Word: saile
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...southwest) turned the slow seas of the day before into a chop. There were about half as many yachts around the starting line as for the first two America's Cup races of 1930. People had been saying that Enterprise could not lose so long as Skipper Vanderbilt kept sail on her. The course signals were up and both boats jockeyed at the line like boxers feeling each other out. Now the first drama of the series occurred. Captain Heard on Shamrock V timed the start better, had his boat over the line in the windward berth ten seconds ahead...
Shamrock's sail was down. Partly over the deck it lay, and partly in the sea. Some of the crew had been caught under it; some were on their feet, pulling at it. The sloop was coming up into the wind. The trouble was clear now: Shamrock's main halyard had snapped. "What a pity," said Sir Thomas Lipton as though to himself. He called his secretary, Major Westwood. "I wonder if anyone is overboard or hurt," he said. "See what you can get on the radio...
Skipper Vanderbilt too had been watching Shamrock closely. As the sail fell, he whipped Enterprise about. The committeemen were coming over in their boat. They shouted at Vanderbilt, telling him to go on. The rules of the America's Cup races provide that if one boat is disabled the other is awarded the race, whether or not she completes the course. Skipper Vanderbilt knew that, remembered how Shamrock IV had won the first race of the series in 1920 by a similar accident. He sailed over to Shamrock V and came around her to make sure no one was hurt...
...remaining legs Shamrock gained but only because Skipper Vanderbilt was taking no chances with his yacht's gear. He was near home on the third leg before he set his spinaker and big balloon jib topsail. Never had the duralumin mast, the winches for every sail, the devices for measuring the strain on the stays proved their efficiency more clearly. Enterprise had swept the series, 4 to 0, winning this final race by more than five minutes...
Because of my personal association with Dr. Fisk I queried him by wireless to the French Liner Lafayette, on which he had set sail, asking whether he had been correctly quoted. Dr. Fisk has replied to me by wireless...