Cowes Port Handbook 2014-2015 April 2014 | Page 94

COWES PORT HANDBOOK 2014 - 2015

A very British race
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Helen Fretter explains why the America’s Cup belongs back in Cowes.
The autumn of 2013 had sailors around the world glued to the television
watching the 34th America’s Cup out in San Francisco. As Oracle Team
USA battled it out against Emirates Team New Zealand, flying high around
San Francisco Bay on 72ft wing-sailed catamarans, it seemed a very long
way away from the sailing most Solent yachtsmen and women enjoy.
But the America’s Cup, deep down at heart, is a Solent event. More than
that, it’s a Cowes event. And we’d quite like it back, please.

© ACEA / Photo Gilles Martin-Raget

The ‘Auld Mug’ has always been an outrageous contest of ego and
expenditure, and its origins were no different. The challenge was designed
to find the fastest yacht of all time – America was commissioned by the
New York Yacht Club on the basis that if the yacht was beaten by any other
US boat, the club did not have to take delivery (nor, presumably, pay).
To determine whether America was also faster than any British design,
a race was held around the Isle of Wight on 22 August, 1851. Fourteen
yachts set off from the Royal Yacht Squadron – the first challenge was to
actually get moving, as the race began with all boats anchored and sails
down. The fleet set off eastwards, with instructions for all yachts to sail
outside of the Nab Lighthouse – now the site of the Nab Tower – to avoid
ledges nearby. However, America had other ideas, and took a short-cut
inside the point, moving up from fifth to first. Despite protestations of
cheating America was deemed the winner.
Amongst those watching the spectacle was Queen Victoria, having left her
East Cowes residence to view the finish line (and possibly to escape the
royal builders, as the main wing of Osborne House was only completed
that year). As America took the gun she famously asked an aide who was
second, only to be told: “Your Majesty, there is no second.”
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