News Around the World
at the Monaco Yacht Club to celebrate the win with Prince Albert. He was very proud that after a 22-year hiatus of the event, for then Monaco to win that on their first attempt, they were all just super proud of their yacht club and country. ‘So finally we had the party… with at least 350 people! That was
so cool as we thought it was just going to be the few of us! ‘It was wonderful to be part of a team like that – the skills of the
sailors in this team between both boats were amazing, with us all hiking hard and sitting on the rail upwind for 400 miles! Really this programme had no boxes unticked – from our accommodation, to our chefs, to our coaching staff, our tech support with drone pilots, the sails, the shore team and the logistics of getting to places. Everything was covered, and it all just worked. ‘We had no breakages with our equipment – everything worked
as it needed to. It was sort of like Super Series meets the Ocean Race, and that is a huge credit to the team. And with such a slender winning margin every second really did count.’ Blue Robinson
USA An enduring interest In the long history of handicapping racing yachts the International Rule of 1907 stands out as the longest-lived and among the most broadly accepted of any rating system on the planet. Developed to encourage design and build innovation within level class parameters in the various Metre classes, these were the defining rules used in the America’s Cup from 1958 to 1987 (12 Metres) and the Olympic Games from 1908 to 1968 (5.5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 15 Metre classes). In 1920 in the wake of the Great War, American yachtsman Paul
Hammond met Algernon Maudslay, Rear Commodore of the Royal London YC, to discuss re-establishing post-war international yacht racing. They agreed to create the British American Cup as a new annual event that would have four boats from each nation race against each other using a new and novel format: team racing. Seawanhaka Corinthian YC in Oyster Bay, New York donated the
event’s trophy to be awarded to the team that was first to win two consecutive series of matches. It was also agreed that the venue would alternate on each side of the Atlantic, with 6 Metres being the boat type used in the UK and R-class yachts in the States – the US was using a close analogy to the International Rule called
32 SEAHORSE
the Universal Rule to define this class. The first event held in 1921 featured four brand-new 6 Metres
for the US team – the first ever built in the USA – arriving by ship to compete in the Solent off Ryde and Cowes. Sheila and Jeanie were designed by Starling Burgess, William Gardner designed Montauk and Grebe. Yet the racing did not go well for the US team: three of the four boats lost their masts in the first race, and the English went on to a commanding win. This did not, however, deter the Americans, and an agreement was made that all subsequent events would be sailed in 6 Metres. This decision set off a building craze in the US, with 12 new
6 Metres built for the chance to represent the US in the next edition held in 1922. The best four of 16 available boats were chosen in a series of trials at Seawanhaka, the American team winning this edition in a close-fought series of matches on Oyster Bay. The enthusiasm for the British American Cup continued through-
out the pre-War era, with racing held biennially from 1924 to 1938, and resuming in 1949 through to 1955, with the American team dominating most of these series. Make no mistake about these boats: they were the development
class of the era, with legendary designers and builders giving their all to this chase for performance. For example, Olin Stephens used what he learned from tank testing the J Class yacht Ranger to design USA 81 Goose for George Nichols, whose remarkable race record from her launching in 1938 to retirement in 1957 prompt many to regard her as the greatest-ever 6 Metre. By the early 1950s it was feared these boats were losing their
interest for competitive racing, yet in September 1953 three highly successful international 6 Metre events were held in Seawanhaka that helped keep interest strong. Yachting Worldmagazine reported at the time that ‘those of us who expected to see the last convulsions of an historic class have instead seen a display of international vitality such as only this class could produce.’ Hmm… but even then there was, it seems, recognition for the
inexplicable lure of classic classes. Scroll forward 72 years to September 2025 and the 6 Metres
are once again going strong in Oyster Bay, this time with 29 entries from the USA and several other nations in the latest edition of the class World Championship. The skippers and crews in the entry list were pretty impressive as always, with a diverse and healthy mix of talent that included Olympic and America’s Cup champions,
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