft custom-built for pleasure were also depicted by Lane. Examples with sloop rigs are found in The Old Fort and Ten Pound Island, Gloucester , 1850s (inv. 30) (left foreground), Fresh Water Cove from Dolliver's Neck, Gloucester , Early 1850s (inv. 45) (center left), and Coming Ashore near Brace's Rock, Gloucester, Massachusetts , c.1860 (inv. 60) (right foreground). The yawl rig is seen in View of Coffin's Beach , 1862 (inv. 41) (right middle ground), and schooners in Fresh Water Cove from Dolliver's Neck, Gloucester , Early 1850s (inv. 45) (right middle ground) and View of Gloucester, Mass. , 1859 (not published) (foreground). These rigs differ only moderately from today's versions; their hull designs remain popular among admirers and owners of "traditional boats."

References:

1. William P. Stephens, Traditions and Memories of American Yachting  (Camden, ME: International Marine Publishing Co., 1981), 157–59.

2. Ibid., 159–61, 164–66.

3. John Wilmerding, Fitz Hugh Lane, 1804–1865: American Marine Painter  (Salem, MA: Essex Institute,1964), 29–30.

4. Erik A.R. Ronnberg, Jr., "Fitz Henry Lane's Yacht America from Three Views: Vessel Portrait or Artist's Concept?,"  Antiques & Fine Art  (Summer/Autumn 2010): 175.

5. Ibid., 174–79.

6. U.S. Nautical Magazine and Naval Journal  V (October 1956–March 1857): 16–18.

7. The American Neptune  X, no. 3 (July 1950): 231–34. Reprint of an unidentified newspaper account of the 1856 New Bedford Regatta by Robert Bennet Forbes.

8. See the descriptive essay on "New England Boat."

Detail of yacht.

Detail of pleasure craft.

See p. 163.

Also filed under: "Northern Light" (Yacht) »

Dedicated to the Tiger Boat Club.

Also filed under: Bufford, J. H. Lith. – Boston »    //  Parker & Ditson, Pub. – Boston »    //  Sheet Music by other artists »    //  Thayer's, Lith. – Boston »    //  Tiger Boat Club »

Also filed under: "Northern Light" (Yacht) »    //  Ship Models »

The yawl boat was a ninteenth-century development of earlier ships' boats built for naval and merchant use. Usually twenty feet long or less, they had round bottoms and square sterns; many had raking stem profiles. Yawl boats built for fishing tended to have greater beam than those built for vessels in the coastal trades. In the hand-line fisheries, where the crew fished from the schooner's rails, a single yawl boat was hung from the stern davits as a life boat or for use in port. Their possible use as lifeboats required greater breadth to provide room for the whole crew. In port, they carried crew, provisions, and gear between schooner and shore. (1)

Lane's most dramatic depictions of fishing schooners' yawl-boats are found in his paintings Gloucester Outer Harbor, from the Cut , 1850s (inv. 109) and /entry:311. Their hull forms follow closely that of Chapelle's lines drawing. (2) Similar examples appear in the foregrounds of Gloucester Harbor , 1852 (inv. 38) , Ships in Ice off Ten Pound Island, Gloucester , 1850s (inv. 44) , and The Fort and Ten Pound Island, Gloucester, Massachusetts , 1847 (inv. 271) . A slightly smaller example is having its bottom seams payed with pitch in the foreground of Gloucester Harbor , 1847 (inv. 23) . In Gloucester Inner Harbor , 1850 (inv. 240) , a grounded yawl boat gives an excellent view of its seating arrangement, while fishing schooners in the left background have yawl boats hung from their stern davits, or floating astern.

One remarkable drawing, Untitled (inv. 219) illustrates both the hull geometry of a yawl boat and Lane's uncanny accuracy in depicting hull form in perspective. No hull construction other than plank seams is shown, leaving pure hull form to be explored, leading in turn to unanswered questions concerning Lane's training to achieve such understanding of naval architecture.

1. Howard I. Chapelle, American Small Sailing Craft  (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1951), 222–23.

2. Ibid., 223.

A schooner's yawl lies marooned in the ice-bound harbor in this detail.

Detail showing yawl boat having its bottom seams payed with pitch.

Provenance (Information known to date; research ongoing.)

Exhibition history, published references, related historical materials, new york city locales, businesses, & buildings, vessels (specific / named), vessel types.

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How the schooner America started the America’s Cup, and the mystery she left behind

• January 15, 2017

Adrian Morgan admires the great gamble – and the gambler's luck – that won the £100 Cup – the race that became the first event in the America's Cup.

But to historians of the America’s Cup it was a tragedy, for the shed was the final resting place of America , a low, black schooner whose legacy has inspired controversy ever since. Nearly 75 years after one of the world’s most celebrated yachts was crushed beneath tons of corrugated iron and snow, the myth of her invincibility still endures.

America was commissioned by a syndicate headed by Commodore John Cox Stevens of the New York Yacht Club specifically to take up a challenge proffered by Lord Wilton, of Grosvenor Square, London, commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, in a letter dated 22 February, 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition.

Gallery: Highlights from the Royal Yacht Squadron Bicentenary International Regatta

The price agreed for her building was high – $30,000 – but extraordinary conditions were written into the contract. If she did not prove to be the fastest vessel in the United States the syndicate could refuse her. Moreover, if she were to prove unsuccessful in England, her builders would be obliged to take her back. Stevens, a wealthy man and notorious gambler, was taking no chances – he meant to cover his bets either way.

She was a gamble even on the drawing board, her underwater shape influenced by Englishman John Scott Russell’s Wave Line theory, which aimed to produce a hull that offered least resistance to the water, concave bows replacing the rounded bows of the era.

She was rigged with flat-cut, machine-woven cotton sails. By contrast, most boats of the era set fuller, looser-footed flax sails, which needed dousing with water to make the luff set tight and hard. One observer described how from directly upwind of the yacht America , the width of the mast could conceal the entire mainsail: ‘not a particle of it was visible; there was no belly, and the gaff was exactly parallel with the boom.’

Her launch date was set for 1 April, but it was 18 June before she was finally ready to sail for England. In the meantime the astute Stevens had driven the price down to $20,000 after inconclusive trials against his own fully tuned-up 97ft sloop Maria .

A legend is born

During the course of her Atlantic crossing, James Steers, older brother of her builder, George, was impressed with America as she recorded several daily runs of 200 miles and one of 284. A week or so after setting sail from Sandy Hook, Connecticut, he wrote: ‘She is the best sea boat that ever went out of the Hook.’

Inside the Royal Yacht Squadron – we get a rare view of this most exclusive club

After a 20-day passage, the 13-strong crew arrived off Le Havre, where, on first sight, the harbour master reportedly described the black schooner as ‘a wonder’. America spent three weeks refitting, having her masts restepped and her racing canvas carefully bent on, after which Stevens, who had taken the steamer to Le Havre, and his race crew sailed for Cowes.

The crack British cutter Laverock found the much-heralded America early on the morning of 1 August anchored in the Solent, near Cowes, and an informal race was arranged immediately. Stevens described the meeting at a dinner given in his honour at Astor House later that year: ‘We let her go about 200 yards, and then started in her wake . . . Not a sound was heard, save perhaps the beating of our anxious hearts . . . The men were motionless as statues . . . The Captain was crouched down upon the floor of the cockpit, his seemingly unconscious hand upon the tiller…’

Seven miles later, America had, allegedly, worked out a handy lead and the myth of her prowess gathered increased momentum. ‘The crisis was past, and some dozen of deep-drawn sighs proved that the agony was over,’ he added. News of her informal ‘victory’ spread like wildfire.

The story of the Laverock race is often given as the first evidence of America ’s invincibility and, indeed, those who might ordinarily have engaged in a little flutter over the Yankee schooner shied away. In those days huge sums were wagered on yacht racing. In one 224-mile Channel race some £50,000 changed hands.

However, the report in the weekly sporting paper Bell’s Life , on 3 August stated that Laverock ‘held her own’ and pointed out that she was towing her longboat. Despite being a proven sea boat, America had failed to impress against the Maria and now, according to some reports, against the Laverock . Stevens himself may well have been worried about his yacht’s performance, for when he did challenge the Squadron it was to be a schooners-only race, no handicaps, over an offshore course and in over six knots of wind. There were no takers.

