THE AMERICA’S CUP

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 126, 29 May 1937, Page 14

THE AMERICA’S CUP

BRITAIN-NOW OR NEVER ■ ELABORATE AND CAREFUL PREPARATION

WHICH BOAT SHALL BE CHALLENGER?

Commenting on the R.N.V.R. Club’s monthly dinner in London early in April, an English journalist, Mr. J. Scott Hughes, wrote that speakers on the Endeavour theme were in agreement that the preparations for the contest had never been more thorough. With two superlative vessels from which to choose the challenger, with months of training in American waters, and with the high-strung keenness engendered by such a rivalry, surely a British vessel may hope to win the America Cup. It is now or never. The Two Endeavours. Endeavour I and Endeavour II have mailed across the Atlantic, jury-rigged, during May. From then onwards until shortly before the contest, which begins on July 31, they will be matched against each other intensive training. The better vessel will be chosen as the challenger, the writer adds. The old Endeavour (if one must so speak of a peerless young lady not more than four summers old), is made available by the kindness of her owner, Mr. H. A. Andreae, who has lent the ship to Messrs P. Hill and F. Sigrist, who for their part have undertaken to equip the vessel at all points comparable to the new one and to run and manage her throughout the season. Moreover, the old boat is to be skippered by Captain Ned Heard; perhaps the ablest of our big-yacht professionals, and Heard will have with him the finest crew he can bring together.

The new Endeavour will be sailed by Mr. Sopwith, of course. But he will have by him as stand-by helmsman and in a general advisory capac-

ity, Sir Ralph Gore, a sailor with a record of high distinction. Captain Williams is her professional skipper. The differences between these two

i ne umeienues uetweeii inese two yachts may sound slight, but they are important. Though both are J class vessels, the old boat is towards the bottom of permissible size, the new one at the top. Endeavour I is 83 feet on the waterline, Endeavour II is 87 feet. “It pays to go in for length,” as we all know and say. But the penalty for this extra bit of length is the new Endeavour’s extra 21 tons of displacement. | Last summer was so miserable genj erally, what with bad weather and dismastings, that unhappily these two had scarcely a single honest-to-good-ness set-to among themselves. On top of that, th? old boat had a rather indifferent lot of sails, and very little luck ever came her way. I think they met a dozen times, and tne new boat had the best of these few encounters Yet there are many of us w»»ose belief in in the old boat is i’ti'l very high. Nor is it merely affection for th’.s beauty—which nearly broke all our hearts in the contest of 1931. v or in the next season, when Yankee came into our waters, she nad the better of Yankee, and Yankee was perhaps as good as Rainbow, and brilliantly sailed. Still, it is not much help to keep looking astern. What we can look forward to ic. I am sure, an exceeding intense struggle between these two for the honour of being chosen as challenger. Endeavour II is an even closer-winded boat than the old boat, though you wouldn’t think that possible. but there must be a doubt whether in light airs she can get the extra bulk as fast through the water. In the course of a preview, early in April of this year, yachting activities by British boats, Commander John Irving, a well-known authority on the sport, writes:— Perhaps one should treat of the America Cup contest first, not because it is by any means the most important of the year’s events, but because at least it embraces the largest size of racing yacht. Within a few days of these lines appearing in print the new addition to the American defence

fleet, Mr. Vanderbilt's Ranger, will have oeen launched, and we shall, or we hope we shall, know a good deal more about the American defence policy. As far as it is at present known she is being built as our own Endeavour II was built, to th extreme limit of the J-class rule; she is to be steel-plated and riveted instead of welded. For once very little indeed has been allowed to leak out thus far as to her actual dimensions, but if there is any truth in her reported keel-weight, then she will presumably be of the maximum allowable length under the rule. With this dimension fixed, then her draught and her sail area and her displacement automatically fall into line with the rule-scale, and only her beam remains an unknown quantity—and it is just with this dimension that rumour is l’ busy. Her commissioning towards the end of the month (April) will bring the defence fleet up to three, and there may even be a fourth in Weetamoe now that Mr. Nichols has bought her —provided that she can be canvased and fitted out adequately for the job. The present rules permit the defence to name their actual defender one week before the commencement of the series of races, so that before the third week in July the Americans have plenty of time to try out their fleet and select the best. Which it will be cannot, of course, be guessed at, but even thus early it is reasonable to suggest that the new Ranger will be about the last word in American Jclass design, but that in Yankee, now owned by Mr. Hovey, she will have a dangerous rival. Rainbow also must be taken into serious account, but across the Atlantic it is generally felt that her short ends make her less

likely to be the successful defender than either Ranger or Yankee. Turning to our challenging fleet, there is Mr. Sopwith's Endeavour 11 and her sister Endeavour 1, which, through the sporting gesture of Messrs. Andraea, Sigrist and Hill, is going across as the trial horse. In our case the actual challenger must be named not less than 30 days before the first race of the series, i.e., by about July 1, so that the two Endeavours will have a month of work in American waters in which to settle betwen them this knotty point. Nor can it be said or even guessed at which of the two will in the end carrj the burden of the challenge; each has her good points and, speaking entirely personally, I am myself inclined to think the first Endeavour is more likely to be a successful challenger than the second. A Clash of System. So much for the ships; the men who are to sail them are too well known for casual comment here. What is of interest, however, is the clash of systems which will occur when the races actually start. The Endeavours are the result of the steady building by one firm. Endeavour II might indeed be called the grandchild of Shamrock V. As such she presumably demonstrates the steady improvement in British J-design from its earliest beginnings, and represents the last word in British conceptions of what a Jclass cutter should be. On the American side Rainbow was equally distinctly a lineal descendant of the successful Enterprise, and it seems more than probable that in Ranger’s design the same lineage will be traced out so that on the other side of the Atlantic the most likely defenders are also the last word in American Jdesign. Add to this the fact that the Endeavours are individualistic productions whereas the defence fleet are syndicated products of the combined talent and skill o f American science and design, and the contrasts between the rivals becomes more accentuated still. (The first race takes place on July 31, and the challenging yacht must be nominated 30 days before that date).,