Fisher Cup Fights in Schooner Times: Schooner Days CCCLVI (356)

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THE EARLY history of the Fisher Cup will be found in the Annals of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club. And that's a book you all ought to have if you love sailing, whether you have ever set foot on a yacht or not. It is available to the public now. W. Q. Phillips, owner of the old-timer Sagitta in Toronto fifty year's ago, and now going strong in Sarnia, contributes this lively interlude of Fisher Cup lore. The cup has come to the front again and will be the prize of an international contest ere long.

In the year 1883 the yacht Atalanta brought the Fisher Cup to Belleville, and it was afterwards turned over to the yacht Norah on a nominal challenge. Being subject to challenge on 15 days' notice made it a troublesome trophy to hold, but after all, no yacht owner could be compelled to race. Norah was owned by John Bell, Q.C., who was not a racing man.

In 1892 the L.Y.R.A. Fleet raced in the Bay of Quinte, and a verbal challenge was made by the owners of the new cutter Zelma, Rear-Com. Dick, Stephen Haas and Widmer Hawke. The challenge was not refused, but the owners deadlocked over conditions. Mr. Dick asked for an open lake course, as the only fair course for a modern cutter drawing nine feet. Mr. Bell thought the Bay of Quinte good enough, even if the top was close to the bottom in many places. At that time the bay was sketchily charted, and though a channel had been dredged after the opening of the Murray Canal at the western end, the R. & O. steamers drawing eight feet had to take a pilot to make a call at Belleville. So the challenge came to nought.

The Sunday afternoon school of critics who met around the stove in the old Toronto Yacht clubhouse discussed the matter thoroughly. We were not favorably impressed with the Bay of Quinte as a racing course, having been there. Bell, it seems, had chuckled over the possibility of Zelma's nine feet of draft flirting with the uncertain deeps of the bay, and had made remarks about a yachtsman who could not find his way around.

"Evidently he wanted an obstacle race," some one ventured.

"Exactly," replied Norman Dick, "but, no thanks, not for Zelma!"

But next summer the Rochester sloop Onward, owners Hagen and White, was cruising in the Bay of Quinte, and challenged for the Fisher Cup by way of diversion. At least she was a fair match for Norah in size and type, and two races were sailed, Onward taking the Cup with all honors, and the owners knowing very well it was a challenge cup. So when Zelma challenged Onward there was no hitch at all. The agreement was an open lake course, L.Y.R.A. rules, and a six-hour time limit for a 30 mile triangle, which provision was hastily borrowed from the America's Cup match of the year—with 90 foot yachts!

Labor Day was fixed for the event, and Zelma sailed to Charlotte, the port of Rochester. Onward had not been doing much racing, but was tuned up and a good crew signed on, Capt. Wood of the Cinderella in charge. The day was fair and warm with light winds, and the race was started in style. Scrutineers were carried, and I was put aboard Onward to represent Zelma, or the R.C.Y.C., or both. But it was really a private match, for at that time the Fisher Cup was an orphan, and no yacht club was responsible for anything.

Then why the anxiety to sail for a rather shabby trophy of no glorious reputation? The answer is that at the time it was the only challenge cup on the Great Lakes, and challenge cups were in vogue. The match between Valkyrie and Vigilant opened a new chapter in the history of the America's Cup, and the preparations on both sides kept yachtsmen interested for months. Then in 1895 the Seawanhaka Cup was established, and the yacht Canada took the cup afterwards to bear the name. Yes, cup racing was the thing in the gay nineties.

The light wind failed to improve, and after drifting for six hours we had not covered half the course, and so we drifted back to port. A second attempt next day was exciting but equally inglorious. Starting with a working breeze we picked up a light squall of the uncertain kind, that may mean anything on Lake Ontario, and both yachts were stripped to lower sails. It passed over and having hoisted top-sails up again, Capt. Wood ordered lunch to be handed out. As an idler I went below to assist, and we had just got sandwiches and beer nicely arranged to be passed up to the hard-worked crew when a second squall bore down on us, and again the big club-topsail and balloon jib had to come in. In those days yachts were measured for the working triangle, and varied as much sail as they could hoist on the spars, by any means. Photos of the day show expansive club-topsails, and they took skill and strength to handle, skill especially. That was why measurement of actual sail area was so strongly opposed. "What's all this about square root?" demanded an owner of the good old school, "you can't win a race with square root; what you want is a big club-topsail."

The second squall was a teaser and for a few minutes Onward was horsing along with her lee cabin house in the water, and the stewards busy keeping the lunch out of the lee bilge. I thought it was just as well that Capt. Wood was a skimming-dish man who knew how far he could go. It blew over of course, and was followed by cat's-paws and cussing. One drifting match is enough. Both yachts made port eventually with disgusted crews. To work hard in a race that comes to nothing after all is an irritating experience, and the crews were not professionals who could figure the more days the more dollars.

