Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/americanyachtingOOsteprich THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S LIBRARY EDITED BY CASPAR WHITNEY AMERICAN YACHTING ;-rhg?>y^o AMERICAN YACHTING BY W. p. STEPHENS Of TH£ UNfVERSITY Of NelD gork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1904 All rights reserved Copyright, 1904, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up, electrotyped, and published April, 1904. Norwood Press Smith Co, J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Norwood^ Mass.f U.S.A. INTRODUCTION In spite of the utilitarian tendencies of the present age, it is fortunately no longer necessary to argue in behalf of sport; even the busiest of busy Americans have at last learned the neces- sity for a certain amount of relaxation and rec- reation, and that the best way to these lies in the pursuit of some form of outdoor sport. While each has its stanch adherents, who pro- claim its superiority to all others, the sport of yachting can perhaps show as much to its credit as any. As a means to perfect physical development, one great point in all sports, it has the advantage of being followed outdoors in the bracing atmos- phere of the sea; and while it involves severe physical labor and at times actual hardships, it fits its devotees to withstand and enjoy both. In the matter of competition, the salt and savor of all sport, yachting opens a wide and varied field. In cruising there is a constant strife 219316 vi Introduction with the elements, and in racing there is the contest of brain and hand against those of equal adversaries. As a mere matter of healthy and exciting exercise, an hour at the tiller of a yacht in a thrash to windward will compare favorably with any other form of active sport. In material and physical points yachting has much to commend it to the leading place in the list of sports; but, unlike many others, it goes much further, and can fairly claim a place among the arts and sciences as a purely intellectual pur- suit. The science of yacht designing, a branch of yachting which many amateurs follow as a recreation, offers an unlimited field for study and research, both in the line of the governing prin- ciples of naval architecture, and of their appli- cation to the creation of successful vessels. The man who can design his own yacht, large or small, construct her, or at least plan and super- vise the construction, and, finally, can guide her to the head of the fleet with his hand on the tiller and his active brain anticipating and check- ing each move of clever opponents, may well lay claim to one of the highest achievements within the reach of any sportsman. ; Introduction vii The importance of yachting to a maritime nation such as ours can hardly be overestimated. It is a stimulus to the advancement of naval architecture such as is necessary in maintaining the naval and merchant fleets at the highest standard ; it is a training school for seamen, both amateur and professional; and its mimic battles for the different international trophies — that first awakened and now keep alive a thoroughly national interest in maritime supremacy — are constant reminders of the necessity for perpetual progress in all details of naval development. The history of American yachting is more than a mere dry record of victor and vanquished it is a summary of material progress in naval architecture and seamanship, of researches and discoveries that have redounded to the imme- diate benefit of the nation and ultimately of the world at large. At the same time it is a story of hard-fought battles, of some defeats that have been turned to profit in the end, and of many notable victories. CONTENTS PAGE I. Early American Yachts .... I II. George Steers and his Work . 14 III. The Birth of the New York Yacht Club 26 IV. The Building of the "America" 39 V. The Winning of the Squadron Cup . S3 VI. Design in America and England 69 VII. The Day of the Great Schooners . 87 VIII. The First Matches for the America Cup 105 IX. The Development of Design in America 124 X. The Battle of the Types .... 142 XI. Burgess and the America Cup . i6s XII. "Thistle" and the New Deed of Gift . 188 XIII. " Clara," " Minerva," and the Forty-foot Class 198 XIV. Herreshoff and "Gloriana" . 211 XV. The Dunraven Challenges 225 XVI. Small Yachting and the Seawanhaka Cup 247 XVII. The Scow Type in Designing . 267 XVIII. The "One-design" and Restricted Classes 280 " XIX. LiPTON AND the THREE " SHAMROCKS 299 XX. Racing and Cruising in Small Yachts . 323 XXI. Steam Yachting in America 339 Record of America Cup Matches 359 Index 367 AMERICAN YACHTING CHAPTER I EARLY AMERICAN YACHTS The designation of "yacht" is applied to a vessel not merely on account of her model and equipment, but largely from her use exclusively as a pleasure craft. The famous America was essentially a pilot-boat in model and construc- tion, as well as in deck and interior fittings; and the yachts of a more remote period were practically working vessels, of one kind or an- other, devoted to pleasure use by wealthy owners. It is, consequently, a difficult matter to identify as yachts the vessels first used for pleasure sail- ing. There are vague traditions of yachts in use in the eighteenth century, and doubtless some of the old Dutch burghers of Nieuw Amsterdam made pleasure cruises on the Hudson River at a far earlier date; but the first definite records begin with the advent of the nineteenth century. As early as 1 8 1 6 there was built for an American 2 American Yachting yachtsman a most remarkable vessel, — a yacht not only by use but by special design and fur- nishing, in which a long foreign cruise was made. Fortunately the full particulars of the yacht and her cruise have been preserved to the present time. The owner, Captain George Crowninshield, of Salem, Massachusetts, a typical American and a notable man in his day, was one of a family of East India merchants, — the trade of China and the East Indies then centring in the prosperous little seaport of Salem, on Massachusetts Bay. Each successive generation of Crowninshields was brought up after the custom of the time with the New England merchants, beginning with a common-school education which, ending at the age of eleven or twelve, included a thorough knowledge of theoretical navigation. Thus pre- pared, they were sent to sea before they were more than twelve years old, either before the mast or as captain's clerk. At the age of twenty such a boy was expected to command his own ship, making voyages of one or two years' duration, the success of which depended no less upon his skill as a seaman than upon his business ability in the handHng Early American Yachts 3 of valuable cargoes : that shipped at home being disposed of in the far East, and the return cargo being carried to some European port, where it would in turn be exchanged for a third, which would ultimately be landed at Salem or Boston. After half a dozen years of this work, the young skipper usually left the sea to take his place in the family counting-room as a junior member of the firm. It is this ancestry above all else that has given to Boston yachting that magnificent vitality so strongly in evidence at the present day in the devotion to real sailing and racing in the smaller classes of yachts. Captain George Crowninshield was born in 1766, one of six brothers, the sons and grand- sons of merchant sailors. One of these died at Guadeloupe at the age of fourteen, being then ship's clerk on a Salem vessel, and the other five were all captains before they were twenty years of age. When the time came for him to leave the sea and enter the firm. Captain George de- voted himself to the very important work of supervising the building and fitting out of the ships, his tastes lying in this direction. It was while thus engaged, in 1801, that he had built, by Christopher Turner of Salem, a sloop of 22 4 American Yachting tons, named Jefferson, which he used as a yacht. Some idea of the size of this craft may be ob- tained from her subsequent history. She was the second vessel commissioned as a privateer in 1812, making one voyage with a crew of thirty and taking three prizes. In 181 5 she was sold to Gloucester and used for many years as a fisherman. On the death of the elder George Crownin- shield, in 181 5, the firm was dissolved, one of the sons, Benjamin, being then Secretary of the Navy under President Madison. Possessed of ample means, unmarried, and with nothing to occupy his time, George Crowninshield planned what would pass for a yacht, even at the present day. Some slight hint of the peculiarities of the vessel is given in her odd name, Cleopatrds Barge; at one time her owner proposed to call her Car of Concordia. The model was planned from that of the America, a very fast vessel of 600 tons, the finest of the old Crowninshield fleet, first famous as a merchant ship and then "razeed" and altered into a privateer during the War of 181 2, winning new laurels. The builder of the new yacht was Retire Becket, a ship-builder known to his fellow-townsmen by Early American Yachts the familiar nickname of " Tyrey," famous for his fast merchant ships.