Schooner's Try for America's Cup: Schooner Days MCXXXV (1135)

by C. H. J. Snider

WHEN this Dominion, repeat, this DOMINION of Canada, was nine years of age and free of inferiority complexes, Ontario yachtsmen challenged for the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic, the America's Cup.

The schooner America had won it in a scramble in England in 1851. In 1870, James Ashbury, with his English schooner Cambria, gallantly crossed the ocean to race for the cup against 23 sloops and schooners, all at one crack. He may have thought the defenders' terms "a bit sticky." The America had won the cup in a fleet of 7 schooners and 8 cutters competing for the same trophy. That was really different from 23 yachts out to prevent one from winning. But Ashbury let that pass. His Cambria 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 lightweather defender and protested the second race on an alleged foul. Then she won a race with the 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 disallowed, 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 Ava. His Letters from High Latitudes, written to his mother from the cabin of his schooner yacht in Arctic seas, are salty and charming though nearly a century out of date. Maritime Canada was too busy making money out of wooden ships to spend any iron men 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 centre-boarders, 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 Jessie Scarth. These all came back, too. In 1875 the schooners Edward Blake, Thistle, W. W. Grant, City of Manitowoc, Thos. C. Street and Jessie Scarth carried cargoes of timber from Cheboygan in the Straits of Mackinaw to London, for B. R. Clarkson of Toronto, yachtsman owning the Lady Standley [Lady Stanley], Prince of Wales Cup winner.

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 a freshwater Donald McKay, of Lightning fame, Vice-Commodore Charles Gifford of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club 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 facing the phenomenal sloop Gorilla, "ugly as sin and fast as the devil's daughter." She won the Prince of Wales Cup four times. 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 honor of the new Governor General's lady.

Canada could not complain of the sportsmanship of the New York Yacht Club in the ensuing contest. Much courtesy was shown, even to supplementing the challenger's wardrobe. They lent her light sails and a spinnaker in place of her outmoded square-sail for running, and they allowed three races, and against one and the same opponent. If the audacious Canadian challenge accomplished nothing else it could be congratulated on bringing into international yacht racing the present standard of fair play.

It is not proposed to here go into the details of this third contest for the Blue Ribbon, the last in its long history sailed between schooners with their multitudinous sails on two tall masts. Next week we shall tell how the challenger got to the lists. For from Toronto to New York is a long way by water.