America in the Mystic River 1905 C.H.J. SNIDER

AMERICA'S CUP

The America had won the America's cup in a fleet of 7 schooners and 8 cutters competing for the same trophy, in the same race, in 18??. Lord Ashbury, in an attempt to regain the Cup. At that time the Americans built and entered 23 yachts to prevent him from winning. That was 23 yachts out to prevent one from winning. But Ashbury let that pass. His -->came tenth in the single race. He made no complaints, and next year he came back with another challenger, the schooner Livonia

The cupholders, with some rudiments of sportsmanship, cut their defenders down to four, to be used only one at a time, according as conditions varied, and permitted seven races, of which Livonia would have to win four, to lift the cup. She was beaten twice by a light weather defender and protested the second race on an alleged foul. Then she won a race with defender breaking down. It blew hard after that and they put in a fresh heavy weather defender, which won the next two races. Ashbury toed the line for the sixth time. No defender appearing, he sailed around the course and claimed the race. This claim was disallowed so he sailed home, marveling at some people's ideas.

Yachtsmen of Britain thought with him and for four years no attention was paid to the cup. Then Canada got a sailing Governor General, the Marquis of Dufferin and Aya. His letters from High Latitudes, written to his mother from the cabin of his schooner yacht in Arctic seas, are salty and charming though well over a century out of date. Maritime east coast Canada was too busy making money out of wooden ships to spend any money on the frivolity of yachting, but Canada-on-the-Lakes stepped in.

Schooner interest was then running strong in this banner province. Five hundred Canadian schooners were in the lake trade at this time, all centreboarders, of local design, and many of them good enough to "go foreign" - to Hamburg, as the Jessie Drummond did, and to South Africa, as did the Sea Gull of Oakville,and to the Black Sea like the Jessiek Scarth. Those all came back too. And more.

Capt. Alex. Cuthbert of Cobourg was a vessel captain and a professional yacht skipper. He built a dozen large centreboard yachts for lake Ontario on the flatiron model and raced some of them himself, with considerable success. He was not a scientific naval architect, but better than a rule-of-thumb designer and of unlimited confidence.

Persuaded that here was in Alex. Cuthbert a freshwater sailor, skipper of Gorilla, designer and bidder and skipper of Dauntless, the Vice-Commodore of the Royal Canadian Yacht , Charles Gifford commissioned Cuthbert to design and build a schooner yacht to challenge for the America's Cup. Gifford, then captain and later colonel of militia, living in Cobourg, was an ardent yachtsman, owning and racing the phenomenal sloop Gorilla He secured the sponsorship of his club for the challenge and a small syndicate was formed, but the burden of the quixotic adventure lay upon this sailing soldier. He named his new yacht Countess of Dufferin~ in honour of the new Governor General's lady.

The Countess of Dufferin was built beside the old east pier in Cobourg, by Capt. Cuthbert 'with his own adze and handsaw,' at a cost of $5000., an extremely low figure even in those days for an America's Cup challenge. Capt. Dan Rooney, then a boy in nearby Corktown, had the chip gathering privileges of the shipyard, and recalled her chips and shaving of clear white pine and Northumberland County oak which made excellent kindling for the breakfast fire.

The Countess of Dufferin (the yacht. not the lady) was launched in May with due ceremony, and Capt. Gifford took her on a tour of the lake with natural pride. She was 107' overall, 23 ft. Sin. beam, and 101 feet on the waterline. Her after overhang was 11 feet, and her forward overhand little or none, her carved cutwater giving her the appearance of an overhanging or clipper bow without its reality. She was on a draught ranging between 7 feet 3 inches and 6feet6 inches, is said to have spread 4,000 yards of canvas. Just how much 4000 yards really meant is hard to say, as this was length of sailcloth of varying width. If twenty-two inches was the width, then the Countess of Dufferin had 22,000 sq. ft. of sail.

