$2,100 to Capture the America's Cup: Schooner Days CCCIV (304)

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Incredible Story of Capt. Cuthbert's Second and Last Try to Win Blue Ribbon of Yacht World for Canada

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"MILLIONS FOR DEFENSE" is the title for an attractive book all about the America's Cup contests. The "millions" are used loosely, but they have been spent the same way in challenging for and defending the 500 guineas worth of silverware in the last eighty-six years.

T. O. M. Sop with has probably spent $400,000 to date on his second Endeavour, covering the cost of the yacht and the heavy incidentals of the challenge — the overhead of the two Endeavours and their tenders and crews, his palatial power yacht Vita and her successor and all that.

What would he say to a $2,100 bid for the America's Cup?

That's what the Atalanta, Canadian challenger for the America's Cup, cost to build in 1881.

She was put together at Trenton by Captain Cuthbert, five years after his venture with the Countess of Dufferin from Cobourg, for a syndicate of Belleville men who had more enthusiasm than coin. Money was as scarce as hen's teeth and the Atalanta treasury looked like the mouth of a hen that had lost a complete set of uppers and lowers. Americans made fun of this second Cuthbert challenger long before she got down to business. From motives of economy, and because the season was well advanced, she went to New York, where the cup races were then held, by way of the Erie Canal and Hudson River. She was so beamy she had to be tilted over on one side to pass through the locks at Troy or Little Falls or some such place. The canal hands took one look at the rough muddy bottom of the challenger and christened her the Canadian Mud Turtle. She was a good craft but woefully deficient. She lacked money and management.

Her ballast was of iron ore and stone, packed under her ceiling as well as it could be. As already said, she went down to New York by way of the Erie Canal, and reached salt water after considerable difficulty, on October 31st, 1881. The races for the famous trophy were sailed in the second week of November, the worst time in the year for an oversparred centreboarder. Atalanta's ballast of iron and stone, instead of lead castings, put her at a distinct disadvantage, and this was heightened by her lack of crew. The men promised by the Belleville Yacht Club failed to arrive, and Americans had to be used. In the first race with Mischief, Atalanta lost forty minutes in reefing and was beaten by 28 minutes. In the second race she made a mistake as to the position of a buoy, and Mischief again won, by a wide margin.

After that the Americans, fed up with fiasco challenges, barred the cup contests to yachts built on fresh water. You can hardly blame them. But there would have been a different story to tell had Atalanta had one-tenth the backing Sir Thomas Lipton or T. O. M. Sopwith have been able to lavish on their challengers.

Atalanta was a big wooden centre­board sloop, 78 feet over all, 68 feet l.w.l, 19 feet 6 inches beam, and 6 feet 5 inches draught. Her mast was a solid pine log, cut from a hundred foot tree. She was one of the largest single-stickers the Great Lakes produced; the first one-master to challenge for the cup, as the Mischief was the first one-master to defend it. In spite of her poor sails, rough finish and poor handling she performed so well that it was intended to sail her for the America Cup next year, but the New York Yacht Club passed the resolutions mentioned, restricting America Cup matches to yachts built on salt water, and the lake yachtsmen's hopes were blighted.

The big sloop was brought back to Lake Ontario, and played a prominent part in the races of the next ten years. She was found to be oversparred, and her mainmast was shortened by eight feet. She was especially fast in light winds. She was finally sold to some Chicago yachtsmen, and did good work on Lake Michigan.

Yacht design and naval architecture were in their infancy when the provinces were confederated into the Dominion of Canada in 1867. Lake Ontario possessed a number of yacht builders of the same style, usually fishermen or schooner captains who had "a good eye for moddlin' a boat." Louis Shickluna, Maltese dockyard carpenter, who is credited with having built one hundred and sixty-eight cargo vessels of all kinds on Lake Ontario, was the designer and builder of the first yacht Oriole. Capt. James Andrew, who built many of the best yachts afloat, both from his own design and the designs of Fife, Mylne, Payne, and the greatest British artists, was an Oakville schooner captain and built schooners and tugs.

One of these schoonermen was this gallant Capt. "Al" Cuthbert, of Cobourg — Alexander to the registrar — who built, sold and sailed anything that would float.

Al Cuthbert sailed out of Frenchman's Bay a lot, in the stone and cordwood trade, and he later established himself in Cobourg and still later in Trenton. One of his early commands was the schooner Highland Chief, of Frenchman's Bay, narrow, lean, wet and fast. He lost her on the boilers of the wrecked steamer Monarch when these were a menace to the navigation of the natural channel, rich became the present Eastern Gap into Toronto Harbor.

Cuthbert was a keen sailor and sailed yachts as a professional when other berths were not available. He was much impressed by the sloop yacht Cora, designed and built by Pat McGiehan, of Pamrapo, New Jersey, which came to the lakes and beat many fast yachts in Canadian Waters. He felt he could trim the Cora, and he built a large sloop yacht for the purpose. He called her the Annie Cuthbert She was homely looking, even in her own time, with a tail mainmast and short topmast, and an enormous bowsprit, spreading a huge jib. She had three "legs" of main shrouds, sat up on deadeyes and lanyards and "rattled down" like a schooner's rigging. She was a centreboarder and designed on the "flatiron" model, broad in the beam, and the beam well aft, giving a long sharp bow, quick run and wide stern.

This model was not original with Cuthbert, but he developed it in a series of yachts, the bow becoming sharper and sharper, until it was hollow ground, and the fore-foot protruded in front of the stem-head, although a cutwater knee, making a beautiful crescent profile of the bow, disguised the fact. The White Wings was the acme of Cuthbert's skill. Aemilius Jarvis, whose expert comment on the present America's Cup race was so much appreciated by Telegram readers, won 23 firsts and three seconds out of 26 starts in her in his first season, and in two years her prize money paid her purchase price and left a margin over.

Black and homely as she was, the Annie Cuthbert was remarkably successful up to 1875, and beat the Cora and all the flyers. When the new Oriole succeeded in defeating her it was so great an achievement that the fact was mentioned in the inscription on an oil painting of this first of the line of Orioles which the Gooderham family have made famous. Sir William Mulock was one of the first owners of this Oriole, before Mr. George Gooderham purchased her. A magnificent painting of the original ship hangs in Sir William's home. It is reproduced in the "Annals of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, 1852-1937," a fine volume of yachting history which will be published next month.

Cuthbert designed, built and sailed the Annie Cuthbert. He was a frank professional, and the R.C.Y.C. "Annals" just mentioned tell of many races in which he took part, sailing different yachts, including the Dauntless, in the race in which he rescued Col. Shaw and a guest who had been swept overboard. The Annie Cuthbert's prize money meant quite as much to him as her winning flags. He was so well satisfied with his venture into the big sloop world that he plunged deeper and built what was intended for an improvement.

The Annie Cuthbert was preliminary study, as it turned out, for the Atalanta. Like the Atalanta she found a home in Chicago, and raced successfully there under the name Greyhound.

THE ATALANTA — From a photograph in the "Annals of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club," to be published shortly.