Left: William Parker Burton in 1906, at 42. Below: the racing cutter Britomart was designed for Burton by Alfred Mylne and launched in 1905 at the McAllister yard in Dunbarton in Scotland. Britomart raced in a close-fought fleet of 52-footers before later migrating to the embryo 15 Metre class where she was recognised by the new International Rule as an ‘old boat’. One of the most successful yachts of her era, Britomart was only surpassed on the racecourse when Burton ordered his own purpose-designed 15 Metre in 1909. It’s not trivial to draw parallels with today’s TP52 – more than 100 years ago a 50ft waterline was identified as a good design space for a gentleman’s racing yacht
three of the following four years: designer and client made an impressive team, both fascinated by the impact of innovation – Britomart was ‘the embodiment of Mylne’s latest ideas’. Seemingly he had ‘put his ingenuity into the free ends – a bold game with most interesting results’. The yacht was shorter on the waterline than expected, with a ‘tremendous overhanging bow’ and very low cross-trees, which made her appear to have an enormously long mast- head. Her American mast was hollow and constructed in two sections. In Britomart’s first season there were
four 52-footers fighting it out: Moyana (another Mylne), ‘Fife’s almost invincible Maymon’ with the famous skipper (Charles) ‘Bevis’ in charge, and the new- comers Britomart and Sonya, which Her- reshoff himself had designed for another determined innovator, Mrs Turner Farley. Burton had considered the American but concluded that it would be ‘more sports- manlike’ to give a chance to Mylne as ‘the remaining premier home designer’. This was a battle royal, and Burton wrote that ‘one could never name the
winner until the gun had gone’. He lived and breathed his racing: a permanent state of alertness and hyper-concentration was essential, with boat and personnel tuned to the highest pitch. Nonetheless the catch- word was ‘fair’ – always following the spirit as well as the letter of any rule. And he enjoyed it best of all when he was up against a fellow Corinthian ‘handling the stick’, rather than the growing numbers of professional skippers. From early days the young Burton’s sug-
gestions had peppered the then Yacht Rac- ing Association (YRA) meetings… as well as the letter columns of the yachting press. His ideas were not always accepted but he con- tinued, undaunted, unafraid to lead men far senior to himself in years and experience. He floated one radical scheme in 1905
that suggested altering tradition by start- ing the whole 1906 racing season on the Clyde, encouraging ‘the southerners’ to participate there before heading for their home waters, taking in the Irish and Ply- mouth regattas en route. This neutralised the effect of the emerging regattas at Kiel and around the Baltic which had been
luring potential visitors away from the Clyde, where ‘The Fortnight’ was in danger of degenerating into a ‘mere local event’. William had considered every detail: his schedule even allowed for ‘judi- ciously placed scrubbing intervals’. This was typical Burton thinking: clear,
detailed, carefully thought out and for the times eye-wateringly novel. Generally it was feared ‘such a drastic rearranging of dates’ would ‘stagger the more conserva- tive’, but some brave souls saw the sense in it and there was indeed a moving forward of ‘The Fortnight’ by several weeks. Thirteen of the larger boats came north to participate, thus augmenting the prestige of the event. Burton himself was a cham- pion of Scottish racing where he partici- pated whenever possible. He always put his money where his mouth was. 1906 was the year of the great ‘Confer-
ence’ at which the International Rule was set down for our classic ‘Metre’ boats. (Who would have thought that the systems created that year would have survived into the 21st century: in summer 2019 Burton’s own 1939 swansong 12 Metre, Jenetta, was
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