He then made it known that he was willing to race anyone, but the stake was to be an outrageous 10,000 guineas, more than double the cost of her building. Not surprisingly there was again no response.

For two weeks America lay at Cowes, sails furled. Hopes of a race with Joseph Weld’s Alarm , for a purse of $5,000, came to naught and the British press, sensing a good story, were scathing. The Times wrote: ‘The effect produced by her apparition off West Cowes among yachtsmen seems to have been completely paralysing . . . It could not be imagined that the English would allow an illustrious stranger to boast that he has flung down the gauntlet to England and had been unable to find a taker.’’

Eventually George Robert Stephenson, son of the railway engineer, offered to race his unremarkable 100-ton Titania over a 20-mile windward-leeward course for £100. The date was fixed for 28 August, but he was upstaged by the Royal Yacht Squadron, which, stung by the criticism in the press, finally took the plunge. The race, 53 miles around the Isle of Wight, was scheduled for 22 August and the prize was to be a 27-inch cup made of 134 ounces of silver, worth £100 (some say guineas), paid for by the membership.

On the morning of the race, a south-westerly wind prevailed, aided by a strengthening east-going tide. Betting was heavily in favour of the Yankee schooner.

After a poor start, America lay 5th behind Beatrice , Aurora , Volante and Arrow at No Man’s Buoy and needed to make up ground. Opinions differ over what happened next, but what is known for sure is that America ’s local pilot, Mr Underwood, set the black schooner on a fast reach, close inshore, for Bembridge Ledge, missing out the Nab light vessel located to the east of Bembridge. There had been nothing in the rules of the race about leaving the light vessel to starboard.

One historian, A.E. Reynolds Brown, in a slim pamphlet entitled The Phoney Fame of the Yacht America and the America Cup , published in 1980, states that all the yachts except America headed for the Nab light vessel, permitting the Yankee crew to jump into a big lead, more than an hour ahead of the fleet. This version is hotly disputed, however, with others claiming that as many as six other competitors also cut inside the Nab.

From Bembridge to St Catherine’s the fleet was hard on the wind, bucking a strong tide. At Sandown, the 62ft cutter, Wildfire was level, though ineligible for the race as she used moveable ballast. At Dunnose, according to America ’s log, the 57ft cutter, Aurora may also have caught up.

At this point in the race, America ’s two greatest threats, Mr Joseph Weld’s 193-ton cutter Alarm and Mr Chamberlayne’s 84-ton cutter Arrow retired early, the former going to the help of the latter, hard aground off Ventnor. Then Volante and Freak collided off the same point (one account even puts these two ahead of the America when the collision occurred), which left Aurora as the only first class yacht still racing.

At St Catherine’s lighthouse, the most southerly point of the island, Wildfire , according to The Times , was three miles ahead of the fleet and was not overhauled until Freshwater Bay. Observers at St Catherine’s had timed Aurora just ten minutes astern at that point with Wildfire leading America by 14 minutes.

At the Needles, one famous account reads: ‘For an hour after America passed the Needles we kept the Channel in view and there was no appearance of a second yacht’. Yet by the time America finished off Cowes, Aurora was just eight minutes behind. What no one mentioned was that Wildfire with her gang below decks shifting two or three tons of ballast after each tack, may well have beaten them all, however, her finishing time was not officially recorded.

Into the history books

Following America ’s victory Stevens made no strenuous effort to seek further competition, crying off on several occasions with various excuses. He must have been relieved that the one match he could not duck, a friendly match with Titania , was against a schooner regarded by all expert opinion as being out of her league.

Stevens was keen to sell her, but there was no rush to buy at his inflated price. When a gullible punter appeared in the shape of 39-year-old army officer John de Blaquiere, fourth Baron of Ardkill, a man with little sailing experience, Stevens could not believe his luck. He took the money – £5,000 – and ran. After taking all expenses into account, Stevens had made a modest profit on his adventure. America had emerged from her ordeal with her reputation intact, though hardly tested.

In 1852 she raced for the Queen’s Cup and was beaten by Mosquito , a 60ft cutter built in 1848. Alarm and Arrow were to do the same. In her last race under Blaquiere’s ownership she trounced Sverige , built expressly to challenge her, but only after the Swedish schooner, leading by nine minutes after 20 miles, carried away her main gaff.

Blaquiere sold her in 1853 and by 1861 she was owned by a Mr Decie and renamed Camilla , having undergone repairs for rotting timbers and had her masts cropped. At Cowes that year she was beaten by the 20-year-old Alarm , lengthened and newly converted to schooner rig. She then won a race off Plymouth, and sailed to the West Indies.

A year later, under the name Memphis , she appeared under the Confederate flag in Savannah as a blockade-runner, then in April 1862 the US gunboat Ottawa discovered her scuttled in St John’s River, her hull full of augur holes. She was refloated and handed over to the Annapolis Naval Academy.

Six years later, crewed by midshipmen from the Academy, she was among the fleet of the America’s Cup’s first defenders, finishing fourth, in front of James Ashbury’s Cambria . In 1876 she finished 19 minutes ahead of a hopelessly outclassed Canadian challenger.

Her last appearance on a course that bore her name was during the Vigilant/Valkyrie matches in 1893 when she took a party of sightseers to watch the action off Sandy Hook. She lay in Boston Harbour from 1900 until 1916 and in 1920 very nearly ended up as a Portuguese trader in the Cape Verde Islands.

By the late 1930s, as the clouds of war were gathering, she was appreciated as a national treasure and efforts were made to raise the funds to restore her. They failed and on the night of 28 March, 1942, she was lost to the elements forever.

• 1. Introduction

• THE £100 CUP
• THE 1ST CHALLENGE
• THE 2ND CHALLENGE
• THE 3RD CHALLENGE
• COUNTESS OF DUFFERIN
• THE 4TH CHALLENGE
• THE 5TH CHALLENGE
• THE 6TH CHALLENGE
• THE 7TH CHALLENGE
• THE 8TH CHALLENGE
• VALKYRIE II
• THE 9TH CHALLENGE
• VALKYRIE III
• THE 10TH CHALLENGE
• THE 11TH CHALLENGE
• SHAMROCK II
• CONSTITUTION
• INDEPENDENCE
• THE 12TH CHALLENGE
• SHAMROCK III
• THE 13TH CHALLENGE
• SHAMROCK IV
• SHAMROCK 23M
• THE 14TH CHALLENGE
• THE 15TH CHALLENGE
• THE 16TH CHALLENGE
• ENDEAVOUR II

