HISTORIC YACHT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20510, 11 January 1935, Page 13

HISTORIC YACHT.

First “America Cup” Winner to Be Preserved. The yacht America, which won the first American Cup trophy in the presence of Queen Victoria off Cowes on August 22. 1851, is to be restored as a historic relic. Mr Swanson, the Secretary of the Navy, in announcing the decision of the Government, has asked for bids for contracts to repair the yacht. The American has had a romantic history since winning her race in England. During the American Civil War she was captured from the Confederate forces by the Northern forces, under President Abraham Lincoln, and she was used for blockade duty off the Atlantic coast. She afterwards served as a training ship at the United States Naval Academy, but in 1883 she was put up for auction and purchased by General Benjamin F. Butler. The vessel was transr ferred to the Eastern Yacht Club of Marblehead. Massachusetts. In 1921 Mr Charles Francis Adams, captain of this year’s America Cup candidate, the Yankee, who was Secretary of the Navy at the time, presented the boat, on behalf of the Eastern Yacht Club, to the Naval Academy on payment of the nominal sum of one dollar. The America has remained at the academy ever since. She is without canvas, but her spars are still intact.