This appears to be a lot of sail. The Bluenose, 40' longer, and drawing 16', only had 10,000 sq.ft. of sail in full racing trim.

With over 100' on the waterline, the Countess was the largest yacht on the Lakes, and had nothing to race against or use to tune her rig before heading for the big race.

The 50 day trip to New York by way of the St. Lawrence, Halifax, long Island Sound and Hell's Gate was, according to the detailed log published in C.H.J. Snider's Schooner Days, not very eventful.

There was no auxiliary power in 1876 except the "white ash breeze," which meant taking to the oars, afterwards humorously known as the Armstrong motor. When a sailing vessel got into a calm she stayed in it until she got out, either by a breeze springing up or her crew springing to the sweeps, or towing ahead in her boat, or kedging her by running light anchors ahead, hauling her up to one by a Long line and going ahead with the second anchor when the first had been tripped., These resources only served for short distances.

The last entry in the log of the trip to New York is dated July 17th, 1876.

"A calm this morning. We weighed anchor about 5 a.m. Beautiful morning, the fellows jumped off the yacht for a bathe unabashed

"Noon a stiff breeze from S. W up and we commenced beating up. At 3 p.m. took a reef in Foresail 2 in the mainsail and took the jib. Dead beat to windward to Hell Gate when the tide was so strong as to force us to anchor at 6p.m. at Astoria.

"At 7 weighed anchor, the tide betting slack and beat through Hell Gate and all the way to Governors Island. A strong breeze dead to windward - the tide strong in our favour and we proceeded. The yacht was saluted on every hand as she proceeded and worked admirably with whole fore and after canvas, we brought up to an anchor at 8.50 p.m. amongst some other schooners abreast of Governors Island.

"In passing Hell Gate, one of our fellows was nearly hung by the neck by a painter of a small boat which a fellow threw aboard. He ran to catch it contrary to orders and it coiled around his neck and dragged him along the quarter deck"

The log ends with a foot note, a memorandum made afterward of the official measurements of the Countess and of the Madeline, the schooner yacht selected to meet her. it reads:

Measurements of the Countess of Dufferin and Madeline taken by the New York Yacht Club:

C M

Tonnage

Old measurement 138.2 tons. 49 tons

Length (In feet)
Overall 100.35 106.4
Length Waterline 95.53 95.2
Beam 23.55 24.3
Depth hold 7.3 7.75
Draught 7.1 7.28
Cubic contents 9,208.4 8,499.17
Length Boat (carried
ondeck) 16 12

The New York Yacht Club was courteous to its country cousin, the Countess from Canada, but the American press went mad over her. The tough time she had beating through Hells Gate and escaping a hanging was paradise compared to her reception by the seagoing bow-wows of the sporting pages. They called her "a clumsy coaster rather than a racer," "a bad imitation of a Yankee yacht built in Canada," "a clapboard top and roughcast bottom, with sails fitting like a purser's shirt on a handspike." The worst of it was that there was some truth in what they said. Nevertheless the gallant Gifford put her into the Brenton Reef trophy race from Sandy Hook to Newport and back. something like the Rochester race around Lake Ontario in the 1950s. She beat the famous America herself to the Reef,

The America was not new when this happened in 1876, but was still in the first rank of American yachts. In 1873 Gen. Benjamin Butler had bought her out of the U.S. navy and reconditioned her, giving her a modern rig. It was larger than the one under which, in 1851, she had captured the Queen's Cup, now called America's Cup.

The first half of the long race around Brenton Reef lightship must have been all downhill. The Countess, a centreboarder drawing only seven feet with board up, ran away from America, a keel yacht drawing 11 feet. But when they rounded the lightship and hauled on the wind good night! America, Tidal Wave, Wanderer and Idler all waded past the Countess and she finished the race hours behind.

Both of her topsails, set on yards and clubs like a cutter's, were too big, the foremast one useless except for one tack. It had to be lowered completely, carried around, and hoisted up again every time she came about. Her main topmast staysail could only be made to draw by hoisting it upside down.

