At length, in 1870, an English schooner, the _Cambria_, came over to compete for the cup, and was pitted against a fleet of crack yachts off Sandy Hook; but again the wind was so light that the boats did little more than drift. The Englishman, nevertheless, was outdrifted by nine others, and the leader was the little sloop _Magic_, which became the custodian of the cup. The next year, however, another challenge was received, and the British keel-yacht _Livonia_ appeared and was defeated by the American keel-schooner _Sappho_, which, under a new rule, had won her right to defend the cup by first beating in preparatory ocean races all other rivals for the honor. As this contest was between single representative yachts, tried in five races, and in all sorts of weather, it was a fair and conclusive measure of comparative qualities. The next yacht to come after the international cup was the Canadian _Countess of Dufferin_, which was promptly defeated by the _Magic_ in 1876. Five years later another Canadian appeared, the _Atalanta_, differing from previous contestants in being a single-masted center-board yacht; but her rigging and finish were so bad that her excellent model could not save her from defeat (1881) at the hands of the elegant iron sloop _Mischief_ which had been built especially for the race, and had won her foremost place through severe trial races, as before. Up to this time, as Mr. W. P. Stephens tells us in “The Century” for August, 1893, whence many of the portraits of these racers have been taken, no pleasure-boats had been built except after the rule of thumb—some practical sailor whittled out a model according to his ideas, and the builder followed it. Systematic designing was unknown, and ... one type of yacht was in general use, the wide, shoal center-board craft, with high trunk cabin, large open cockpit, ballast all inside (and of iron, or even slag and stone), and a heavy and clumsy wooden construction. Faulty in every way as this type has since been proved, in the absence of any different standard it was considered perfect, and open doubts were expressed of the patriotism if not the sanity of the few American yachtsmen who, about 1877, called into question the merits of the American center-board sloop, and pointed out the opposing qualities of the British cutter—her non-capsizability, due to the use of lead ballast outside of the hull; her speed in rough water; and the superiority of her rig both in proportions and in mechanical details.