The materials were different (but not all the technologies)


Continuing on from Eric Hall’s study of the spars and rigging of the original J Class, Don Street now looks more closely at the sails... and at the sailing


Despite John Scott Hughes’ optimistic statement (opposite) in 1930, once J boats moved to aluminium masts it seems that those towering spars began to come down rather more quickly. Velsheda had soon lost her first aluminium mast and Endeavour lost two – and in the course of the three dis- mastings three crewmembers were killed. One cause was the fact that in the 1930s


none of the J boats had permanent back- stays. When gybing, if the end of the upper backstay runner whip was not correctly engaged as the boom was allowed to cross the centreline then as soon as the mainsheet was eased the mast collapsed over the side as ‘casually’ as when a modern Star crew fails to get his new runner on in time. This lack of a permanent backstay was


aggravated by the fact that the Js raced against other big cutters in regattas that at the time were run regularly out of towns around the UK. Courses were set so that the townspeople could watch the races from the shore and so the legs tended to be short with much sail changing, gybing and tacking, producing plenty of chances for mistakes.


54 SEAHORSE In contrast, across the North Atlantic in


America the Js raced further offshore on courses similar to the America’s Cup, so the legs were long. They also raced on the New York Yacht Club annual cruise where the individual legs of the course would also be extended. The only way that you could watch J boats race in the States was to do it from your own large power launch or from the decks of an excursion steamer. So little was known about the loads to be


expected on the J boats, the first really big boats to race under the Bermuda rig, that the New York YC’s America’s Cup selection committee insisted that any boat that was to race in the defender series had to have two masts. They also had to have the resources to be able to re-step their spare immediately. In the first half of the 1930 season Van-


derbilt’s Enterprise was struggling against Yankee and Weetamoee but once she had replaced her wood mast with an aluminium one (issue 452) her performance improved and she was selected to defend. Whirlwind also stepped an aluminium mast for the last part of the elimination series but it did not appear to really improve her performance. As Eric Hall described in these pages, by


1934 the regulations on mast weight had been changed to reduce the advantage of the aluminium rigs – Rainbow stayed with alu- minium for her spar but challenger Endeav- our opted for a slender mast in welded steel. By the 1937 Cup all the boats were again


carrying aluminium masts but Ranger’s was the only spar with sufficient rigidity fore and


aft to allow the inner staysail stay to be disconnected upwind to leave the fore - triangle empty and clear of obstructions. Now Vanderbilt’s ‘Super J’ could tack the genoa much faster than her rivals who still had to force the giant, heavy headsail through the much smaller space between the staysail stay and the headstay itself. With changes in J Class regulations


putting his previous defender Enterprise out of class Vanderbilt needed to build a new boat, Rainbow, for the 1934 Cup at the height of the depression. Built very fast in just 100 days, and more cheaply than previous yachts in modest acknowledgment of the tough economic times, most of the equipment for Rainbow was pilfered straight off Enterprisewith many of her sails also borrowed from other American boats. Up until 1934 standing rigging for the


American J boats had mostly been 1x19 stainless wire with early swaged end fittings, but when Rainbow stepped her aluminium mast she also installed rod rigging; however, since the rods could not be made long enough they were threaded and joined mid- span with a turnbuckle body. Three years later in 1937 it was similar


linked rods coming undone that would cause Ranger to suffer her well-documented dismasting under tow to Newport. (Luckily, the J boat owners and owners of the big pre-J cutters were a bunch of pack rats. They told Vanderbilt to send his crew into their lockers and pull out any gear they could use. Enterprise’s aluminium mast was available


THE MARINERS MUSEUM AND PARK


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