Word: sopwith
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Posted on his 53rd birthday, that terse notice gave Harold Stirling Vanderbilt what he has been working for all winter. When the Royal Yacht Squadron challenge in behalf of T. O. M. Sopwith was accepted last summer. Skipper Vanderbilt was the obvious choice as his adversary. Sailing Rainbow, which most critics agreed was a slower boat than Sopwith's Endeavour I, he had contrived by sheer good seamanship to defend the Cup successfully in 1934. Ordinary procedure, in a sport where implements cost $500,000 each, is to organize a building syndicate. Instead of doing that, Skipper Vanderbilt last...
...challenging yacht club to share what has heretofore been the special privilege of the challenged club: that of picking the fastest available yacht after a trial series in U. S. waters. En route to the U. S. last week were two yachts, with one of which Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith of England's Royal Yacht Squadron hopes to win this summer the prize that U. S. skippers have successfully defended since 1851. One was Endeavour II, built a year ago and raced by Skipper Sopwith in English waters last summer. The other was Endeavour I, which Rainbow defeated...
Challenger. Racing for the America's Cup tends to become an obsession. From 1899 through 1930, proprietor of the obsession was Great Britain's famed Sir Thomas (tea) Lipton, who spent $4,000,000 on five unsuccessful tries to "lift the Mug." Skipper Sopwith challenged for the Cup for the first time in 1934. Beaten after a disputed finish in the fourth race, he sailed home in a rage, announced he would never challenge again, took almost two years to change his mind. Famed principally as an airplane manufacturer, whose first appearance on the U. S. scene...
Like Rainbow, which Skipper Vanderbilt sold last winter, Endeavour I has changed hands since 1934. Her new owner. H. A. Andreae, loaned her to her old owner for this year's trial series with the understanding that if she proves faster than Endeavour II, Skipper Sopwith can buy her back. Endeavour II, blue like her predecessor, is 87 ft., 164 tons-4 ft. longer on the water line and 20 tons heavier than Endeavour I. Last summer she won nine races out of 18 starts, lost her mast twice, proved better in calm than stormy weather...
Until this year, most U. S. Cup yachts were built not by single individuals but by syndicates. The Sopwith system is not to build single yachts but to maintain a flotilla. Towing Endeavour I to the U. S. is the motor yacht Viva II, owned by his friend Frederick Segrist, who will help foot Endeavour I's bills. Towing Endeavour II is the Belgian trawler John. Owner Sopwith disapproves of U. S. food, so John is bringing enough British victuals (except fresh vegetables and bread) to last all summer. The two Endeavours, Viva and John are by no means...