A Revolution in Yachting In view of the interest which the race has revived in international yachting, it is of interest to recall the opening race when the schooner America sprung a surprise on British yachtsmen in 1851, carrying the cup to the other side of the Atlantic where it has since remained. From the "Complete yachtsman" we take the following description of the America.
The America was a schooner of 170 tons, designed by George Steers of New York, a native of Devonshire, England—he learned his trade as a shipwright in Devonport Dockyard. Ske was owned by several of the New York Yacht Club, and Commodore Stephens, the first Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, was her principal owner. Now just as the yachts which she had to meet in England were lineal descendants in type of the British revenue cutters, was this schooner evolved from the type of the New York pilot boat. She was 95 ft. from stem to ern, 80 ft. om the keel, 22 ft. 6 in. beam and drew 11 ft. of water. Bhe had 9 ft. depth of hold. She sailed across the ocean in 17} days, her best run was 276 knots in 24 hours, and during the voyage she set the sails belonging to a pilot schooner and carried her cotton racing sails in her hold.
The chief features of the vessel were her long hollow bow and beautiful run and general contour, the entrance was longer than the after body, the reverse being the case with nearly all British yachts her rig consisted of two" raking masts, mainsail and topsail, foresail, but no top foresail, a large ore staysail on a standing bowsprit and a flying jib set on a jib boom. The mainsail was laced to the main boom and the fore staysail laced to a light boom. Her light cotton ils stood as flat as boards and were in complete contrast to the coarse flax canvas of which the baggy sails of the British yachts were made,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.