Word: sopwiths
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...worth of privately owned boats were bouncing up and down on the Atlantic Ocean, off Newport, R. I. Nearly out of sight of most of this huge de luxe flotilla, which was policed far off the course, Harold Stirling Vanderbilt's Ranger was racing Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith's Endeavour for the hideous 86-year-old silver pitcher which is the most prized sporting trophy in the world...
...first twelve minutes of the race, neither gained. Then the breeze began to freshen, Ranger picked up speed, and both sailed off on a long port tack. Sopwith smartly changed Endeavour's head-sails but when he began to catch up, Vanderbilt changed Rangers. About halfway to the buoy, when both boats went about for the second time. Ranger was half a mile ahead...
Strategy in yacht racing is for the boat that is losing to change her tactics. In the last half of the first leg of the first race last week, Sopwith started a tacking duel in the hope that better handling on Endeavour would reduce Ranger's lead. If anything, Ranger's tacks were executed a shade more smartly. She rounded the mark with a six-minute lead...
Faced with the task of gaining six minutes on Ranger in a 15-mi. run down wind, Sopwith then tried a desperate alternative that offered at least a chance of catching up. He sailed far off the course to gamble on a better breeze. The hope, forlorn at best, was frustrated. When Ranger crossed the line, in a deafening uproar from the spectator fleet. Endeavour was barely visible in a gathering fog. She finished 17 min. 5 sec. later, beaten more thoroughly than any boat in an America's Cup race since James Bell's Thistle was beaten...
...boats since 1930 has been to build up to the limit of waterline length allowed by Class J specifications. When Rainbow (82 ft.) proved faster than Vanderbilt's 1930 Enterprise (So ft.), it suggested that an even longer boat might be even faster. When Owner Sopwith, reasoning the same way, built Endeavour II four feet longer than Endeavour I, which was about the same length as Rainbow, Owner Vanderbilt's best move obviously was to follow his rival's lead-aware that, if the longer boat did not live up to expectations, the U. S. would still...