America the myth - part 2

Adrian Morgan looks at 'the race' and whether or not the first America's Cup winner was indeed revolutionary

Then and now the accepted wisdom holds that America was revolutionary.

'All in all', wrote Ernle Bradford in 'The America's Cup', published by Country Life in 1964, 'with her simple rig and rigging, her beautiful hull, and her well-fitting sails, the America was a revolution in yacht building.' John Rousmaniere in his excellent The Low Black Schooner, published by Mystic Seaport called her 'breakthrough technology'.

GL Watson, designer of Britannia, Valkyrie and Shamrock II believed that half her secret was the use of flat-cut, machine-woven cotton sails, and in stark contrast to the baggy loose-footed flax sails used by the British which needed dowsing with water to make the luff set tight and hard. 'I was on board a steamer on the weather board of the America', wrote Captain Mason, RN in The Times 'and it became a question among us as to whether that vessel had any mainsail set or not, and which I could not discover with the aid of a spyglass. So completely was the sail covered by the mainmast that not a particle of it was visible; there was no belly, and the gaff was exactly parallel with the boom.'

Lord Uxbridge, later the first Marquis of Anglesey, founder of the Royal Yacht Squadron, had other ideas. He even went so far as to accuse America of using a propeller. At Waterloo he had commanded the cavalry division and was on his horse beside Wellington when a shell took away his leg, prompting the immortal words: 'By God. I have lost my leg'. To this the Iron Duke replied 'Have you, by God!'. Whilst searching for the offending propeller Uxbridge had to be dragged back over America's bulwarks by his wooden leg. Eventually he concluded that her secret was hull shape. 'I've learned one thing', he said. 'I've been sailing my yacht stern foremost for the last twenty years'. But had he?

Thus was it was taken as gospel for a century that America was revolutionary; that her sharp, lean, concave bow and wide stern, as against the cod's head and mackerel-tailed British yachts, and flat cotton sails were superior. After all, had she not comprehensively beaten 15 of Britain's top racing fleet. Had not the Queen herself, aboard Victoria and Albert off the Needles been told: 'There is no second, ma'm'? And later, in her second, and last race, under Stevens' ownership, had she not trounced the 80ft schooner Titania by 52 minutes over a 40-mile course round the Nab light vessel?

RESULTS OF THE 100 GUINEAS CUP, 22 AUGUST 1851

Schooners Cutters
Beatrice (161 tons) DNF Volante (48 tons) DNF
Wyvern (205 tons) DNF Arrow (84 tons) DNF
Ione (75 tons) DNF Alarm (193 tons) DNF
Constance (218 tons) DNF Mona (82 tons) DNF
Titania (100 tons) DNS Bacchante (80 tons) 3rd 2130
Gipsy Queen (160 tons) DNF Freak (60 tons) DNF
America (170 tons) 1st; 2037 Stella (65 tons) DNS
Brilliant (127 tons) 5th; 0120 Sunday Eclipse (50 tons) 4th; 2145
Fernande (127 tons) DNS Aurora (47 tons) 2nd; 2045
*Wildfire (80 tons) 1st?

* A 62ft cutter, built by Hansen of Cowes in 1848, but ineligible for the race as she used moveable ballast. She may have finished first, but was untimed.