PLANS OF AMERICA

Yves GARY Hits: 13018

Category: AMERICA

Sail plan of America LINES OF AMERICA G.D. Dunlap - Americas Cup Defenders -- America - 1851 Winning the Cup America 1851 CROSS-SECTIONS OF AMERICA SAIL PLAN OF AMERICA Lines of America PLANOS Goleta de la Copa America 1851: America LOA=101 ft - LWL=90 ft The Rolly Tasker Collection: America (1851) THE AMERICA Lines of the America as taken off while the yacht was docked in England Yacht America Pl. 30 Sec. 2 Bow section of the yacht America Pl 30 Sec. 1 AMERICA: SAILPLAN America Built on her lines Mary Taylor (Plan) SCHOONER AMERICA - DESIGN 1897 - General Arrangement SCHOONER AMERICA - DESIGN 1897 - Sail Plan Contact Details Skip to global NPS navigation Skip to this park navigation Skip to the main content Skip to this park information section Skip to the footer section Exiting nps.gov Alerts in effect, ship model of the schooner yacht america. , designed by naval architect George Steers, won first place in the original 1851 race, a 53-mile-long circumnavigation, around the Isle of Wight, England. The owner took home the first place silver pitcher for winning the competition that would later be known as the America's Cup race. Presently in the collection of the San Francisco Maritime NHP is a model of the schooner . This model was given to Mr. Le Marchant, owner of the yacht , that placed second in the 1851 race. In 1959, the model was loaned to the San Francisco Maritime Museum (SFMM) and later became a gift. (The SFMM eventually became part of the park.) Unlike the America's Cup races of recent memory, no yachting syndicates from California had formed to support the design and building of the vessel for the original race. California had only become a state in 1850. Viewing the model, you are struck by the perfect likeness to the original vessel. It is purported that a model of the was given to each of the 15 finishers of the original race on August 22, 1851. We are fortunate to have this model in the collection as it links San Francisco Maritime to the great America's Cup tradition and especially the "World Series" races being held on SF Bay August 23-26, 2012-161 years since that first August race in 1851. The model will be on display in the Maritime Museum in the near future. See www.americascup.com/en/San-Francisco for more about the 2012 races and the 34th America's Cup race on the San Francisco Bay in 2013. Last updated: March 1, 2015 Park footer Contact info, mailing address:. 2 Marina Boulevard, Building E, 2nd Floor San Francisco, CA 94123 415 561-7000 The public information office is open from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. PST. Stay Connected A DAY IN HISTORY: AUGUST 22 1851 & 2024 The start of the third, and final, Preliminary Regatta of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup begins on the August 22 – an historic date for the formation of the America’s Cup - as it was on that day, back in 1851, 173 years ago, when the oldest competition in international sport truly began. When ‘Old’ Dick Brown guided the schooner ‘America’ deftly across the finishing line at the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes in dying breeze and light, against the tide, and with the cutter ‘Aurora’ closing up fast, little could he imagine what the resultant racing some 173 years later would look like. The prize back in 1851, like today, was an elaborate Victorian silver ewer, incapable of holdings liquids that had been purchased in 1848 by the Marquess of Anglesey, on spec from the Royal warranted jewellers, R&S Garrard of Panton Street, just off Piccadilly in London. Having been gifted by the Marquess to the Squadron, it was originally named the ‘RYS £100 Cup,’ and a trial of speed around the Isle of Wight was suggested when the ‘America,’ an east coast Pilot Boat design of George Steers, came to England to take on the best of the British fleet in a happy coincidence with Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition taking place, that year, in Hyde Park in 1851. At the time, the Royal Yacht Squadron was keen to test its fleet against the best and had rather hoped that the aged Russian Tsar, Nicholas I, would send over representatives of the newly-formed Imperial Yacht Club of St. Petersburg to trial. That failed to materialise as the Russians, one of the great flax exporters and manufacturers of the time, entered the Thames for the Great Exhibition and never came further south, so it was the syndicate-owned ‘America’ of the New York Yacht Club with its first Commodore, John Cox Stevens, who arrived amidst a flurry of publicity in both the mainstream and satirical news outlets of the day. An air of invincibility was almost immediately created around the speed of the ‘America’ after an opening encounter a few miles down the coast when the newly-built cutter ‘Laverock’ courteously escorted the Americans up the Solent on their first morning in British waters from Ryde to her mooring off Cowes. A good deal of bluff was in place too, as the swashbuckling, stylish American syndicate owners were keen to wager outrageous sums of money on speed trials which were declined or simply ignored by the cautious and stilted owners of the British fleet. Eventually on August 22, a race around the Isle of Wight was arranged and the legend of ‘America’s Cup’ began. Now, 173 years later to the day, we are at the start of the Louis Vuitton 37 th America’s Cup that still at its very core has the guiding ‘Deed of Gift’ that accompanied the original donation of the trophy to the New York Yacht Club by George L. Schuyler in 1857. Updated in parts, the Deed of Gift remains true to its central tenet of: “a friendly competition between foreign countries.” Technology today has brought us to carbon fibre vessels capable of flying above the water on foils and hitting speeds – unimaginable back in 1851 – in excess of 50 knots. The crews today are elite, cross-discipline athletes, many with Olympic and endurance sport backgrounds whilst the helms and trimmers are Olympic medallists and World Champions.  Back in 1851, a government shipyard in Cherbourg was used to fit-out the ‘America’ into racing trim after her voyage from across the Atlantic before she crossed the English Channel to Cowes. Today, the boats are designed on super-computers, using the latest in Artificial Intelligence and simulation technology to create the fastest vessels on the planet. Rumour and myth, just like in 1851, swirls around the Port Vell on a daily basis. What nobody knows for certain is just how fast all the competitors really are – and we may not know the true answer to that question until the Louis Vuitton Cup starts on the August 29 when everything gets ultra serious and every point, every race, matters. In 1851  the schooner ‘America’ seemed invincible. Today the competition is simply too close to call with every team expected to be extremely similar in performance with only small differences across a wide range of conditions. The skill of sailing, however, remains very much the same. ‘Old’ Dick Brown and the crew of ‘America’ (including a certain 15-year-old Henry Steers) had in their employ a skilled British navigator, Robert Underwood, who guided the schooner to victory around the tricky waters of the Isle of Wight. In Barcelona in 2024, the sailor’s skills will be tested to the extreme with the venue able to throw up a huge variety of wind and sea-states on any given day. Mother Nature will, just like in 1851, have a big part to play in the outcome and destiny of the Louis Vuitton 37 th America’s Cup. August 22 is a legendary day for America’s Cup fans and aficionados. From 1851 to 2024, a lot has changed but an awful lot stays very much the same. It is the pinnacle of international yacht racing and 2024 promises to be the truest test of speed, seamanship and skill before the winner is crowned and the America's Cup awarded. (Magnus Wheatley - Author of 'There is no Second' - the definitive account of the first race in 1851 for what would become 'America's Cup.' Available to buy here: There is no Second )    How London’s 1851 Great Exhibition Resulted in America’s Big Win Friends Read Free On July 30, 1844, nine men sat aboard a schooner floating near Manhattan Island’s Battery. John Cox Stevens had invited eight of his friends to join him on his yacht, the Gimcrack. Stevens was an outdoorsman, a steamship and railroad promoter, and a descendant of one of New York’s most prominent families. The Stevens family had risen to prominence by their efforts and sacrifices during the American Revolution. John Cox Stevens would rise to prominence from the proposal he made on that Tuesday. Stevens grew up on the water, sailing and steaming across the Hudson River and along the coastline of the eastern seaboard. His father, after serving as a colonel in the Continental Army, turned his attention to steamboats. He was one of the early inventors of this new method of water transportation, competing with the likes of Robert Fulton. Stevens continued his father’s business of building boats and steamships. His steamboat ferry was the world’s first to cross the Hudson to and from Hoboken. In addition to his maritime acumen, he was a successful businessman in a booming industry. New York City was full of men like Stevens—wealthy, industrious, and seeking camaraderie with like-minded people. It is what brought the nine together. New York City had been the nation’s largest city for half a century. It was three times larger than Boston and about 30 times larger than Detroit, yet both of those cities had something New York City didn’t: a yacht club. When Stevens broached the subject of founding the New York Yacht Club (NYYC), all eight fellow yachtsmen readily agreed. They also voted Stevens as the new club’s commodore. The RYS and the RSA In 1846, Henry Cole, a member of the Society of Arts, was introduced to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the husband of Queen Victoria. The two men became fast friends, and both wished