Left: one of several fine paintings of ‘the race’ by artist Tony Blake, brother of the much missed late Sir Peter Blake. America passes the Royal Yacht Victoria & Albert after rounding the Needles at the start of a slow run to Cowes in dying breeze; Victoria & Albert’s modest 146ft tender Fairy can just be seen. A rare photograph (above) of America pictured on her way from Le Havre for the Royal Yacht Squadron Regatta. America’s owners had requested a large wager with the Squadron to compete… The request was declined
to Michael Ratsey’s yard, where they bet the price of the new jib spar. If they beat the schooner Beatrice, which Ratsey predicts as a certain winner, they pay nothing! Encouraged, they pull the same stunt on the George Ratsey sail loft for the flying jib! Those Yankees are so cheap! High tide in Portsmouth is 6.24 in the
morning and 19.03 in the evening. Eighteen yachts are entered. There’s even a three-masted Brilliant. The schooner Titania and the cutter Stella soon give up. Fernande, another schooner, did not make it to the startline. In the end seven schooners and eight cutters set sail. The start at anchor is scheduled for
10am in front of the Squadron. Two lines 250m apart, one for the cutters, the other for the schooners. John Stevens has insisted that the race start with ‘a 6kt breeze’, ie allowing the boat to make at least 6kt. That’s 6-12kt of real wind. With high tide in Portsmouth at 6.24am, they set off against the last of the ebb tide. Henry Steers, the architect’s 15-year-old
nephew, onboard from New York, explains: ‘The first cannon shot is the signal for the competitors to get ready and hoist their sails. We started to hoist ours. ‘As the breeze was coming from astern
we quickly over-sailed the anchor and had to lower everything again!’ America then scrambled under the gaze of the Squadron members, who we can only imagine were somewhat mocking behind their battle- ments. She left last, her sails goosewinged. The schooner Surprise had lent five
sailors to the Yankees; now 21 were onboard. With a clear wind the black schooner caught up with the flotilla fairly quickly. But the English yachts were not about to let the challenger pass. Commodore Stevens talks to the
Squadron representative aft and explains that he likes to race by the rules. Dick Brown, the skipper, is at the helm. At the No Man’s Land buoy America catches up with a large yacht. Brown tries to pass to windward, but the other yacht luffs. The skipper leans hard on the carved Turkish cap of the 2m-long acacia tiller trying to avoid his English rival. Clearly annoyed by this questionable manoeuvre, Brown calls out to his boss: ‘Commodore, should we hold course?’ (perhaps forcing a collision). Stevens: ‘No, don’t do that!’ Then turning to the RYS representative, a Royal Navy Captain: ‘Captain, you may call it fair play on this side of the ocean. But for us, on the other side, it is a foul of the highest order!’ The English Captain is rendered speechless. Shortly after 11am after nine miles, at the
No Man’s Land buoy, the top six pass within two minutes of each other. In order: Volante, Freak, Aurora, Gipsy Queen, America and Beatrice. At this point the schooner Wyvern returned to Cowes, leav- ing only 14 boats competing. The competi- tors then luff up, heading S/SE, to pass Fore- land Point just east of the Wight. The wind is S/SW. The vertical bows of the cutters send volleys of spray up onto the decks. Thanks to her long bow overhang and
those hollow forward sections, America is much drier. ‘I remember America’s race well,’ wrote Sir Edward Sullivan, Bart, in 1895 in the preface to his book Yachting. ‘I could not believe my eyes. The breeze was fresh. The other fetching schooners were all heeling to at least 15° or more while America was sailing quite upright, holding course steadily and with a good knot more speed than the others.’ Downwind, onboard the imposing
armada of steamers and accompanying yachts, the comments are flowing and
becoming more vigorous. Because at 11.30 America has taken the lead. But just a few more minutes and one of
the biggest controversies in yachting history will unfold. Oddly enough, the RYS has distributed two invitation cards to competitors describing the course around the island. The official instructions specify that the Nab’s lightship ‘is to be left to starboard’. A second card just mentions going around the island ‘from the east’. The Americans only received the latter. The famous Nab is a rocky shoal oppo-
site Foreland Point, better known today as Bembridge Point. In 1851 an early light- ship, the Nab Lights, with two fixed lights, was anchored just north of the rock and 1.66 miles from Foreland. Its exact position was 50° 41’63 N / 01° 01’ 58 W. However, the beautiful map in Thomas
Lawson’s monumental work on the history of the America’s Cup, published in 1902, places the lightship three miles further east, to the NE of Bembridge! But Lawson used a much later map. Only in 1887 was the Nab pushed out 3.65 miles to the NE of Foreland Point. However, most historians have based
their conclusions about the race on the mark in its later position, not that of 1851. It was only as recently as 1999 that such a major mistake was finally identified. America would have gained a benefit of
more than three miles by not tacking for the lightship, her critics would later say. ‘Wrong!’ retorted the late Sir Peter Johnson, the yachting historian who first found the anomaly (also a chairman of the WSSRC). In any case, Americawas obliged to leave to starboard the Bembridge shoals, marked by a white and black buoy, located 0.8 miles from the point. And the narrow corridor between the lightship and the
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