The mainsail had stretched beyond its spars, and hung like a bag. She had to carry her jibtopsail all the time because this ageing sail gave her a weather helm. Jibtopsails are often a handicap going to windward, a griping mainsail a hindrance always.

The schooner had been in the water ever since her launching three months before, and caulking and planking had both swelled with the continued immersion. She was scaly as an alligator, the putty sticking out of her seams in lumps and ridges. And her crew of 10 was not nearly large enough to handle her racing canvas.

She had to be hauled out, scraped, polished and black leaded. She had been so roughly finished that they used jackplanes on her before any polishing could be attempted. All her sails had to be recut, and more to be got. She needed three or four jibtopsails for varying conditions, and maintopmast staysails to match, and balloon canvas. She hadn't even a spinnaker. All she had for running was a squaresail. And she needed a dozen more men.

Where was the money for this to come from?

Major Gifford had put all he could afford into the venture. John Bell, Q,C. and the Corbys from Belleville had contributed to the syndicate. So too had Major Torrance, and Messrs. Thos. Legett and Murray Geddes and Fred Lucas, all of Hamilton, and in the volunteer crew, Fred Lucas was a brother of Allan Lucas, later commodore of the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club. The $100 each had put up for the voyage was all gone. There had to be a further call. There was little Toronto money, apart from what Messrs. Boswell and Jones may have provided. The RCYC had supplied on the auspices for the challenge.

The enterprise had been looked upon as a speculation by a professional sailor and builder, who had induced Vice-Commodore Gifford to take on more than Hercules could handle.

Capt. Cuthbert of Cobourg, designer, builder and sailing-master of the Countess, had built and sailed and sold several successful lake yachts. He was cock-a-hoop over the defeat his sloop Annie Cuthbert had inflicted on the American designed Cora, which bore the bell on the lakes.

He and his townsman Major Gifford had embarked on this audacious venture for the Blue Ribbon of the yachting world without sufficient capital to carry it through, and ignoring the cardinal fact that in sport and in war Americans will spend the last dollar, the last nickel and the last red cent before they will be beaten. This mistake is all that can be fairly charged against the two Cobourg sailors.

(One may note many similarities in the above descriptions to the Canada I challenge for the America's Cup in 1983, by the Secret Cove B.C. Yacht Club, which fortunately received considerable financial support from the Toronto area sailors.)

New York yachtsmen were not as ungenerous as the newspapers or as Canadian I-told-you-so's. They lent sails, advice, and credit. The poor Countess came into combat on Aug. 11, 1876, reinforced with some sailors from the New York yacht Comet and much improved - although needing much more.

The American defender, Madeline, her polished copper bottom shining like gold, won the first race, a 38 mile triangular affair, by the comfortable margin of ten minutes; and the next, 20 miles to windward and back, by 27 minutes and 14 seconds. The Countess could have done better if better prepared. But she wasn't.

The America, which sailed over the course, beat the Countess by 12 minutes.

The Countess came back to Lake Ontario by painful stages, after a marshal's sale in New York of Major Gifford's interests. She took part in lake regattas and did well. She was "terrific on a reach in smooth water, and is said to have logged 14 knots more than once. Major Gifford's journal mentions her doing 11 and knots in cruising trim while at sea.

In 1879 she lay lonely at anchor in Burlington Bay, for sale at $5,000 with no takers; 25 cents a head admission for sightseers. Capt. Pine of Chicago, a schooner captain who had made money and later became commodore of the Chicago Yacht Club, bought her at a bargain and took her west. She sailed some great races on Lake Michigan.

Dismantled she became a floating clubhouse. During the World's Fair of 1893 she was taken outside the breakwater and scuttled, and there she lies, sanded over these many years. A great yacht, named after a great lady, capable of great things, but less fortunate in fulfilment than her gracious namesake.