The origin was really accidental. When the first World’s Fair was to be held at the Crystal Palace in London, one of the attendant festivities was a great national gathering of British yachts in their favorite harbor, Cowes, at which, it was announced, foreign yachtsmen were to be welcome, especially Americans. In preparation for it, John C. Stevens, of Hoboken, then Commodore of the New York Yacht-Club, and some of his friends, ordered a new yacht from George Steers with which to cross the Atlantic and meet the English racers. This new boat, completed in the spring of 1851, and named _America_, was schooner-rigged, but had raking masts, no topsails except a small main gaff, and only one jib, whose foot was laced to a boom. Such was the style of the day; but later she was changed in rig so as to carry far more and bigger sails, more like those of a modern schooner-yacht. The moment she arrived in Cowes, in the early summer of 1851, her superiority in speed was conceded, and no British captain would consent to meet her; but finally a match was extemporized, open to all nations, for which a prize was offered in the form of a cup presented by the Royal Yacht Squadron—not by the Queen, as usually said. Fifteen yachts responded, but none showed what it could do, for there was little wind, and the cup was awarded to the _America_ more in general acknowledgment of its excellence than because of any great performance there. Not much importance was attached to the incident, but the silver tankard was brought home and left to ornament Commodore Stevens’ drawing-room until 1857, when its owners dedicated it to the purpose of a perpetual challenge cup, in charge of the New York Yacht-Club, for international races under specified conditions. Fifteen years elapsed, however, before the first contestant appeared. The _America_ had differed prominently in shape from all her opponents at Cowes, by having fine hollowed bows and a wide stern, instead of the bluff bows and narrowing after part—the “cod’s head and mackerel’s tail” pattern—of English craft; she also had sails that hung very flat instead of bellying out under the wind as was the foreign style. In these directions British yachtsmen saw good, and tried to improve; but they would have nothing to do with center-boards, and clung to their cutter-rig. We, on the other hand, had gained ideas as to improving rig, especially in the schooners, and in the bestowal of ballast, outside and in. [Illustration: FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY G. WEST & SON, SOUTHSEA, ENGLAND. “GENESTA,” “TARA,” AND “IREX”—THE BRITISH TYPE OF CUTTER OF 1884-85. “Galatea,” 1885, belonged to the same type.]