Nautical Research Journal 159
1. All photographs by the author.
Doing things by halves—the yacht Invader of 1901 By David Antscherl
Recently I was faced with an interesting problem. I was approached by a client who owned an historic half-model of the yacht Invader of 1901. She sailed out of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club (RCYC) in Toronto, Ontario, and was owned by Commodore George H. Gooderham of the well-known distillery family company, Gooderham and Worts. Invader was an extremely advanced design for the day. Most yachts still had a deep fi n keel and conventional rudder mounted on a raked sternpost. By contrast, Invader was a light-displacement fi n and bulb-keel sloop with a spade rudder. She was designed to the Girth Rule (Appendix A) by Charles Sibbick of Cowes, England and built by Captain James Andrews of Oakville, Ontario.
Her principal dimensions were 49 feet 6 inches overall, 31 feet on the waterline, with a beam of 9 feet 9 inches and draught of 6 feet 2 inches. (Appendix B)
In 1901 the competition for the Canada’s Cup was classic. Invader’s rival, selected from amongst six United States contenders, was the centerboard sloop Cadillac, a direct descendant of the 1899 winner of the Cup, Genesee. In a strong breeze and heavy seas, Cadillac drove to an easy fi rst-race win. Light to moderate breezes prevailed for the rest of the series, and Aemilius Jarvis of Hamilton, Ontario, sailed
Invader to three wins in a row, returning the Cup to Canada.
In June 1902, sailed by only George Gooderham and one crewmember, Invader defeated a fl eet of twenty yachts to win a trophy off ered by the Mail and Empire. In August of the same year she won the Prince of Wales Cup against ten contenders. However, this victory appears to have been her last. She was recorded in the Club fl eet lists until 1908. (Snider 1937, 132-145)
T e model in question, at 1:32 scale, was covered with a varnish that had ‘crawled’ due to exposure to extreme heat. (Figure 1) T e RCYC clubhouse on Toronto Island had burned down August 15, 1904. Its 1905 replacement also suff ered the same fate on May 9, 1918. (Snider 1937, 138; 163-164) T e half- model of Invader must have been rescued from one of these two events, but in damaged condition. One other model (of Minota of 1899), recovered from the second fi re, still exists and is in the Club’s own collection. (
http://rcyc.ca/ABOUT-US/History-of- RCYC/RCYCModels/
rcycmodels_p4.aspx) It, too, shows similar heat damage.
T e question was what to do with this model. I presented three alternatives to my client:
1. Make no attempt to restore the model, as the damage was of historic value.
2. Remove both the damaged varnish and paint layers and refi nish this model.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100
