The Cordova daily times., 1920-07-09
MEASURING OF RACING YACHTS
 FOR BIG EVENT

ed Press) Just prior tt the starting of the first race for tie Americas Cup this month off indy Hook, Shamrock ", the challenger and the American depender of the historic trophy will be lowed to a South Brooklyn shipyard for official meas urement This is a very important feature of the big contest and one that is going to create considerable trouble Upon the outcome of measure ment, will depend the time allowance that will exist between the craft. No one knows what this allowance is go- ing to be, although all who are fam iliar with the situation state, that the challenger will have to give time to the defender.
 It is going to be an exceedingly diff ficult task to measure the cup yachts. For the first time, the big race will be sailed under the Universal Rule of Measurement. The rule reads, as follows:
 Yachts shall be rated for classifi- cation and time allowance according to the following formula: Is per cent of the product of length, multiplied by the square root of the sail area, divided by cube root of displacement"
 This is an exceptionally complicat- ed rule and one that only yacht de- signers understand. For the past 30 years in all of Americas cup races the measurement of boat for time allowance has been one-half of the sum of the load water line length and the square root of sail area.
 In 1903 and previous years Messrs. Mower and Hyslop simply measured the deck length of boat, dropped plump bob from each end into the water, floated batten in under the bow and under the stern, measured on the batten the distance from the plump line to the end of the water line length. The sail area was meas ured according to arbitrary methods but it was assumed to be and very nearly was the measurement of the area of the sails. To determine the square root of this area was sumple matter and one sum in addition and one in division determined the rating of the boat.
 This was the formula even in 1903 although the measurements of boats efor other races of the New York Yacht Club of that year were made under a rule very similar to the one now in force but this rule having been adopted early in 1903, and the chal- lenge for the cup races of 1903 hav ing been accepted in the fall of 1902, the old rule of measurement prevail ed in the last cup races.
 This year however, the measuring of the yachts will be more complicat- ed involving a lot of calculation The 1oad-water line will be measured as heretofore and then the quarter beam length will be ascertained. This dimension is used as a corrective of the load-water line and it must not without penalty be more than a cer- tain percentage of the load-water } line length, for boat of 75-feet water line, the dimension fixed by the chal- lerger, this percentage will be slight ly over 91 per cent. Should it ex- ceed this percentage one-half of the excess will be added to the 1oad-water lire length, in order to constitute the length factor in the calculation for rating.
 In addition there will be various tests to ascertain whether the build CTS have made any concave curves or notches in the lines of the hull for if so certain penalties are provided:
 While quite different from that of years ago the method of measuring the sail area is really a method of ascertaining practically the area of the sails. These two measurements. the length factor and the sai! area factor may of course be taken while tEe boat is in the water The really new feature of the measurement of the cup yachts, however, will be the measurements taken to determine the spacing. The rule governing this reads:
 Displacement to be obtained by weighing or as follows: The load water line shall be divided into 10 equal parts and the areas of the i'm mersed cross sections found in square feet. From these areas the load water line length, the displacement in