Opposite: Ranger flies her successful quadrilateral jib in 1937. This sail was first raced in anger by an English yachtsman a couple of years earlier but was spotted by Sherman Hoyt racing a 6 Metre, also in the Solent, who tipped off the US Defender. Left: easy to tell who the paid hands are onboard Ranger as the casually dressed afterguard await the day’s warning signal. Back in the days before RIBs the J-Class enforced a ‘bring all your men home’ rule; hence the stern-mounted rescue dinghy
G Herreshoff, ‘the Wizard of Bristol’. As a tribute to their engineering, Super-J
Ranger had 27 winches but only three were new. To give an idea of Herreshoff winch durability, some of Ranger’s winches came not only from Rainbow and Enterprise but also from Resolute, built in 1913, and, astonishingly, yachting’s all-time behemoth Reliance some 34 years earlier. Luckily plenty of books have been
again, this time by advanced composites. The America’s Cup of 2017 in Bermuda
drew my major fascinations together as never before. The America’s Cup is like that. But first let’s go back a little…
1930-1937: The J-Class era The America’s Cup has always been about technology. The modern era of America’s Cup racing started, arguably, in 1930 with the advent of Marconi rigged J-Class yachts. With it came major technological develop- ments, many of which had years-long impact. Although 1930 was almost 90 years ago participants’ relentless quest for better performance that year rivalled even the most technology-driven America’s Cups cam- paigns that followed and exceeded many. The 1930s saw significant technology
advances and the yachts were sailed by America’s best – well, really, east coast America’s best. Basically, there were New York boats and Boston boats. And most were built here in Bristol, a short sail away from Newport. Although many of sailing’s greats participated during those years, the dominant figure was Harold S Vanderbilt who was defending syndicate manager and helmsman in all three J-era Cups in 1930, 1934 and 1937. His first J was Enterprise in 1930.
1930 Unlike today’s J-Class yachts with their sumptuous interiors, in keeping with America’s Cup yachts until that time, Enterprise was a stripped-out machine with accommodation barely adequate for the afterguard to go below for a cup of tea. Then, as now, windage, weight aloft and above-deck simplicity were high priorities. Vanderbilt, in his two books about those
years, Enterprise (1930 Cup campaign) and On the Wind’s Highway (1934 and 1937 campaigns), repeatedly stressed his near-obsession with windage and weight aloft. On Enterprise shroud chainplates as well as most of the winches and related sail-handling equipment were below decks.
During the 1930 campaign even runner blocks were moved below deck with only the runner cable itself visible above. While sailing, a ‘Black Gang’ of crew
were below and rarely saw the light of day while the crew slept and ate aboard other support craft. Eventually enough people came to accept that it was too much to ask of a challenger, sailing across (as the rules demanded) to Newport with full accom- modation, to then have to strip it all out to prepare for the summer’s racing in New- port. The rules were changed. In late 1930 new rules were introduced to
require ‘seven short tons of cabin fittings’ which included full crew and afterguard living spaces for future Cups. At the same time all but a very few operations (for example, centreboard hoisting) were moved above deck. Vanderbilt, with typical clarity, said he thought the new Js with their interi- ors had acquired a ‘simplified mobility’. Enterprise, a ‘smaller’ J at 75ft waterline,
could not survive the rule change and its negative impact on her stability and ‘was broken up and sold to the junkman’ after the 1930 Cup. Yankee, being a larger 87ft waterline J, did survive the increase in displacement with little or no apparent ill effects. The advent of the J Class in 1930 put
new rigours on sail handling and power and speed were increasingly in demand. As now, sailing on a J then was to experience first hand the enormous power these boats generated. Sail-handling systems such as multi-part come-alongs no longer sufficed. As a result, the pedestal winch was created, the ‘outstanding winch development’ of those years, according to Vanderbilt. The first such winches were on Enter-
prise in 1930 with pedestals below decks connected to one or more drums above deck, as on the 12 Metre Cup yachts of 1967 and 1970 before similar rule changes moved them back on deck in 1974. Such winches have been routine equip-
ment on racing yachts ever since. The winches were the brainchild of Nathaniel
written about Herreshoff. One can never mention him without emphasising how special a person he was. He was not only a yacht designer, but also his superb engi- neering prowess created steam engines, cars, planes and high-speed motorboats, to name just a few of his endeavours.
Duralumin (aluminium) mast In 1930 Enterprise’s designer Starling Burgess was fascinated about the prospects of a lighter mast in Duralumin, a new material until then found mostly in aircraft. Despite its huge expense, he convinced Vanderbilt to order one. The mast weighed 4,000lb whereas her wood mast weighed 5,000lb. Vanderbilt considered it ‘the out- standing contribution’ to her performance. A word about designer Starling Burgess.
Like Herreshoff, Starling Burgess was a special individual. He not only designed yachts, he was the foremost rig designer of the time. Early in my career my boss at the time, Brit Chance, told me to read and prove I understood his paper on the subject. No one has ever written a more detailed and scholarly treatise on rigs. He was also a poet, car designer, classical music expert and a historically significant aeroplane designer. He built the first plane to fly in New England in 1910 and in 1915 won the Collier Trophy, to this day aerospace’s most prestigious prize. The sheer size of his biog- raphy, No Ordinary Being, tells it all. It’s the biggest book in my library. Two wooden masts, a heavy version and
a light version, were ordered as back-up. The Duralumin mast was designed by Burgess’s brother Charles, an accomplished mathematician and civilian engineer in the United States Navy, and built at the Glenn L. Martin aircraft factory in Baltimore. It was a dodecagonal (12-sided) circle made of formed Duralumin and riveted together with protruding round head rivets. Its diameter at the deck was just 45cm taper- ing to 20cm at the tip. It was not ready when Enterprise was
launched in Bristol in early May, so the heavy wooden mast, built at Nevins yard in City Island NY, was stepped first. With dimensions of 60x50cm, it was designed
SEAHORSE 29 w
MORRIS ROSENFELD
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