Was there any use trying again? All but two of Zelma's men had to get home, having overstayed the week-end holiday, and it was not certain that the Rochester men could take another day off. All that could be done was to see what the weather looked like in the morning, jettison the time limit, and if the wind served it was agreed to divide fairly any crews available. But — wind, wind, wind — that was the great essential. At sunset the lake was like a mill-pond and the probs were for light settled weather. A tug steamed out with three coal-barges in tow, bound for Port Hope. "That's a cheap way to carry coal," some one told me, "they will be in Port Hope by morning, and have a fine night for the trip." And he remarked on the economy of power in towing as distinguished from direct drive.

Some of the visitors were sleeping upstairs in the locker room of the Rochester clubhouse. About two o'clock we were awakened by the hammering of rain on the roof and the audible swishing of trees outside.

"That's wind," remarked Mr. Dick, and with his crew hustled for the Zelma tied up to the dock just below.

By daylight there was no more sleeping, and a casual look outside disclosed a norther in full career, that had already made a new disposition of all loose things afloat and ashore. In the park, trees were down, light buildings wrecked, the ground strewed with debris, and everything sodden wet. Yachts in the restricted anchorage of the club had fared badly, the wind being from the one quarter without shelter. The chain ferry boat, that shuttled across the river, had been left secured as usual, but had burst its bonds, breaking the heavy driving chain, and piled up on the bank.

A U. S. Revenue cutter had anchored in a berth no sailor would choose. The quartermaster told me "We were on our way to Oswego when the gale hit us, and we put in here. As we cleared the entrance the steering gear jammed, and we drove up the river checking way with the engines just in time to drop the hook below the bridge. The rudder stock is twisted." Then he went on to deplore that it should happen to them when they ought to be ready to help others.

Now the piers extend half a mile into the lake, and at that time were normally ten feet above water level. Heavy seas were washing over them and the lighthouse at the end was marooned, even the elevated cat-walk being awash. Lake Ontario was in a very nasty temper. Onward was safe in a snug berth, but Zelma had disappeared. No racing, of course, and sterner events claimed attention.

The tug that we had seen leaving in the evening was visible on the horizon with only one barge in tow. This broke away, and we saw it driven the beach a mile to the eastward, fortunately on a soft spot, so the crew got ashore. Then the tug, free of encumbrance, came in with a sad tale to tell. All had gone well for more than half the passage when the gale hit them dead ahead. They kept on hoping for the shelter of the north shore until headway was no longer possible. The first streak of dawn showed only two barges in tow. The third had gone down in the blackness of the night, no one knew when. Six men went with her. The second barge was settling rapidly, and the men were taken off with great difficulty. With the remaining barge there was nothing to do but run to leeward, and as we saw them, both tug and barge were tossing like corks, wallowing in the seas, incredibly helpless, for the tug was the big Favorite that had towed the Columbus caravels up the lakes earlier in the year.

It is not often that yachtsmen see a marine disaster so sharply focused. The barges were old schooners, jury rigged, too ripe to sail, and towing in heavy seas opened them up from end to end. Yes, it was a cheap way to carry coal—to the bottom of Lake Ontario, with six good sailor men to keep it company.

Late in the afternoon the gale moderated, Zelma came down the river, having run for shelter in the night when Mr. Dick turned out remarking, "That's wind!"

All he knew was that the Genesee was reputed to be deep, and he took chances for a mile or more when he sheered into the bank and tied up. Capt. Wood asked a few visitors aboard Cinderella for supper — and he gave us clam chowder, a novelty for lake sailors at the time, for it was not yet sold in cans. Then for a second course there were fried mushrooms, an enormous crop having sprung up after the heavy rain — the gift of the storm.

As to more racing, the challenge was postponed until the next year —"any time after Easter, for we fit out early," said Mr. Dick. He was taken ill and died at the end of winter. The unfinished races were the last he ever sailed.

NORAH Chasing ATALANTA in Their Home Waters, the Bay of Quinte, Where Their Shoal Draught, Big Rigs and Centreboards Served Them Well.

ZELMA, New in '93, Typical Keel Cutter, Fast But Deep.

YOU CAN'T WIN A RACE WITH A SQUARE ROOT -

-WHAT YOU WANT IS A RIG CLUBTOPSAIL." And ONWARD, Depicted Above, Certainly Had the Latter. Ill Her Day, the Clubtopsail Used to Be Set Regularly Above the Triangular Gafftopsail, as Here Shown.