to promote the arts and industry within Britain. Shortly after their introduction, the Society of Arts was granted a royal charter, changing its name to Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce (or more briefly, the Royal Society of Arts). In 1843, Garrard, a London-based jewelry maker, was appointed as Britain’s first official Crown Jeweller. In 1848, Garrard made three silver cups in the shape of ewers. As the 1840s moved into the 1850s, these two entities—the RSA and Garrard’s—incidentally brought the NYYC and the RYS together. An Open Invitation The Right Men for the Yacht Brown had built a reputation on building beautiful, durable, and fast boats. His success was contingent upon having the right people working with and for him. Lucky for him, and probably the reason he felt confident enough to make such a bet, he had recently hired George Steers. Steers was born in 1819 to a maritime family. His father David Steers was a native of the Isle of Jersey, one of the Channel Islands, and had been a captain in the Royal Navy and had later joined the U.S. Navy. In 1841, 21-year-old George Steers designed his first pilot boat. Before the decade was up, Steers was revolutionizing boat design. In 1848, his design and build of the schooner Mary Taylor proved unconventional with its narrow bow and stern, and widest section near the middle. The end result, however, vastly improved the speed and handling of the traditional pilot boat. The following year, Steers was hired by Brown. Off to the Races America arrived in Le Havre, France, on July 9. After the long voyage, it was refitted, its topsides painted black, and its racing sails tied to the spars. Stevens and his brother, Edwin, who took over the yacht once it had reached Le Havre, had orchestrated to keep it out of sight from the British until sailing to the Isle of Wight. When it sailed to the island on July 31, it did not disappoint. The Great Race Begins On the morning of the race, 15 of the 18 teams arrived in time, their boats ranging in size from the 393-ton Brilliant, the largest of the seven schooners, to the 47-ton Aurora, the smallest of the cutters. All 15 sat at anchor awaiting the start. At 10 a.m. a cannon was fired by the Royal Yacht Squadron and the counterclockwise race around the Isle of Wight began. Throughout the first hour and half, position for first changed intermittently, primarily between America and the cutters. By the halfway mark, near St. Catherine’s Point, America had increased its lead by about a mile. The only concern remained the cutters. As Volante neared St. Catherine’s Point, it sprung her bowsprit, causing it to drop out. The closest boat to America now was the cutter Aurora. St. Catherine’s Point was apparently a relatively hazardous spot. Not only had the Volante suffered damage there, but America had as well. Its jibboom had snapped. Luckily, the jibboom was a mere innovation and an unnecessary one at that. Once the team cleared the boat of the debris, America actually increased its speed. Now it was about coming down the final stretch where thousands of spectators waited in Cowes to see who would win the coveted prize. One of those spectators was Queen Victoria. There is a famous story about the queen awaiting the finishers. As the boats came around the final turn, Queen Victoria asked the signal master, “Are the yachts in sight?” “Yes, may it please Your Majesty,” he responded. “Which is first?” “The America.” “Which is second?” “Ah, Your Majesty, there is no second.” It was during this week in history, on Aug. 22, 1851, that the American-made yacht America won what was the very first America’s Cup race, beating her next rival, Aurora, by 8 minutes. After receiving the Garrard silver ewer, the “£100 Cup/Hundred Guinea Cup/Cup of One Hundred Sovereign Cup/Queen’s Cup” was renamed America’s Cup after the yacht. America’s Cup quickly became the most prestigious and famous sailing race in the world, with more and more countries competing for the coveted prize. The Americans held onto the cup from 1851 to 1983, making 24 defenses against various international challengers. It is considered the longest winning streak in sports history. Oddly, the British, who created the race, have never won. The international boat race continues to this day, with the 37th America’s Cup scheduled to take place on the 173rd anniversary. The signal master’s response to Queen Victoria, whether fictitious or not, has remained the race’s slogan: “There is no second.” How the Magna Carta Chaos Galvanized England A Poet for All Seasons Epoch Booklist: Recommended Reading for Aug. 16–22 A Fun, Insightful Look at the Rise and Fall of Caribbean Pirates Engineering & Transportation Transportation Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required . Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web. Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app. Image Unavailable To view this video download Flash Player The Low Black Schooner: Yacht America, 1851-1945 Paperback – January 1, 1986 Print length 78 pages Language English Publisher Mystic Seaport Museum Inc Publication date January 1, 1986 ISBN-10 0939510049 ISBN-13 978-0939510047 See all details Product details Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mystic Seaport Museum Inc; First Edition (January 1, 1986) Language ‏ : ‎ English Paperback ‏ : ‎ 78 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0939510049 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0939510047 Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.36 pounds #8,169 in Deals in Books #28,822 in Transportation (Books) Customer reviews 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 68% 0% 32% 0% 0% 68% 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 68% 0% 32% 0% 0% 0% 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 68% 0% 32% 0% 0% 32% 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 68% 0% 32% 0% 0% 0% 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 68% 0% 32% 0% 0% 0% Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them. 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America was originally built as a yacht to showcase American yacht-building skill and to make a little money by winning yacht-racing competitions. She was a real racer/cruiser. There is an excellent description of the history and career of America on the Wikipedia page for the schooner: Wikipedia – Schooner America Here are a few details or the original yacht: LOA: 101′ 3” LWL: 89’ 10″ Beam: 22′ 10″ Draft: 10’ 11” Designers: James Rich Steers and George Steers Year Designed: 1850 Builder: George Steers and Co. Long Island, New York Launched: 1851 Scrapped and burned in a shed in 1945, Annapolis, Maryland Scale model dimensions, at 1:20 scale: LOA: 60.75” Beam: 13.7″ Draft: 8.3” (including 1.75″ allowance for stability) Next is to establish the actual design criteria: Standard Equipment: Topsides identical to the drawing. 10% more volume below the waterline. Two thicknesses for the keel to aid in keeping the hull straight during planking. .0625“ offset for hull planking Bulkheads are 1/8” birch plywood. Starting Point – The Original Plan Sheets Here we have a look at the starting point of the design. These pictures are from the book of America’s Cup yacht design and are missing a lot of detail. This is an interesting project in particular because there is so little accurate information about the original construction. Much has to be inferred from pictures and old paintings.         Modifying the Underwater Shape The drawings were then chopped up so the area below the waterline could be tweaked for R/C modelling. The drawings are inserted into Solidworks on separate planes so they can be stretched separately. As noted in the builder’s requests the keel was lowered by about 1.75″. When the frames are sketched, the discontinuity will be smoothed with a long spline. Have a look at our page on the design and fabrication of Malabar, by clicking . The adjustment of the shape of the hull and the insertion of the sketches into Solidworks is done in a similar manner in most models. Building up the design in Solidworks The drawings are inserted in the software and stretched to fit the requested dimensions. For these projects, where all parts are intimately connected, we use Multi-Body parts in Solidworks.   Here the main dimension outline and station positions have been prepared and the keel has been drawn and extruded. America has an interesting arrangement for the sheer plank. It was a challenge to figure out how this would have been created on the original ship, especially around the stern, where the cap rail wraps around quite pleasantly. I was expecting the sheer plank and the deck to line up but I haven’t found information that shows this, one way or the other. I opted for one line for the sheer and another for the level of the deck. Once the various 3D curves are created, using the Projection tool in Solidworks, the bulkhead shapes are attached to those so that everything can be tweaked if needed. Next, the tops of the bulkheads are added. These are used so the model can be built easily on a table. This is quite useful for large models. Next, the T-rail parts are added and the 3D Multi-Body is ready to be disassembled and inserted in the 2D for cutting. Finally, For this model, a simple 2D exploded view is created and inserted in a 2D drawing. Making the assembly drawings is my favorite part of Solidworks projects. Assembling the Frames The builder has been gracious enough to send me pictures of the model from the moment he started assembling the frames. I find Solidworks is the right software for doing these frame sets. This sets was designed in Solidworks, cut, and shipped direct to the client. The parts were tested in the software. There was no prototype. Sure, there are some areas that need to be addressed but we knew about them even before cutting.     