"There is no second, my lady." This phrase, which has long since become synonymous with the America's Cup, goes back to a pageboy of the Queen of England. She had enquired who would have come second to the "America" in a race around the Isle of Wight. That was in 1851, when the almost 30 metre long two-masted schooner "America" outdid the entire British yachting elite - the birth of the oldest sporting event in the world.
Review: The "America" belongs to a group of American owners centred around the shipowner John Cox Stevens. He sailed the schooner across the Atlantic to England to present the ship at the London World's Fair. It was intended to demonstrate the high quality of American shipbuilding. However, this is only the cover for the operation. It is actually about betting. The owners' association places sports bets. They are so sure of their cause that they are challenging the entire British sailing elite.
But she chickened out completely. The reason is a rather accidental match between the "America" and the English "Lavrock", which is not exactly considered slow. During the approach to the Isle of Wight, the ships collide and the Americans sail past effortlessly. Word spreads like wildfire.
Even when John Cox offers Stevens the chance to compete "against every schooner in the old world" and, due to a lack of interest, emphasises the offer with prize money of 10,000 guineas, no one dares to enter. Stevens has no choice but to enter an official regatta, the Hundred Guinea Cup Race on 22 August 1851. It was to go around the Isle of Wight, with prize money of 100 guineas and the "Hundred Guinea Cup" awaiting the winner.
"America" competes against 15 British yachts, and at first it looks as if the British will be able to maintain their myth of unbeatability. The start is made at anchor, and "America" botches the anchor-up manoeuvre. She is the last to set off.
But the Americans are lucky. With light winds and a freshening stern breeze, they quickly rejoin the field and then roll it up completely. At the finish, the Queen watches the arrival of the first yacht from the paddle steamer "Victoria and Albert". When asked which yacht it was, the bellboy had no choice but to reply "America".
Stevens wins the Cup and takes it across the pond to his home club, the New York Yacht Club (NYYC). It will remain there for 132 years. He donates it as the America's Cup, and every club in the world can now challenge the owner.
However, it was not until 1870 that sailing for the Kanne, as the cup is known internally, was resumed. It was the great age of schooners and the time of the search for a binding set of rules.
In the first defence, the English challenger "Cambria" meets a 17-boat NYYC fleet. The challenger James Ashbury, the son of a millionaire, loses without a chance.
Until the introduction of the J-Class in 1930, the ships were still sailed according to their allowance, and the schooners varied greatly in size. The winner "Magic" is only 84 feet long compared to the 108 feet of "Cambria". However, it is a heavy yacht and therefore has an advantage in coastal waters. According to the foundation charter, the challengers must travel on their own keel, which they largely do with keel yachts due to their better seaworthiness. However, these are inferior to the heavy yachts.
Ashbury immediately challenges again for 1871. However, he does not want to sail against a fleet again, but only against a single ship. When the New Yorkers turn him down, he threatens to compete on behalf of several English clubs so that he can challenge again and again if he loses. The NYYC, on the other hand, does not want this, and George Schuyler, the last living member of the "America" owners' consortium, has to be called in to mediate.
He insists on "equal conditions for both parties". A maximum of seven races are agreed. Whoever wins four first is the winner. (This mode was also used from 1930 to 1992; after 1872 until the end of the schooner era in 1887, two victories were sufficient; in the Slups, until 1920, three races had to be won, from 1995 five). The NYYC also has the right to choose from a pool of four yachts before each race and wins 4:0 with this advantage.
In 1876, the NYYC agrees to name only one defender yacht. It is also the year in which for the first time the yacht is no longer launched at anchor, but on the fly as is customary today.
The age of the schooner was finally over in 1893. The time allowance, which is still used for sailing, is based heavily on the length of the waterline. Nathanael Herreshoff breaks new ground with his first Cup boat and is destined to become famous. Following the truism "length matters", he designed the defender "Vigilant" to be just as long in the waterline as the 1887 defender "Volunteer", but the overall length of 124 feet is 18 feet longer. The bow and stern overhang extremely far, and long bowsprits and overhanging main booms are also rigged for a huge sail area. The more the yachts heel, the longer the waterline and the greater the speed.
The most extreme representative of this boat-building philosophy, the "Reliance" (1903), measures 90 feet in the waterline and 143.8 feet in length overall. She can set 1,500 square metres of sail, which has to be tamed by over 70 men. From the boom to the bowsprit, she has a length of 200 feet and is the largest yacht ever to sail in the America's Cup.
From 1930, yachts of the J-Class are used for sailing. The first match is lost by tea millionaire Sir Thomas Lipton in his fifth and final challenge on "Shamrock V" against Harold Mike Vanderbilt's "Enterprise". He defends the Cup three times. Before him, only skipper Charlie Barr (1899 to 1903) had succeeded in doing so, and after him only Dennis Conner (1980 to 1988).
The best-known representative of the J-Class is undoubtedly the "Endeavour". Until 1983, no challenger yacht came as close to victory as she did. She was defeated 4:2, controversially due to alleged rule-bending by the Americans, leading to the saying: "Britannia rules the waves and America waives the rules". Vanderbilt took this event as an opportunity to write the first racing rules in 1934, which are still valid in their basic form today.
The era of the Twelve, which began in 1958, was characterised above all by one event: the loss of the America's Cup to the Americans after 132 years. With a revolutionary winged keel, the Australians achieved what no one had managed before them. But the joy was short-lived. At the very next challenge in 1987, Conner impressively reclaimed the jug with a 4:0 victory.
It is the last Cup of the twelve. Just one year later, the New Zealanders challenge Conner with a monohull that, at 90 feet in the waterline and 120 feet over all, represents a throwback to the days of the big slips or the J-Class. Conner countered with a catamaran measuring only 55 feet in the waterline. The one-sided match was decided in Conner's favour in court.
At the instigation of the designers, the outdated twelve-oared boat is replaced by a new, modern type of boat, the International America's Cup Class. The new class is characterised by the New Zealanders, who achieve the previously impossible: they wrest the Cup from the Americans in 1995 and defend it in 2000. In 2007, however, they have to cede it to the Swiss campaign Alinghi, which also wins in 2007.
After a long court battle, the Americans from the BWM Oracle Racing team, owned by billionaire Larry Ellison, win the right to challenge Alinghi with a trimaran in 2010. The Swiss counterattacked and were clearly defeated 0:2.
The next Cup is now to be held in 2013 with 70-foot catamarans off San Francisco.
Lars Bolle
Chief Editor Digital
