T, Omo'.'S A',OA M E R I E a N Y a T H ! I
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T, OmO’.’S A’,OA m e r i E a n Y a t h ! i n g "" P6rt Sixty-.ina and invective on his opponent.,, who retorted in By similar style. The other side paid little attention to WILLIAM P. STEPHEHS technical argument, but went back to the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Declaratl.n of Independence, and ¯ allied items of history. \ In 7"he Spirit of June 11, 1881, ,ae read: "The \ Cutters, Cuffer-Cranks cutter-craze still continues. Mr. ]~]organ, tile owner of the schooner Wanderer, has given Mr. A. Cary \ \ and Corlnthians, Pert II \ Smith an order for a boat--or ’ship’ as Rear Corn- X \ modore Scnuyler loves to call themmabout the \ , length of Murlel but with on/~ and one half feet \\ less beam. Every little helps, the next man will ,, see that and go one and one half foot better. Why / \ on earth anybody shouhl desire to huild a wedge / \ in this country only a ]:itz-Noodle (Kunhardt) can \ tell?" A little later: "l don’t care for news, you know, says Fitz-Noodle, I’m a wrltah, nor a re- portah." Commenting on the small number of starters in the Atlantic Y.C. regatta of June 14, The Spirit said: Of course the advocates of the wedges or cutters (one hardly knows what to call them since it has been gravely stated by one high authority that the term ’cutter’ applies only to the rig and not to the model) will raise an exultant shout over this faih, re to start." In September, just prior to the races, "]’he Nau- tical Gazette predicted: "If report he’ true the Madge Sail plan. Schemer shown by broken lines Scotch racing cutter Madlze will get a bellyfull of racing from our yacht.~men before the season closes." In The Spirit of September 10 we find the follow- ing prediction: ’"l’lle honest fight which 7"he Spirit THE visit of Madge, ttmugh accidental and unpremedi- has made against the importation of the plank-on-edge rated, came at the right monent; the discussion, vocal principle in the modeling of American yachts seems likely and written, had passed the limit of polite controversy to be crowned with entire success. In a recent Imblication and degenerated into an exchange of billingsgate; now we notice that one of the staunchest advocates of the the issue was shifted to the racing courses. Opposing latest British style speaks of boats of five and six beams Kunhardt were Captain Coffin, writing in the daily as extravaganzas, which they certainly are; and calls IP’orld and the weekly Spirit of The Times; Captain yachts of three and three and one half beams ’heahhv Cornelius McKay, writing in The Herald and later in craft,’ and is right again. Until something has been founcl The Telegram; and B. S. Osbon, owner and editor of to beat them we shall still insist that the beamy center- The Nautical Gazette, with other writers on The Sun, board is the best type of boat for speed in the ordinan" The Times and Boston dailies. At one time Kunhardt yachting w:,ters, an-! by that we mean the New Voric had been associated with The Nautical Gazette, but now Yacht Club’s course here and the inland route from New they were sworn enemies. ~,Yhile on his part Kunhardt York to 1VIartha’s Vineyard. \Ve have not seen ,Xladge, was capable of discussing the question on its technical but we learn that she has been beaten bv everything that merits, he was not content with this, but showered ridicule has encountered her since she came },ere." Wage, sloop. Modeled and built by Cornelius German, Foot of Court SL, Brook- lyn, N. Y., 1878. Lines taken off by Joh,, Hyslop. 1883 "--,. -X2=.~-~_~2 ’ ¯ ii ’ ] 3O2 A NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, lSSl. { ~ae~v,~ O~plomacy and Tactics in Yacht Racing The positioa of Captain Duncan was a delicate one, three thousanJ miles away from his owner, and relying only on his own judgment. Once under ~vay, he sailed about the b ty every day, accepting the implied cha!- lenges of the sloops which ~, J" came out to meet him; while .. Madge was to all appear- s ances in racing ’form, her head sheets were ahvays off an inch or two, and her top- sail yards in their chocks on deck. As the result of these informal brushes the boar sharps of Gowanus Bay formed an opinion which was well expressed by Captain Wave, Madge end Schemer. From The Spirit of The Times. October IS, 1881. "Engraving on wood," as employed for newspaper i!lustretlon prior to ~he in|roducfion of pho|o- lithography. Below: Madge ’otte,(Rochoster,abandoned in a swamp N.Y.