Saw Atalanta Start for Cup With Ham and Flour on Deck: Schooner Days CCCV (305)

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Lively Comment On America's Cup Yachting By Old Belleville Sailor

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"WE have read The Telegram over the years, with some breaks and interruptions, since the time it was running a serial, 'The House on the Marsh.' This would be before 1889, as we were then attending Upper Canada College. No feature of The Telegram pleases us more than 'Schooner Days.'"

So writes a Belleville resident, and goes on:

"In your last article on the Canadian Cup contender Atalanta you make it appear she was built in Trenton. This is not correct. The Atalanta was built in Flint & Holton's lumber yard at the mouth of the Moira River, west side, Belleville.

"We were early initiated into yachting through the Roy boys, sons of R. M. Roy, who owned a number of yachts at different times—Gracie, Peerless, Surprise, and others. We visited the yard frequently to observe the progress in building. We knew nothing then of the difficulties and trials of Cuthbert and the others in completing this yacht. She was mortgaged for the lumber which Flint & Holton supplied, and was only half equipped, and poorly finished, for the lack of money.

"We sat on the Grand Junction dock here in the late summer of 1881 and saw the Atalanta sailing out of the harbor and down the bay on their way to New York. They were still nailing down her deck planks and doing other carpenter work, for it was late in the season. A ham and a bag of flour showed up beautifully on deck. These were fixed indelibly on our mind. Perhaps it was near dinner time. Anyway, these were the provisions. It is a long story.

"The late R. S. Bell, newspaper editor, here and Kingston, for many years, was scrutineer on the Mischief, the American defender. He gave us many details, and one surprising one. Mr. Bell Was secretary of the Bay of Quinte Yacht Club in 1877. We have list of members and yachts of this club of that date.

"Although Atalanta, as shown by the records, was badly beaten by Mischief in October, 1881, at New York, yet the Americans were much alarmed at her speed shown under great handicaps, and hurriedly introduced a new rule to bar out all boats from fresh water. Cuthbert's Iolanthe won II class honors year after year from all comers. The Americans brought up the Merle and Yama, the former by Burgess (America's Cup designer of Puritan and Mayflower), especially to defeat her, but it couldn't be done.

"We saw the alleged foul claimed against Valkyrie III. at New York in 1895 (September). We never had any other opinion than that Dunraven was very shabbily treated. It was a trivial thing, as we saw it very close up from the deck of one of the Iron Steamboat Line. The two yachts were heading up to the starting line on the same port tack. Valkyrie had the weather position and they would have come together if they had kept on, but the Valkyrie came up a little in the wind, and as she drew away the small boat on the extreme end of the boom collar caught an outside topmast stay and pulled it a little loose. Two sailors (the sailors were all in white laying down on deck) under orders ran up forward, hauled the stay taut, and ran back and laid down. It seemed like a matter of 20 or 25 seconds to us. They went on. The Valkyrie came in ahead by what appeared to us as around three-quarters of a mile. The breeze was strong. We are of the opinion, but cannot be sure of this, that neither boat carried a top sail. We did not see any bending over of a top mast, as is shown in photographs, especially some reprinted recently. Our recollection is that there were far more excursion steamers and other craft crowding around than are shown in these photographs, which look strange to us. It was notorious that in every cup race for years the British boats were unmercifully crowded and hampered. We were very close and could see everything.

"On returning to town we were amazed to see 'extras' out carrying headlines 'Defender wins on a foul.' My companions from the New York Press, an Irish Fenian, secretly wishing the British boat to the bottom of the sea, had fully conceded the British win. We were dumfounded.

"It was Dunraven's next start and withdrawal immediately afterward. With the sweet explanation when the press and other boats rushed over to find out what the matter was, 'we know we can't win, so we are completing the series and are going home,' that brought down the fury of the New York Press on him. If you cannot answer a man properly you can at least abuse him.

"Alfred Loomis agrees there were many sharp practices of years gone by. Mr. Stone of Yachting says in his book the Valkyrie rammed the Defender. Grantland Rice, who wasn't born when this race was run, repeats this fiction over the radio. 'But what is history but a lot of lies agreed upon?'

"You were at the Cup races two years ago. How about changing the stake boat at a crisis in the series? Is it true, if rumor says, the Endeavour I. came to where the stake boat should be, but it was a quarter of a mile to windward of the regular position? Is there anything in that, or is it just bunk?"

(The stake boat was not changed, but the tug usually marking its position could not get there and the American power yacht Winchester was used instead. This may have advantage, especially if T. O. M. Sopwith did not know of the change.)