Dealing with the Transom The various drawings and photographs show conflicting designs for the transom. After some fiddling and decision-making, the builder himself created this lovely transom. This is one of the great parts of working directly with a builder on a project; each detail can become unique right from the start.     Choices, choices! I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite such a lovely planking and finishing job on a model! And yet, the Italian builder, like so many most excellent Italian artists, was not happy with the finish and then painted the model to even higher standards. I am really happy to have had the pleasure to participate in the construction of such a great model.     Internal Structure A picture really is worth a thousand words. Several things can be seen in this picture. You can see the nice deck camber that was designed into the frames. You can see the step from the stern deck to the main deck. You can see the nice gently reduction of the bulwark from bow to stern, and you can see the extra bracing the builder has incorporated for the various lines and controls. A masterful job.   Advertisement ©Copyright 2012 modellers-workshop Who currently holds the America’s Cup? List of challengers and defenders since 1851 O ne hundred and seventy-three years ago, on the Isle of Wight, a race began that would become a legend in the sailing world —a race that continues to be discussed today. The competition was for a silver trophy that captured the imaginations and fortunes of some of the wealthiest people in the world, sparking bitter rivalries, intense controversies, and costly legal battles. What’s more remarkable is that the boat that would become the center of attention by winning the race, the yacht America , started the race facing the wrong way. The Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes is one of the most prestigious yacht clubs in the world because this is where the America’s Cup began. Despite the poor start, America surprised its British hosts by winning the race, and the trophy soon made its way to New York. However, after the victory, the owners and crew were uncertain about what to do with their prize—until someone had an idea. This idea would transform the trophy into the most prestigious sailing award, and it has since become the oldest international sporting trophy in the world. The trophy was renamed the America’s Cup after the yacht that won the first race , though it is informally known as the Auld Mug Interesting trivia about the winning boat of the first event was a 100-foot schooner, and after winning the cup, the vessel was sold for a sum of $25,000, $5000 more than it was paid for. For some, the America’s Cup has grown into an obsession. The quest for this trophy has led some of the wealthiest people to pour vast sums of money into their campaigns, only to come up short. Yet, despite the immense costs, many have returned to challenge for the Cup again and again. The New York Yacht Club, in particular, holds the record for the longest winning streak in history, fueled by these relentless East Coast competitors. One such competitor was Thomas Lipton , who, despite five unsuccessful challenges with his Shamrock yachts, used the publicity to build his tea empire. His repeated failures earned him the respect and affection of the public, even as they cost him a fortune to defend his campaigns. In contrast, others, like Lord Dunraven , were entangled in bitter disputes , illustrating the passion and intensity that have always surrounded the America’s Cup. The early days of the America’s Cup are as captivating as today’s high-tech, carbon-fiber racing machines. The America’s Cup is the oldest international sailing competition. Races are held between a defending and challenging yacht club, with the winner awarded the America’s Cup trophy, known as the Auld Mug . Any yacht club meeting the specified requirements can challenge the current holder. If successful, the challenging club gains stewardship of the Cup. In 1970, a Challenger Selection Series was held to decide the official challenger . Team New Zealand syndicate The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron club is the current holder of the America’s Cup . They successfully defended the 36th America’s Cup in March 2021 using an AC75 foiling monohull called Te Rehutai, owned and sailed by the Team New Zealand syndicate and heavily sponsored by Emirates airline company. The next America’s Cup will be held between the defending Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and a challenging yacht club from 12 October 2024 in Barcelona, Spain. List of all winners Year Location Defender Challenger 1851 Isle of Wight United Kingdom Royal Yacht Squadron 1870 New York City United Kingdom Royal Thames Yacht Club 1871 New York City Royal Harwich Yacht Club 1876 New York City Canada Royal Canadian Yacht Club 1881 New York City Canada Bay of Quinte Yacht Club 1885 New York City United Kingdom Royal Yacht Squadron 1886 New York City United Kingdom Royal Northern Yacht Club 1887 New York City United Kingdom Royal Clyde Yacht Club 1893 New York City United Kingdom Royal Yacht Squadron 1895 New York City United Kingdom Royal Yacht Squadron 1899 New York City United Kingdom Royal Ulster Yacht Club 1901 New York City United Kingdom Royal Ulster Yacht Club 1903 New York City United Kingdom Royal Ulster Yacht Club 1920 New York City United Kingdom Royal Ulster Yacht Club 1930 Newport United Kingdom Royal Ulster Yacht Club 1934 Newport United Kingdom Royal Yacht Squadron 1937 Newport United Kingdom Royal Yacht Squadron 1958 Newport United Kingdom Royal Yacht Squadron 1962 Newport Australia Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron 1964 Newport United Kingdom Royal Thames Yacht Club 1967 Newport Australia Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron 1970 Newport Australia Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron 1974 Newport Australia Royal Perth Yacht Club 1977 Newport Australia Sun City Yacht Club 1980 Newport Australia Royal Perth Yacht Club 1983 Newport United States New York Yacht Club 1987 Freemantle Australia Royal Perth Yacht Club 1988 San Diego New Zealand Mercury Bay Boating Club 1992 San Diego Italy Compagnia della Vela 1995 San Diego United States San Diego Yacht Club 2000 Auckland Italy Yacht Club Punta Ala 2003 Auckland New Zealand Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron 2007 Valencia New Zealand Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron 2010 Valencia Switzerland Société Nautique de Genève 2013 San Francisco New Zealand Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron 2017 Bermuda United States Golden Gate Yacht Club 2021 Auckland Italy Circolo della Vela Sicilia From 1851 to 1983, the USA won the America’s Cup, holding onto the title for 132 years until Australia and the Royal Perth Yacht Club won in 1983. The New York Yacht Club had successfully defended the Cup 25 times in a row , making it the longest defense of a title in sports history . Additionally, the America’s Cup r ace winner has the right to decide the rules for the next contest , including the types of boats to be used, the location of the race course, and when the race will take place. WATCH LIVE: Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Bill Clinton to speak ahead of VP nominee Tim Walz at DNC Today in Sports – Nolan Ryan becomes the first pitcher to strike out 5,000 batters The Associated Press August 21, 2024, 10:10 AM Share This: share on facebook share on threads share on linkedin share on email 1851 — The United States wins the first international yacht race. The schooner named “America” beats 14 British yachts. 1885 — Richard Sears beats Godfrey M. Brinley, 6-3, 4-6, 6-0, 6-3 to win the U.S. men’s national tennis championship held at the Newport (R.I.) Casino. 1898 — Malcolm Whitman beats Dwight F. Davis, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 to win the U.S. men’s national tennis championship held at the Newport (R.I.) Casino. 1948 — The Chicago Cardinals beat the College All-Stars 28-0 in front 101,220 fans at Chicago’s Soldier Field. 1949 — The Philadelphia Eagles beat the College All-Stars 38-0 at Chicago’s Soldier Field. It’s the largest shutout in the series, later matched by Green Bay in 1966. 1950 — Althea Gibson becomes the first black tennis player to be accepted in competition for the national championship. 1957 — Floyd Patterson knocks out Pete Rademacher in the sixth round to retain his world heavyweight title at Sicks Stadium in Seattle. 1965 — In the third inning of a game against Los Angeles, pitcher Juan Marichal of the San Francisco Giants hits catcher John Roseboro of the Dodgers in the head with his bat. A 14-minute brawl ensues and Roseboro suffers cuts on the head. Marichal thought Roseboro threw too close to his head when returning the ball to Sandy Koufax. 1984 — Evelyn Ashford sets the world record in the 100-meter dash with a clocking of 10.76 seconds in a meet at Zurich, Switzerland. 1987 — Brazil snaps the 34-game winning streak of the U.S. men’s basketball team with a 120-115 victory in the Pan Am Games. Oscar Schmidt scores 46 points to lead Brazil. Cuba wins a record 10 of 12 gold medals in boxing and beats the U.S. 13-9 in the baseball final. 1989 — Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers becomes the first pitcher to strike out 5,000 batters in a 2-0 loss to the Oakland Athletics. Ryan fans Rickey Henderson swinging on a 3-2, 96 mph fastball for No. 5,000. 1994 — DNA testing links O.J. Simpson to murder of Nicole Simpson & Ron Goldman. 1999 — Jenny Thompson breaks Mary T. Meagher’s 18-year-old 100-meter butterfly record at the Pan Pacific swim championships. Thompson with a time of 57.88 seconds lowers the mark of 57.93 set by Meagher. 2004 — American sprinter Justin Gatlin wins the coveted Olympic 100m gold medal in Athens in 9.85 ahead of Francis Obikwelu of Portugal & American Maurice Greene. 2007 — The Texas Rangers becomes the first team in 110 years to score 30 runs in a game, setting an American League record in a 30-3 rout of the Baltimore Orioles in the first game of a doubleheader. 