}.in,90S. at Char. Her greenheart keekon and :INTERNATIONAL YACHT- RACING: teak members were still sound The Wave, Madge, and Schemer, cutters of her class. The Lavrock stuck to us, some- times lying to and sometimes’ tacking round us, evi- ,tently showing no intention of quitting us. We were loaded with extra sails, with beef and pork, and bread enough for an East India voyage, and were some five or six inches too deep in the water. We got up sails with a heavy heart--the wind had increasect to a five or six knot breeze, and after waiting until we were ashamed to wait longer we let her get about 200 yards ahead and then started in her wake. "I have seen and been engaged in many exciting trials at sea and on shore. I made the match with Eclipse against Sir Henry (a horse from the South), and had heavy sums both for myself and my friends depending on the result. I saw Eclipse lose the tirst heat and four fifths of the second without feeling one hundredth part of the responsibility, and without suffering one hundredth part of the fear and dread I felt at the thought of being beaten Ira Smith on the morning of the first race. \Vhen hi~ Iw the Lavrock in this eventful trial. During the first attention was called to the miserably fitting topsail on fi’ve minutes not a sound was heard save, perhaps, the Schemer, an old one borrowed for the race, he shrulz~ed heating of our anxious hearts or the slight ripple of the his shoulders and said: "Oh, it’s good enough, anything water upon our sword-like stem. The captain (Old Dick will beat that thing." Just by way of diversion, while lirown) was crouched down upon the floor of the cock- waiting for the first race, let us turn again to The Spirit pit, his seemln~zly unconscious hamt upon the tiller, with o[ The Times, this time of the date of October I1, 1851, his stern, unalterlng t;aze upon the vessel ahead. The in which is reported the speech made b\, (’ommodore men were motionless as statues, with their eager eyes Stevens at the dinner given hhn on his leturn from fastened upon the Lavrock with a fixedness and intensity England. that seemed almost unnatural. It could not last long. "You may, perhaps, observe that my hair is somewh:lt We worked quickly and surely to windward of her wake; grayer than when I last met you; I’ll tell you ho\v it the crisis was past and some dozens of deep-drawn sighs hapl~ened. In coming from flavre we were obliged to proved that the agony was over." andmr some five or six miles from Cowes. At nine The Lavrock’s report of this impromptu brush spread ¯ o’clock a gentle breeze sprang up, :rod with it came through Cowes immediately on her arrival and ended all gliding down Lavrock, one of the newest and fastest chances of matches with the British fleet. Lnter on one yachtsmau, and one only, accepted Commodore Steven’s challenge Gorman at Gowanus, selling her to Dr. Barron in 1880. For ~e and sailed against the Yankee. years after that he was a familiar figure among the boat yards attd This was Tactical Error No. 1 in international racing; there yacht clubs of Bay Ridge. Dr. Barton wan a spirited and ~tthu- have been others. Those yachtsmen of today who can spare the siastic racing man. In 1884 he replaced Wave with the compromise time from war, political and baseball reports are advised to read keel-centerboard sloop Athlon, modelled and built by John Mumm; the long arid interesting speech of which this is only a brief extract, later he owned and raced file cutter Clara. From the Narrows ~o th, Sea MISTRAL was modeled and built in 1878 by D. O. Rich- When it came to maklug matches Mr. Blatch had no trouble, and mond of Stonington; in model she was deeper and abler than the five yachts were soon signed up. In the course of a generation the Gowanus boats. Pa!oma, originally named Blanche, was built by New York Yacht Club had moved from its birthplace off Hoboken Albcrtson Bros. in Philadelphia in 1871 ; as it happened she did not to Stapleton, Staten Island, on the Upper Bay. The Seawanhaka race. Shadow was illustrated and described in MoToR Bo^’ftr;G Yacht Club had left its birthplace and had a station nearby at for September, 1942, but her regular rig was that shown in the Tompkinsville, and across on the Bay Ridge shore were two strong photo, a single big jib, and not the "morfydyte" cutter shown in clubs, the Brooklyn and the Atlantic. Long Island Sound was the sall plan, a rig then popular about Boston.