The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1901-09-27
AT END OF FIVE AND A HALF
HOURS RACE CALLED OFF.
COLUMBIA WAS IN LEAD
At the Expiration OF Time Limit
% of the 80 Miles Had
Been Covered.

biggest crowds that ever put to sea
ven down to the Sandy Hook light
ship today to witness Sir Thomas
Lipton's second challenger, Shamrock
II, and the white flyer Columbia.
which successfully defended the old
Americas cup against his first trophy
hunter two years ago., struggle for
the yachting supremacy of the world,
in the first of the cup races Of 1901.
But the excursion fleet returned dis.
appointed.
The great single stickers went out
this morning fresh for the battle but
the sea refused them a field of con-
flict. The wind, never more than
nine and sometimes as low as three
knots was too light and shifty to carry
the contestants over the 80 mile
course in the time allotted by the
rules. At the end of five and a half
hours the prescribed time the race
was officially declared off and the
yachts were towed back to their moor
ings inside Sandy Hook.
When the gun aboard the commit
tee boat was fired to call attention
to the signal declaring the race off
the American boat was still seven
miles from the finish line. The En-
glishman was hull down astern of
her, experts estimating her distance
behind Columbia at over three-quar-
tiers of a mile.
Americans will have reason to con-
graduate themselves upon the result
of the first trial.
The yacht which carried j. P. Nor
CAMS private signal, a black pennant
with yellow Maltest cross, to victory
two years ago, was headed but once
in the % miles covered, and then
the Englishman showed the way for
only five minutes. In windward work
Columbia beat the foreigner seven
minutes and Is seconds to the outer
mark and increased her lead m
what in the broad reach for home.
While the test was unsatisfactory
yachting sharps who have been skep-
teal up to this time, as to the ability
of Columbia to successfully defend
the cup are more confident tonight
that it remains on this side of the At
lantic.
Certainly Columbia's superiority in
light airs appears to have been dem
onstrated today. Shamrock II did not
In fact make as good a showing as
did Lipton's first challenger in the
half dozen flukes that preceded the
actual races two years ago What
Shamrock may be able to do in heavy
weather is Of course problematical,
but Columbia has been tried and all
her admirers insist that she is dis
tinctively a heavy weather boat. Two
years ago Sir Thomas prayer was
for wind, but when he got a smash
ing rs knot gale in the last race Co.
lumbia's victory was even more de-
cisive than in the first. Since then
Columbia's ability in heavy weather
has been proved again and again.
The harder it blows the faster she
goes and better she behaves. It is
not strange therefore that the patri-
otto shippers and spectators who went
down to Sandy Hook this morning
with miCOivinoc rof1rnoJ %o,:ol4 -.
assured and strongly disposed to
wager that the pretty wreath of sham
rock and heather from the Oldest
yacht club in the world, which Sir
Thomas is t%reasuring in the cabin of
his champion, will prove no mascot
after all.
The day had promised we'll at first,
a strong north east wind had been
blowing for two days and the weather
prophets had offered assurance that
it would hold. 1t had piled up what
sailors call nasty lump of sea outside
and before the race began was whip
ping foam off the waves. The heavy
haze Wnlcn hung over the bay had
blown away and bright sunlight gild-
ed the water.
The procession that sailed out of
New York harbor anticipated a fine
days sport. So numerous were the
various, kinds of craft that they SEEM
ed to fill the broad expanse of ocean
between Long Island and the Jersey
shore as with a countless fleet. Mag
nificent and palatial steam yachts,
steamers and excursion boats, filed
tier above tier with people, snub noses
with picnic barges, and sailing craft
gathered about the old yellow hulk
which two years has furnished the
guide for the shipping and in front
Of which the start was to be made.
Conspicuous among the yachts were