AMERICA CUP.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20281, 16 April 1934, Page 1

AMERICA CUP.

English Challenger to be Launched To-day. MR SOPWITH’S ENDEAVOUR. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received April 16, 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, April 15. The Endeavour, challenger for the America Cup, is being launched at Gosport on Monday. The vessel is built mainly of steel, with a mahoganyrudder and pine and mahogany decks She measures overall 128 feet, at the waterline 83 feet, and draught 15 feet. Her mast is 170 feet high and consists of a hollow steel tube, strengthened at intervals internally with steel rings. Her boom is 22 feet long and is made flexible. Her keel is of 82 tons of lead, through which the steel drop keel can be raised and lowered by means of a winch. The yacht will spread 7550 feet of canvas, of which 4850 feet is in the mainsail and the remainder in the foresails. There will be two mainsails, a light one and a heavy' one. It is estimated that the head of the mainsail will be subject to a strain of ten tons. The mainsails follow the usual Bermudian pattern, but different shapes of foresails are being tried. Mr T. O. M. Sopwith will be at the helm himself in the Cup races, but he has engaged as skipper Mr George Williams, of Southampton, and a crew of twenty-three. Starting with Harwich the yacht will sail in the principal coastal regattas until mid-July, when she will race in the Solent under, or as near as possible to, Cup conditions. After this she goes to America for the contest beginning on September 15. The announcement that Mr T. O. M. Sopwith had decided to challenge for the America Cup with his new all steel yacht Endeavour was officially' made by the secretary of the International Yacht Racing Union at a conference called by that body in London on October 17 last. Under the rules, the new boat will have to sail two-thirds of the way across the Atlantic. For the remaining one-third of the distance she may be towed. There are four yachts in America eligible to defend the Cup. They are Enterprise, the 1930 defender, Weetamoe, Y'ankee and Whirlwind. The Endeavour will be a J class boat, similar to the last challenger Shamrock V. She will race in English w-aters against Britannia, Yelsheda and other yachts of her class. Tke new yacht has been designed by Mr Charles E. Nicholson, who has planned the fastest racing yachts in British waters, and has been' built by Messrs Camper and Nicholson at Gosport.