2008 — Usain Bolt helps Jamaica win the 400-meter relay final in 37.10 seconds for his third gold medal and third world record of the Beijing Games. Bolt becomes only the fourth man, and the first since Carl Lewis in 1984, to win all three Olympic sprint events. Bryan Clay wins the decathlon, the first American to win the 10-discipline event at the Olympics since Dan O’Brien at Atlanta in 1996. 2018 — Ohio State suspends football coach Urban Meyer three games for mishandling repeated professional and behavioral problems of an assistant coach, with investigators finding Meyer protected his protege for years through domestic violence allegations, a drug problem and poor job performance. 2018 — The NCAA ditches the RPI for its own evaluation tool to select teams for the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA Evaluation Tool will rely on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency and quality of wins and losses. NET will be used for the 2018-19 season by the committee that selects schools and seeds the tournament. Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed. Related News Jesse Winker’s pinch-hit homer in 9th gives Mets 4-3 win over Orioles McCann haunts Mets again in Orioles’ 9-5 win Orioles place right-hander Zach Eflin on the 15-day IL with shoulder soreness Recommended. Montgomery Co. first grade teacher charged with selling fentanyl after fatal overdose DC mayor's office investigating Council member Trayon White's violence interruption work WATCH LIVE: Md. Gov. Moore, Bill Clinton and Tim Walz headline the DNC’s third day Related categories:. America’s Cup format, rule changes explained as world’s oldest sporting battle resumes The America’s Cup, the world’s oldest international sporting trophy, returns this year for its 37th edition. First contested in 1851, the a 183-year-old sporting challenge has become one of the most highly-anticipated sailing events on the calendar, with fast-paced racing and engineering at the fore of its appeal. After winning the previous America’s Cup in 2021, Emirates Team New Zealand dictated the location and sections of the rules of engagement for this year’s competition, which will be held in Barcelona. Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the 2024 America’s Cup ahead what promises to be a thrilling preliminary regatta, starting Thursday night (AEST). Watch the 37th America’s Cup LIVE on Fox Sports, available on Kayo. New to Kayo? Start Your Free Trial Today > The America’s Cup and the Challenger Selection Series, this year called the Louis Vuitton Cup, is comprised of head-to-head match races where two boats sail against each other. Emirates Team New Zealand, known as the Defender having won the previous competition, earned immediate qualification for the America’s Cup match, while their opponent will be determined in the Louis Vuitton Cup, which runs from August 29 to October 7. The Louis Vuitton Cup winner will be decided after a series of round robins, semi-finals and finals, with five boats competing this year. The America’s Cup match, contested between the Defender and a challenging vessel, is a best-of-13 series with one point awarded for each victory. The first team to win seven points is declared champions, becoming the Defender of the 38th America’s Cup. Each competing vessel must be designed and built solely in the country that it represents, while this year marks the first time a New Zealand team has chosen to defend an America’s Cup win overseas. PRELIMINARY REGATTA Before the Louis Vuitton Cup gets underway, the six boats will compete in their new AC75s at the third and final Preliminary Regatta in Barcelona. Points won at the Preliminary Regatta do not count towards progression or elimination, but it gives the teams an opportunity to get a glimpse at the competition before the Louis Vuitton Cup. The Preliminary Regatta gets underway in Barcelona on Thursday, running through to Sunday. August 21: Preliminary Regatta Practice day August 22-25: Barcelona Preliminary Regatta August 29 – September 8: Louis Vuitton Cup Round Robins 1 & 2 September 14-19: Louis Vuitton Cup Semifinals September 26 – October 7: Louis Vuitton Cup Finals October 12-27: The America’s Cup HOW TO WATCH Every race in the Louis Vuitton Cup and America’s Cup will be shown live on Fox Sports and streaming platform Kayo Sports. Coverage gets underway this Thursday at 10pm AEST. The AC75s, an innovative 75-foot foiling monohull first introduced at the 36th America’s Cup in Auckland in 2021, will return this year for their second outing albeit with considerable tweaks and improvement.s. “When you look at the boat now, the boat that we’re going to be launching soon (compared) to what we had last time, to us, is a big step on,” Emirates Team New Zealand’s chief operating officer Kevin Shoebridge said. “There’s a lot of stuff from the outside that you’ll never see – the control systems and everything, the technique and how you sail the boat – a lot of that stuff you won’t see, but to us there’s been some big steps forward. “I would expect all the boats are going to be a big step forward, and who knows? What typically happens with these rules is when you go from one iteration to the next, slowly they all start to merge together. So, they may look similar.” Emirates Team New Zealand (The Defender) Yacht: Taihoro Country: New Zealand CEO: Grant Dalton Helmsman: Peter Burling INEOS Britannia Yacht: Britannia Country: Britain CEO: Sir Ben Ainslie Helmsman: Sir Ben Ainslie American Magic Yacht: Patriot Country: America CEO: Mike Cazer President: Terry Hutchinson Helmsman: Terry Hutchinson Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team Yacht: Tifosi Country: Italy Chairman: Patrizio Bertelli Helmsmen: Max Sirena, Francesco Bruni, Jimmy Spithill Alinghi Red Bull Racing Yacht: BoatOne Country: Switzerland Team Principal: Ernesto Bertarelli Helmsmen: Arnaud Psarofaghis, Maxime Bachelin, Nicolas Charbonnier Orient Express Racing Team Yacht: Orient Express Country: France CEOs: Bruno Dubois, Stephan Kandler Helmsmen: Quentin Delapierre, Kevin Peponnet RULE CHANGES There are slight changes to the boat regulations this year, with crew numbers reduced from 11 to eight on the foiling monohulls. To reduce costs, teams will only be permitted to build one AC75 for the America’s Cup, while national rules have become more strict — 100 per cent of the race crew for each competitor has to be a passport holder of the country of the team’s yacht club, or have been physically present in that country for 18 months between March 2018 and March 2021. That’s the case for Australian sailing great Tom Slingsby, who will feature as part of the American Magic team having previously hlelped Oracle Team USA to America’s Cup glory. 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When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn commission.   Inside the America’s Cup: The history, heroism and high stakes that make the competition one of the greatest in sport More than 170 years since the trophy was first contested, sailing’s most glamorous event is about to hit the water off barcelona. christian broughton joins the preparations, with olympic gold-winning sailors, boats that almost fly, and some of the most powerful athletes in world sport, article bookmarked. Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails, thanks for signing up to the breaking news email. I t’s impossible not to feel the adrenaline rush as the 75ft yacht races by, like a surreal reimagining of Formula 1, with shades of Star Wars, set on the high seas. The speed is breathtaking, but it’s the silence that gives this scene its sci-fi twist. We’re a few hundred metres off Barcelona’s packed beaches, and Patriot, the New York Yacht Club’s entry into this year’s America’s Cup , is out on the water for a training day. The teams in this year’s competition are hoping to break 50 knots (92kph), yet this boat leaves barely any wake, makes not a sound, and as the sails twitch tight and the hull rises from the sea, it leaves our powerboat for dead. Scarcely touching the water, with only two hydrofoils beneath the surface, this thing really flies. Is there anything in international sport that’s bigger than the Olympics? In sailing , there’s the America’s Cup. While the Games are the proving ground where sailors do battle in dinghies, this competition, dating back to 1851 and the oldest international competition in sport, will be contested in 75ft yachts with costs rumoured to run into eight figures. The latest edition of the race starts this month and will be run over several races until late October. There’s something eerie about seeing so much power and control up close, and it’s not just the spectators who feel this way. “You can’t be scared of these boats,” says Paul Goodison, one of the two helms in charge of Patriot. “You have to keep pushing. As soon as you start backing off is probably when you’re going to get bitten, so you always have to keep your foot down, and keep pushing, pushing, pushing.” Goodison won gold for Team GB in Beijing in 2008 in the Laser class, while Ben Ainsley , his compatriot and the most decorated Olympic sailor in history, was winning gold in the Finn. Now they compete against each other, Ainsley in the British boat, INEOS Britannia. For months the America’s Cup teams have been in testing around the port of Barcelona, finding the angles and sail set-up that gives maximum speed in different conditions on the local waters. There is a huge team supporting the sailing crew, forming a portside pitlane of assembled talents, from data scientists to naval architects. But when they finally line up against each other, it’s the skippers’ old rivalries that will be the focus of attention. Maybe even within the same team. Each boat has two helms, or skippers, one on each side of the same boat, handing control to each other as the boat turns and the sail sweeps across, restricting visibility. Goodison’s