New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-03-07
THE YACHTING OUTLOOK

No matter how interesting races for the
Americas Cup may be, it is we'll that they
don't come every year The number Of An,eri
can yachtsmen who are in any way employed
in these contests is extremely small, and thou
sands of other active amateurs are lost sight Of
in the exclusive concentration one contest
The mainsails of the big Cup competitors blanket
the whole coast and leave things in the dol
drums. Last year, with trial races at Newport
the tests of the Shamrock at Sandy Hook and
the work at the Herreshoh yards to be reported
daily, local contests could not possibly receive
their usual measure of attention. The direct
aid that a Cup series is supposed to bring to
general yachting is found TO be chiefly myth
zeal when the facts are examined. 1t does not
assist builders of racing yachts, because orders
do not come il when it is known that interest
in the smaller classes is going to be swamped
in the coming year. There is no widespread
demand for professionals of extra skill when
local racing is at a discount and as to the ir
structive qualities of the big races it must be
said that to thousands of amateurs they have
little to teach.
No wonder, then, that American yachtsmen
In the aggregate are looking forward eagerly to
a year they can call their own, when individual
skill may be estimated at its value and when
everybody can have his innings The fleets that
classes evidence current expectations. Half a
dozen cutters measuring seventy feet the
water line will be ready for the racing at New
port and for regattas along the coast. The
purchase of the Scotch Isolde will bring the
fastest sixty-ive fOoter of England into compe-
ttion with the best American keels of similar
size. challenge cup has been offered by the
Eastern Yacht Club for forty-sixes, for which,
however only four other clubs are invited to
compete. The single-masters of about fifty-one
feet racing length being added to, and there
will be some notable additions to the large cruis
ing schooner classes But the hardest and most
continuous racing of the year will be in the
racea bout and knockabout classes, and with
craft of twenty-five feet water line or under In
these smaller classes builders all along the
coast are preparing racing vessels which are
as a rule, of commercially able and safe con-
structon, and it is a cause for congratuation
that the general tendency has been toward craft
which reasonably certain to hang together
in a fair seaway In some of these fleets sufi-
GENTLY stout construction has been made com
pulsory, and the desire to gain speed by build
ing boats SO fmSily that the crews actually
fall through their decks has been wisely dis
couraged
A partial list of the racing dates for the COM
ing season recently printed in The Tribune
indicated forty-nine race days of clubs in this
vicinity, but did not include the many dates
which will be chosen later in the New-York
Atlantic, Seawanhaka. Newport and other i'm
portant clubs, nor did the list mention any Of
the regattas in Eastern waters, which will prob
ably number at least one hundred and fifty.
The statement made in these columns last
January about Sir Thomas Lipton's next cha-
lenge not being sent so long as England was
severely feeling the strain and loss of war has
found some echo in England and the belief is
now gaining ground that the expected challenge
for 1901 will not arrive at the time mentioned
unless further important changes occur in the
South African outlook. The only international
races for the coming season are those for the
Coupe de France at Ramsgate, and for the
Seawanhaka Cup, at Montreal