A century of unpredictable offshore races
All the early transatlantic races were extraordinary quests, as the history of Yachting World relates, writes Nigel Sharp.
The inaugural transatlantic race predates our first issue (in 1894), taking place in the winter of 1866. It was arranged, so it is said, after an enormously drunken dinner at the
New York Yacht Club. Three schooners competed for a stake of $90,000 and the winner, James Gordon Bennett’s Henrietta, finished at the Needles on Christmas Day having sailed all the way from Sandy Hook, Connecticut, without tacking. The second boat, Fleetwing, lost six men overboard on the eighth day out – there was no hope of retrieving them.
Four years later Dauntless, another of Gordon Bennett’s schooners, raced from Ireland to America. Her only opponent was Cambria, sailing across to challenge for the America’s Cup. The two took different routes – at one point separated by 900 miles – but Cambria won by just 77 minutes. In 1887, Dauntless raced across again against another schooner, Coronet. Coronet burst her water tanks mid-race, forcing the crew to be put on rations, firstly of ale, then claret and finally champagne. Coronet still won.
In 1931, ten boats took part in the transatlantic race from New York to Plymouth. One of the smallest was the yawl Dorade, designed and skippered by Olin Stephens. ‘Before the start the American yachting press were of the opinion that of the whole fleet she was the boat least suited to the task before her,’ noted Yachting World. However, as the only boat to take a northerly route and sail the whole race without reefing her mainsail, she finished nearly four days ahead. When she arrived in Plymouth, she dropped anchor next to the royal cutter Britannia, ‘whose crew loudly cheered the little ship’.
Olin Stephens was back again four years later in another of his yawls, Stormy Weather, but the wishbone ketch Vamarie took line honours, winning the King of Norway’s Cup – though Stormy Weather finished just five hours later and was presented with the City of Bergen Cup for a handicap victory of over 40 hours.
‘There emerges a most interesting aspect to the sport,’ reported Yachting World in a piece entitled ‘Scientific Ocean Racing’. ‘The extent of the equipment of the winner, Stormy Weather, is, to British ways of thinking, amazing.
‘It seems that success may literally depend upon knowledge of physics and meteorology if development continues along present lines.’