Yachting, Vol. 2Dufferin and Ava, Frederick Temple Blackwood, Marquis of
History
Yachting, Vol. 2
Dufferin and Ava, Frederick Temple Blackwood, Marquis of
Yacht racing; Yachting; Yachts
Besides the fact of a gain in speed with a given power, this form
affords an increase of space below as well as on deck, and if the
vastly increased buoyancy be considered, enabling the yacht to carry
greater spread of sail and carry it well, it will be seen what a
really important improvement was demonstrated in 'Gloriana.' She
sailed during her maiden season eight races and took eight first
prizes--a clean record--and with the exception of one race all were
sailed with her largest club topsail set. Had she met with fairly
rough water, as occurred on one of the races, her superior sailing
qualities would have stood forth in even stronger contrast.
The yachting season of 1891 was clouded by the death of Mr. Burgess,
which happened soon after the close of the June races, the result of
which he never knew, as the defeat of his 'Syanara' and 'Mineola' was
never told him. By his death, yachting received a blow from which it
may not quickly recover; he enjoyed to the utmost the regard and
gratitude of the public, the measure of which was shown by the
voluntary creation of a fund for the education of his children.
As was predicted, the season of 1892 was not as exciting as the
previous year; the 46-foot class received a new member in the cutter
'Wasp,' from the Herreshoff hand; she was an advance on
'Gloriana'--the same ideas more fully developed--the changes being in
part suggested by or taken from the design of a new type of boat
afterwards called 'fin-keel,' the first of which craft was launched
and tried in the autumn of 1891; but of this more will be said later.
'Wasp' found as opponents her sister 'Gloriana,' now passed from the
hands of her original owner and from good management, and the reformed
'Beatrix,' a centreboard cutter of 1891, now worked by the Adams
Brothers, two of the most acute yachtsmen in the country, who so
improved the 'Harpoon,' as they renamed her, that for a time it was
thought 'Wasp' would be out-sailed; but except in the Goelet cup race
off Newport, when 'Wasp's' skipper made a capital blunder, the
Herreshoff flyer made a record but little less clean than that of
'Gloriana' in 1891. 'Gloriana' took third place to the 'Harpoon's'
second, the result of poor handling, and in a degree to the constantly
prevailing light winds in which all the races were sailed, light club
topsails being carried in every instance.
[Illustration: 'Wasp,' 1892. Herreshoff's design.]
A novel and interesting feature of the yachting season of 1892 was
the 'fin-keel' boat, a production of N. G. Herreshoff. It will be seen
from the cut below that some of the peculiarities of the 'Gloriana'
form are embodied in this singular craft--namely, the long overhang
and the rounded elongation of the bilge to the extreme limits of the
bow and stern.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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