Clockwise from top left: one of three boats built to defend what became the 1920 Cup, Defiance looks for all the world like an overgrown 10-Rater model yacht; Resolute trickles out under Shamrock IV during the third race of the 1920 Match – the race would end in a dead heat with Resolute winning on handicap; lots of sail and much shorter overhangs, Nicholson’s design footed faster than the conventional Resolute once the breeze picked up; Shamrock under shortened delivery rig heads for Bermuda at speed as World War breaks out; Shamrock ‘surfs’ home after too much wind forces the final race of 1920 to be postponed; Captain Turner and designer Charles Nicholson at the helm of Shamrock IV during early trials in England
Box sailor was exuberant: ‘The Marconi- rigged Boxes with lightweight masts, spars and sails, combined with a fine balance, make sailing them a scientific pleasure instead of a physical endurance contest.’ In ocean racing, which often tends to be more conservative and cautious, the gaff rig held on through the early 1930s because it was widely regarded to be stronger and more seamanlike. The Bermuda Race, which generally has many hours of reaching, was won several times
by sturdy gaff-rigged schooners
designed by the American naval architect John Alden. But by the late 1920s Mar- coni-rigged boats designed for offshore sailing began to appear, with Fastnet and
32 SEAHORSE
transatlantic races won by the Burgess- designed Marconi staysail schooner Niña and Olin Stephens’ Dorade. Not everybody was (or is) happy with the new rig. Many sailors love their tradi- tional rigs regardless (or even because) of slow speed and awkward handling. JP Morgan, who had supported the New York 50 trials that decisively identi- fied the superiority of the new rig, liked to compete in a New York Yacht Club class called the New York 30. After converting his own boat to the Marconi rig, he entered a race with the aim of testing per- formance between the two rigs for himself; he was sailing along happily on starboard tack when another owner on port tack
refused to give way to him. His grounds were that Morgan’s boat was not legal and therefore he had no rights.
And then there was the time that Addi- son Hanan, a sailor we quoted in Part I, designed his 1916 boat Nahma to sail under either the old or the new rig, with two different masts and two different sets of sails. When he entered a race at Marble- head, Hanan opted for the traditional rig because that was what the other boats had and because he didn’t want to get into a tangle with one of the more opinionated local sailors who would be likely to take offence at any sign of unfairness. That sailor was the Deacon, Charles Francis Adams.
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