fellow helm is the Australian Tom Slingsby, last year’s Rolex World Sailor of the Year. The personal histories and rivalries have run for decades. Slingsby was on the crew of the US boat in the 2013 America’s Cup, alongside Ben Ainsley, as they scored one of the most famous and tight come-back victories in the competition’s history. And Slingsby won his Laser gold medal, at the London Olympics in 2012. All sports have their elite competitor dynamics, but in the America’s Cup, these are off the charts. “We’ve competed against each other in the Olympic classes for the best part of 10 years,” says Goodison of his teammate. “We were archrivals for a long time. And we’ve been through cycles of being best mates, and then very abrasive, and then mates, and then abrasive. And it all comes from when you’re competing against somebody. You can’t really like them. You’ve got to crush them. You’ve got to beat them. And that was a big part of the Olympic cycle. But also with that, you gain a huge amount of respect. If you were to choose another guy to be beside you racing one of these, he’d be top of your list.” The stakes are high. Though the US had the longest winning streak in sport, taking the first competition and then holding the America’s Cup for 132 years, it is Emirates Team New Zealand that currently holds the trophy. Last time around, in 2021 off the shores of Auckland, the American Magic team were thought to have the fastest boat in the fleet. They were clear of their Italian rivals, Prada, in the semi-final. But as they turned the mark, the boat overpowered, tipped, soared into the air and crashed back down, capsizing and very nearly sinking. The final was so close. Human error – though, it must be said, not Goodison’s. But there is more to an America’s Cup crew than the skippers who make those high-pressure decisions. To see the boats glide by does not do justice to the muscle power on board. While the two lifting hydrofoils are controlled by electrical power, the huge, powerful sails are adjusted by the “meat batteries” (is there a more brutal description for a professional in all of sport?). It’s a long time since America’s Cup boats used simple winches. Legs are far more powerful than arms, so these boats have ‘cyclors’ on board, with bike frames hidden within the hull, as the crew pedal furiously to power each turn. For the American Magic team, this role is made all the more brutal by the demands of aerodynamics. Patriot is designed to be much sleeker and much more low-profile than her rivals – especially Ainsley’s muscle-car-looking INEOS Britannia. And that means the Patriot’s cyclors are pedalling for all their worth on recumbent cycles, facing backwards. “I hope they’re paying those guys well,” a rival team’s cyclor quipped later that day. These “meat batteries” are serious units, chosen from backgrounds ranging from cycling to rowing – sports that demonstrate an ability to churn out power that’s beyond almost anyone else. If the boats are space-age machines steeped in sporting heritage, so too is the gear the crew wears. American Magic have been working closely with Helly Hansen – the outdoor gear label that traces its own roots back almost as far as the competition, to Norway in 1877. Their technology team have been working with the sailors throughout, redesigning fabrics to be lighter and more flexible, changing the cut of the spray tops to allow ideal movement, and even rethinking the design of the buoyancy aids. But even the Helly Hansen performance team were not prepared for the cylcors. As they worked with the boat’s big beasts, they discovered they had to cut the legs of their kit much wider to accommodate all that power and make the fabrics capable of dumping huge amounts of body heat. If you want to write your own name into America’s Cup history, and you don’t have an Olympic sailing gold to hand, you might consider becoming a cyclor. To apply for this most gruelling physical test in sport, you’ll only get the attention of American Magic’s head of performance, Ben Day, if you can already send huge power through your training bike . This is not about being light yet powerful – it’s not the Tour de France, you’re not cycling up a mountain. This is all about “absolute watts”. If you can sustain around 450 watts for 20 minutes, and peak at 1,000 for 30 seconds, “then, I say, let’s have a chat,” says Day. But look down at the wattage at the peak of your spin class or Peloton session and you might see a humbling comparison. I know from experience. After some gruff encouragement from Day, I gave it my all. Did I hit 450 watts? Yes. Did I hold it for 20 minutes? It was a struggle to hold it for one. And this was in the air-conditioned, stable luxury of the American Magic base camp. It’s all a long way from the competition’s beginnings. Back then, it was the year of the Great Exhibition, and the Royal Yacht Squadron, based in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, off England’s south coast, had invited the New York Yacht Club to join them. The script was clear: the regatta was set to be a showcase of maritime supremacy, a demonstration of just how invincibly Britannia ruled the waves. But what played out on the water was one of the greatest upsets in sporting history. A radically designed 100ft schooner with concave bows, slick black hull and flat sails, America had proven herself capable of clocking up more than 200 miles in a day as she crossed the Atlantic. Backed by a syndicate, Stevens had commissioned local brothers James and George Steers to build her, negotiating the price down to $20,000 ($814,000 today). The yacht’s captain was Richard Brown, a renowned Sandy Hook pilot, with skills forged in the sharp-edged competition of the new world, navigating tricky waters at pace to beat the local competition to incoming ships and win the business of guiding them into the booming harbour of New York. Accounts of exactly what happened upon America’s arrival in British waters are disputed – as can be the case when pride and reputation are at stake, and the sporting action takes place out at sea, away from the gaze of too many witnesses. She may – or may not – have left a renowned local boat in her wake in an initial encounter. Certainly, the locals seemed intimidated after that initial skirmish, with the American crew forced to wait for someone to accept their challenge. “It could not be imagined,” wrote The Times , “that the English would allow an illustrious stranger to boast that he has flung down the gauntlet to England and had been unable to find a taker.’’ Some days later, on 22 August, the now infamous challenge was set. A £100 ewer, from the London silversmith Garrard, was to be the prize. Fifteen yachts – seven schooners and eight smaller cutters – officially started the 53-mile course, running clockwise around the island. One of the favourites ran aground, and another went to help, pulling out of the race. Two others crashed into each other. And so the challenger from across the Atlantic took the spoils. One of the two yachts that collided off Ventnor that day was named Volante, Italian for “flying”. A glimpse of the future, perhaps, and of the yachts that today hover above the waves. As American Magic’s training day nears its end, the challenger from Italy, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, bankrolled by the fashion house billionaire Patrizio Bertelli, emerges, shimmering in its mirrored silver finish. The two boats tack near each other, then pull away, honing their skills as they drop their foils into the water, turn through the wind and then speed off with just one foil and the rudder touching the water. At this stage, it’s a practice only – the rules strictly prohibit them from lining up against each other until the competitive action begins. But with so much money, pride and history at stake, you can tell they’re sparring, seeing where the other boat looks slicker and quicker. Come Thursday (22 August), as the 37th America’s Cup finally takes to the water, the real race – one of the greatest and most glamorous in sport – will be on. To watch the America’s Cup: americascup.com The author travelled to Barcelona with Helly Hansen: to see the Helly Hansen American Magic crew clothing, visit hellyhansen.com Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today. New to The Independent? Or if you would prefer: Hi {{indy.fullName}} My Independent Premium Account details Help centre Best of Paris 2024 Men's Kite Final | Sailing | Olympic Games Paris 2024 Mixed Dinghy Medal Race | Sailing | Olympic Games Paris 2024 Women's Kite Final | Sailing | Olympic Games Paris 2024 Men's Kite - Medal Series Finals | Sailig | Olympic Games Paris 2024 Men's Dinghy Medal Race | Sailing | Olympic Games Paris 2024 Paris 2024 had it all: Sporting drama, revered venues, singalongs... and Snoop Dogg Austria’s Valentin Bontus takes men’s kite gold; first medal for Singapore at Paris 2024 Eleanor Aldridge of Great Britain wins historic first Olympic gold medal in women’s kite Italy sail to back-to-back Olympic mixed multihull gold Austria takes mixed dinghy sailing gold Australia's Matt Wearn wins men's dinghy gold Sailing - sport explainer presented by allianz, kite sailing, marseille marina, the pictogram, worldwide partners. Sail Plan of Schooner Yacht America 1851 Object summary. United States , New York , New York Description No. 27A white print Inscriptions Related items. There are 2 items related to this object. Related organizations Boucher Inc. Related vessels. America, NYYC Related objects. Schooner Yacht America (1851) Related - CC-E-01-64 Yacht America Related - CC-E-01A-64 Related - CC-E-01B-64 346 IMAGES America Schooner The America Schooner, 170 Tons, Winning the Royal Yacht Squadron Cup John Stobart How dominant was America in 1851? >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News John Stobart The schooner yacht "America". The first Americas Cup 1851. The COMMENTS America (yacht) America was a 19th-century racing yacht and