page_title: America's Cup
section_title: 1914–1937: The Universal Rule
hierarchical_section_title: America's Cup / History / 1914–1937: The Universal Rule
caption_attribution_description: English: Harold Sterling "Mike" Vanderbilt on the cover of Time magazine volume 26 number 11, 15 September 1930 Français&#160;: Harold S. Vanderbilt, en couverture du Time magazine (15 septembre 1930)
context_page_description: The America's Cup, affectionately known as the Auld Mug, is a trophy awarded to the winner of the America's Cup match races between two sailing yachts. One yacht, known as the defender, represents the yacht club that currently holds the America's Cup and the second yacht, known as the challenger, represents the yacht club that is challenging for the cup. The timing of each match is determined by an agreement between the defender and the challenger. The America's Cup is the oldest international sporting trophy. It will next be raced for in the southern summer, in March 2021.
  The cup was originally awarded in 1851 by the Royal Yacht Squadron for a race around the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom, which was won by the schooner America. Originally known as the 'R.Y.S. £100 Cup', the trophy was renamed the 'America's Cup' after the yacht and was donated to the New York Yacht Club under the terms of the Deed of Gift, which made the cup available for perpetual international competition.
  Any yacht club that meets the requirements specified in the deed of gift has the right to challenge the yacht club that holds the cup.
context_section_description: Despite the immense success of the Reliance, she was used only one season, her design and maintenance keeping her from being used for any other purpose than for a cup defense. The extremity of both 1903 cup contenders encouraged Nathanael Herreshoff to make boats more wholesome and durable by devising a new rule. Proposing in the same year the Universal Rule, he added the elements of overall length and displacement into the rating, to the benefit of heavy, voluminous hulls and also divided boats into classes, without handicapping sail area. This went against the American Yacht Clubs' and the British Yacht Racing Association's general desire to promote speed at all costs for cup boats, but the NYYC adopted Herreshoff's proposal. Lipton long pleaded for a smaller size of yachts in the new rule, and the NYYC conceded to seventy-five footers in 1914. Lipton turned to Charles Ernest Nicholson for his fourth challenge, and got a superb design under the inauspicious shape of Shamrock IV, with a flat transom. She was the most powerful yacht that year, and the NYYC turned out three cup candidates to defend the cup: of George Owen's Defiance and William Gardner's Vanitie, it was Herreshoff who designed the wisest of all contenders. His last design for the cup, the Resolute, was small, which earned significant time allowance over other yachts. Barr had died, but his crew manned the Resolute, which faced stiff competition from Vanitie, but went on to win the selection trials, before the Cup was suspended as World War I broke out.
  Shamrock IV was crossing the Atlantic with the steam yacht Erin, destined for Bermuda, when Britain declared war on Germany on 5 August 1914. Harold Stirling Vanderbilt, the Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, had sent his own yacht, the Vagrant, from Rhode Island to Bermuda to meet them and escort them to the US. The Vagrant arrived on the 8th. Having no radio, the crew remained unaware of the declaration of war. Finding all navigational markers missing, the Vagrant crew attempted to pick their own way in through the barrier reef. St. David's Battery fired a warning shot to bring them to a halt. Shamrock IV and Erin arrived the next day. The America's Cup was cancelled for that year.
  The Shamrock IV and Erin proceeded to New York, from where the Erin returned to Britain while Shamrock IV was laid up in the Erie Basin dry dock until 1920, when she received some adjustments to her build and ballast, just before the races were held. Despite Shamrock IV's severe rating, she took the first two races from the defender Resolute, and came closer to winning back the Cup than any previous challenger. The Resolute won every subsequent race of the event.
  Shamrock IV was never raced again, but the universal rule drew significant appeal, especially in the small M-Class. Believing that the new rule offered a serious opportunity for the British to take the Cup, Lipton challenged for the fifth and last time at age 79, in 1929. The J-Class was chosen for the contest, to which were added Lloyds' A1 scantling rules in order to ensure that the yachts would be seaworthy and evenly matched, given the Deed of Gift requirement for yachts to sail to the match on their "own bottom." The waterline length was set between 76 ft (23.16 m) and 88 ft (26.82 m), and there would be no time allowance. Novel rigging technology now permitted the Bermuda rig to replace the gaff rig. Nicholson was chosen to design challenger Shamrock V, and despite the Wall Street Crash, four NYYC syndicates responded to the threat and built a cup contender each. The venue was moved to Newport, Rhode Island, where, the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company's new naval architect Starling Burgess used his success in the M-Class and his experience as a wartime plane designer to build the Vanderbilt syndicate's defender Enterprise, the smallest J-Class. Meanwhile, Herreshoff's son, L. Francis Herreshoff, designed a radical boat: The Whirlwind, despite being the most advanced boat with her double-ended "canoe" build and electronic instruments, maneuvered too clumsily. T
caption: Harold Vanderbilt,  Enterprise's skipper, 1930
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