Richmond daily palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1876-1904, 1901-09-27
Have a Hard Days Work for
No End In tnfa -orable
Winds.
COLUMBIA TAKES LEAD
The Americas Cup Defender Proves
in a Way that She Is Still Good
tor the Trick.
First of the Series of Big Yacht
Races Fails for Lack of
Air.

New York, Sept. 21.-One of the big
gest crowds that ever put to sea went
down TO the Sandy Hook Hghtship yes
terday To witness Sir Thomas Liptons
second challenger, Shamrock IL, and
the white flyer Columbia. which sue
cessfully defended the old America
cup against his first trophy hunter
two years ago, struggle for the yacht
ing supremacy of me world in the
first of the cup races of 1901. But the
excursion fleet returned disappointed.
The great single stickers went out
fresh for the battle, but the sea re
fused them a field of conflict. The
wind, never more than nine and some
times as low as three knots, was too
light and shifty TO carry the contest
ants over the 30-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 We're towed back
TO their berths inside Sandy Hook.
When the gun aboard the committee
boat was fired to call attention TO the
signal declaring the race off the Ameri-
can yacht was still seven miles from
the finish line. The Englishman was
hull down astern of her. the experts
estimating her distance behind the
Columbia at over three-quarters of a
mile
Americans will have reason to con-
graduate themselves upon the result
of the first trial. The yacht which
carried J. T.. Morgan's private signal,
a black pennant with yellow Maltese
cross. to victory two years ago, was
headed but once in the % miles COW
cred, and then the Englishman showed
the way for only five minutes. In
windward work the Columbia beat the
foreigner seven minutes and 10 sec
onds to the outer mark and increased
her lead somewhat in the broad reach
for home.
While the test was unsatisfactory
the yachting sharps who have been
skeptical up TO this time as to the
ability of the Columbia to successfully
defend the cup are more confident that
it will remain on this side of the At
lantic yet a while longer. Certainly
Columbia'S superiority in light airs
appears TO have been demonstrated.
Shamrock III did not in fact make as
good showing as did Lipton's first
challenger in the half dozen fiukes
that preceded the actual races two
years ago. What Shamrock may be
able to do in heavy weather is of
course probsematical. but Columbia
has been tried, and all her admirers
insist that she is distinctively a heavy
weather boat.
Two years ago Sir Thomas prayer
was for wind. but when he got a
smashing 25-knot gale in the last race
Columbia's victory WAS even more de-
cisive than in the first. Since then
Columbias ability in heavy weather
has been proved again and again. The
harder il blows the faster she goes and
better she behaves. 1t is not strange
therefore that the patriotic shippers
and spectators who went down TO
Sandy Hook yesterday with misgiy-
ings. returned treasured and strongly
disposed to wager that the pretty
wreaths of shamrock and white heath
er from the oldest yacht club in the
world which Sir Thomas is treaSurine
in the cabin of his champion, will
prove no mascot after all.