first winner of the America's Cup international sailing trophy.. On August 22, 1851, America won the Royal Yacht Squadron's 53-mile (85 km) regatta around the Isle of Wight by 18 minutes. [3] The Squadron's "One Hundred Sovereign Cup" or "£100 Cup", sometimes mistakenly known in America as the "One Hundred Guinea Cup", [4] was later renamed after ... America I (Schooner) I. (Schooner: tonnage100; length 111'0"; beam25'0"; draft 12'0"; armament 1 12-pounder rifle, 2 24-pounder smoothbores) The first America was a racing schooner designed by George Steers and built at New York City in the shipyard of William H. Brown. The yacht was constructed for a syndicate headed by John Cox Stevens, the commodore of the New ... Beginning and end of the yacht America On 22 August 1851, America raced against 15 yachts in the Royal Yacht Squadron's "all nations" race around the Isle of Wight. America won, finishing 8 minutes ahead of the closest rival. Schooner Yacht America (1851) Schooner Yacht America (1851) Schooner Yacht America (1851) Object summary. Title Schooner Yacht America (1851) Object ID CC-E-01-64 Object type Plan ... Schooner Yacht America. Related - CC-E-01C-64. MIT Museum 314 Main Street Gambrill Center Building E-28 Cambridge, MA 02142 (617) 253-5927. Stay in touch. Facebook; Twitter; The Mariners' Museum Online Catalog VESSEL INFORMATION- VESSEL NAME: AMERICA ALL NAMES OF VESSEL: AMERICA NATIONALITY: American HOME PORT: New York (Originally) VESSEL TYPE: Schooner Yacht VESSEL DIMENSIONS: 94' length on deck x 22'6" beam; 170 tons register SERVICE DATES: 1851-1946 SHIPBUILDER: George Steers SHIPBUILDER LOCATION: New York, New York SHIP OWNERS: John Cox Stevens ... The Schooner Yacht "America" Label Text The first international yacht exposition was launched in England in 1851, marking the first formal racing competition between British and American vessels. On August 22 of that year, the schooner America became the first winner in the fifty-three mile contest around England's Isle of Wight. America's Victory in 1851 The schooner America, designed by George Steers A replica of the original 1844 clubhouse of the New York Yacht Club at its original location in Hoboken, New Jersey On August 22 1851 the schooner America defeated 14 British yachts in a race around the Isle of Wight. The race became the inaugural edition of the America's Cup, the oldest sporting competition in the world. The U. S. Schooner Yacht AMERICA The detailed information follows: U. S. Schooner America. Off Charleston, October 14th, 1862. Sir: On Monday night, October 13th, 1862 at 11 p.m., while lying at anchor off the mouth of Dewees Inlet in 4 fathoms of water, wind west, weather cloudy, I discovered a sail trying to run the blockade out from Charleston. Fitz Henry Lane's Yacht America From Three Views: Vessel ... The schooner yacht America has been the subject of more paintings than any other pleasure or commercial vessel, perhaps rivaled only by the frigate Constitution. In 1851, the year of her victorious race off Cowes, England, she was portrayed by many of the most noted American and British marine artists of the day, and remains a favorite subject in paintings by many of today's marine artists. Great yacht designs 13 America won that important (and to many observers highly unsatisfactory) race on 22 August 1851 not because she was a revolutionary hull. Instead, she was a very fine design, well resolved and fitted with nice sails. ... Great yacht designs 13 - the schooner America. Great yacht designs 12 - Gipsy Moth IV. Great yacht designs 11 - Oona ... An appreciation of the schooner America The Schooner America - An Appreciation. The schooner America some 15 years after her legendary victory in 1851 still with her original rig. The schooner yacht America of 1851 is arguably the most famous yacht in history. I have always wished people would identify and credit published photos, but I can't tell where this picture has been ... Plans of the America 1851 Schooner Yacht America. Related - CC-E-01C-64. Sail Plan of Schooner Yacht America 1851. Related - CC-E-01E-64. MIT Museum 314 Main Street Gambrill Center Building E-28 Cambridge, MA 02142 (617) 253-5927. Stay in touch. Facebook; Twitter; Instagram; YouTube; Subscribe to our newsletter. Accessibility; Fitz Henry Lane Lane's depiction of the schooner yacht "America's" victory at Cowes, England, is a close copy of Thomas Dutton's lithograph, which in turn was based on an on-site drawing of the occasion by Oswald W. Brierly. ... John Rousmaniere, The Low Black Schooner: Yacht America, 1851-1945 (Mystic, CT: Mystic Seaport Museum Stores, Inc., 1986), 27 ... How the schooner America won the first America's Cup Adrian Morgan admires the great gamble - and the gambler's luck - that won the £100 Cup - the race that became the first event in the America's Cup. On 28 March, 1942, an unusually heavy ... Plans of America History of America's Cup from 1851 to 1937. HOME; 1851. THE £100 CUP; AMERICA; MARIA; ARROW ... Lines of the America as taken off while the yacht was docked in England: George Steers: SAIL PLAN OF AMERICA ... America Built on her lines Mary Taylor (Plan) Olin Stephens: SCHOONER AMERICA - DESIGN 1897 - General Arrangement: Olin Stephens ... Ship Model of the Schooner Yacht AMERICA The America's owner took home the first place silver pitcher for winning the competition that would later be known as the America's Cup race. Presently in the collection of the San Francisco Maritime NHP is a model of the schooner America. This model was given to Mr. Le Marchant, owner of the yacht Aurora, that placed second in the 1851 race ... The YACHT AMERICA 1851 model ship PLANS & PHOTOS If you wish to download the plans for YACHT AMERICA 1851, become a sponsor of this channel. Access to download all the plans of this channel is open in the C... A DAY IN HISTORY: AUGUST 22 1851 & 2024 10 Days to Go Until Racing Begins. When 'Old' Dick Brown guided the schooner 'America' deftly across the finishing line at the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes in dying breeze and light, against the tide, and with the cutter 'Aurora' closing up fast, little could he imagine what the resultant racing some 173 years later would look like. How London's 1851 Great Exhibition Resulted in America's Big Win On July 30, 1844, nine men sat aboard a schooner floating near Manhattan Island's Battery. John Cox Stevens had invited eight of his friends to join him on his yacht, the Gimcrack. Schooner Yacht America Schooner Yacht America Object ID CC-E-01C-64 Object type Plan Print Major collection Nautical Named collection Arthur H. Clark Collection ... Schooner Yacht America (1851) Related - CC-E-01-64. Yacht America. Related - CC-E-01A-64. America. Related - CC-E-01B-64. MIT Museum 314 Main Street Gambrill Center Building E-28 Cambridge, MA 02142 (617 ... The Low Black Schooner: Yacht America, 1851-1945 Traces the history of the schooner yacht and discusses it achievements in races and its use by the Navy in the Civil War. Read more. Previous page. Print length. 78 pages. Language. English. Publisher. Mystic Seaport Museum Inc. Publication date. January 1, 1986. Dimensions. 1 x 1 x 1 inches. ISBN-10. 0939510049. ISBN-13. 1851 Schooner America, in 1:20 scale Builder: George Steers and Co. Long Island, New York. Launched: 1851. Scrapped and burned in a shed in 1945, Annapolis, Maryland. Scale model dimensions, at 1:20 scale: LOA: 60.75". Beam: 13.7″. Draft: 8.3" (including 1.75″ allowance for stability) Next is to establish the actual design criteria: Standard Equipment: Model Shipways America Schooner Yacht 1851 Your Price: $199.99. Model Shipways Yacht America Schooner 1851. Part Number: MS2029. Availability: In Stock. Construction Type: Plank on Bulkhead. Choose Options. Get the Recommended Paints With a Discount: Yacht America Acrylic Paint Set 4 1 OZ. Bottles (+$14.99) Model Expo Paint Brushes Set 10 pc (11.99 value) for (+$6.99) Who currently holds the America's Cup? List of challengers and ... The America's Cup is the oldest international sailing competition. Races are held between a defending and challenging yacht club, with the winner awarded the America's Cup trophy, known as the ... Today in Sports Aug. 22 1851 — The United States wins the first international yacht race. The schooner named "America" beats 14 British yachts. 1885 — Richard Sears beats Godfrey M. Brinley, 6-3, 4-6, 6-0 ... America's Cup 2024 dates, how to live stream in Australia, schedule First contested in 1851, the a 183-year-old sporting challenge has become one of the most highly-anticipated sailing events on the calendar, with fast-paced racing and engineering at the fore of ... Inside the America's Cup: The history, heroism and high stakes Olympic gold-winning sailors prepare for the biggest sailing competition in 2024 America's Cup - the historic sailing event that sees the world's best compete ... dating back to 1851 and the ... Sailing: Olympic history, rules, latest updates and upcoming events for International yacht racing began in 1851, when a syndicate of members of the New York Yacht Club built a 101-foot schooner named "America". The yacht was sailed to England, where it won a trophy called the Hundred Guineas Cup in a race around the Isle of Wight. The trophy was renamed "The America's Cup" and it remains yachting's most coveted ... Sail Plan of Schooner Yacht America 1851 Sail Plan of Schooner Yacht America 1851. Object summary. Title Sail Plan of Schooner Yacht America 1851 Object ID CC-E-01E-64 Date made 1923 Place made. United States, New York, New York. Printmaker Boucher Inc. Object type Plan Print Major collection Nautical Named collection Arthur H. Clark Collection Sir Ben Ainslie in major selection gamble as Britain bid to end America Sir Ben Ainslie has made a big call on the eve of the 37th America's Cup, bringing in Dylan Fletcher as his co-helm in place of Giles Scott.. The British challenge for sport's oldest ... catamaran gulet motorboat powerboat riverboat sailboat trimaran yacht