The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-10-10

for she was built of steel, like the chal-
lenger, while her predecessors had been
Of wood. The tightening Of the struc-
ture made possible an increase of bal
last, as well as lowering of 1t, and
these were the factors which enabled
Mr.. Burgess to give her larger sail
plan. Thus, with less weight, a slight
ly finer entrance and an increase OK
power she proved to be considerably
faster than MayfloWer, and defeated
her handsomely in the trials, OF This
tie she made easy prey, defeating her
by large margins in successive races.
The defeat Of Thistle seemed to have
discouraged our plucky opponents, but
in 1898 Lord Dunraven came with VAL
kyrie |, as handsome q cutter as ever
rode the waves. She had made her
merits known in some preliminary
races, but on this side of the water a
New York syndicate, largely composed
of the men since interested in Defender
and Columbia, had commissioned, N. c..
Herreshoff of Bristol, r. l., to. design a
defender. Something must here be said
of the rise of Mr.. Herreshoff and the
1891 that a forty-siX foot cutter called
Gloriana, launched in May of that year,
attracted attention by her speed and
her uncommon lines. She was seven
ty feet over all, forty-ffve feet three
inches water line, thirteen feet beam,
and ten feet two inches draught. Her
sheer plan showed an under body cut
away forward. a long projecting bow
whose line ran from the CANNON iron
directly into that of the keel, and the
greatest draft few feet forward of the
stern post. Her water lines showed an
abolition Of all concaVity forward, a
feature toward which Burgess had been
slowly moving. Her bows hared out
strongly above the water line. and she
was consequently very lively and also
very fussy in a sea. But with her
twenty three tons of lead ballast and
sail-spread two hundred and fifty feet
greater than that of any other yacht in
her class, she proved herself queen of
the forty skies, and a dangerous COM
petitor for much larger craft The
brilliant victories of this yacht over
Sayonara, Mineola and Beatrix, the
fast Burgess forty-siX footers caused
the selection Of her designer to succeed
Mr. Burgess (who had passed away in
the work of drafting models for the de-
Tense Of the cup. To meet Valkyrie T,
he designed the centerboard sloop Vigil
liant.
With the advent of Mr.. Herreshoff
into the designing field began system
of secrecy, which has since made 1t i'm
possible to get at all the dimensions of
the competing yachts. Those which I
give without a statement to the con-
trary are official. Vigilant's chief fea-
lures were her cut-away under body,
her plentiful beam, her depth, her light
ness Of hull and her sail-carrying pow
er. Her chief measurements are: Wa
ter line, 1919 feet; length over all, 12S
feet; mast, 69.0S feet; top-mast, 56.SS;
gaff, 5476; sail area, n,272 Her
amount of ballast has never been Off
cially published. Her opponent Val
kyrie /, was little smaller, measuring
S5.5 on the water line and having
sail area of 10,042 square feet The
competitors against Vigildnt for the
honor of defending the cup were al
most as interesting as she was, but
there is not space to discuss them here.
They were Colonia, keel sloop, de-
signed for Archibald Rogers by HERES
hoff; Jubilee. designed and owned by
General Charles j. Paine of Boston, and
Pilgrim. built FOR a Boston syndicate
from designs by George Stewart. Pill
grim was q fin keel, the largest yacht of
this type built up to that time
Lord Dunraven intended to come af-
ter the cup in 1894. but Valkyrie No ii,
built that year. was lost in storm In
the Mediterranean, so he tried 1t again
in 1896 with Nalkyrie III In this yes
sci the British designer, Mr.. Watson,
undertook to combine the best features
of his Thistle with ideas picked up in
this country He aimed at turning out
a huge sail carrying brute, and these
were her dimensions: Length over all,
1879 feet: water line, 1885; beam, "a
draft, 1876; from upper side of boom TO
topsail halyard block. 1898; spinnaker
boom, 1894: gaff, 1858; top-mast, 55.9S;
square root of sail area. ll4.l4. l can
not give the mast measurement. sim
ply because Mr., Hyslop, the official
measurer. did not take it, and 1T was
not made known in any other trust
worthy way. To meet this yacht Mr..
Herreshoff designed Defender, vessel
from which the time-honnred center
board was absent. She was cut away
forward, and had the now familiar ca
noe bow The line of her under body
forward began far above the water line,
almost under the CANNON IRON whence
Il swept almost straight to the forward
edge of her keel, joining ii in an easy
curve. The front edge of the keel had
a large incline forward, and the stern
post showed big rake. The vessel |
had a tolerably high bilge, with an
sasy curve. Her dimensions We're as
follows. Length over all, VA feet: wa