CANADA on the Glory Tack: Schooner Days MCLV (1151)

by C. H. J. Snider

NEVER haying seen a hockey match, and being equally ignorant of diplomacy, Schooner Days is in no position to comment on the luck of the East York Lyndhursts as goodwill ambassadors to the Kremlin.

But as the Canada's Cup, an international blue-ribbon event since 1896, is coming up for the 10th time this summer, it may be of assistance, to consider how other amateurs went about winning that trophy in their time.

A match having been arranged in the winter of 1895-96 between the Royal Canadian Yacht Club and the Lincoln Park Yacht Club, Chicago, for a race between top-notch cutters, a syndicate was formed by Canadian yachtsmen — Aemilius Jarvis, George Gooderham, George H. Gooderham, S. F. McKinnon, and F. J. Phillips, all of Toronto, and James Ross of Montreal — to provide the Canadian candidate.

These amateurs spent $6,000 and their valuable time in getting the boat, and seven other amateurs - eight, including Jarvis, devoted their whole summer to sailing her to victory. The seven others were J. H. Fearnside, of Hamilton, and Gerald Boulton, Wm. Moran, Edward Bailey, Herbert Parsons, Sidney Small and W. S. Clouson, all of Toronto.

The Lincoln Park club's commodore, Charles E. Berriman, had begun to build a fin-keel cutter, the latest wrinkle. She was designed by a Poekel, a draughtsman in the famous Herreshoff establishment, which had produced the phenomenal cutter Niagara. She swept the board in British waters in 1895 facing with the 20-raters. The Berriman candidate, named Vencedor, was said to be a copy of her.

There were half a dozen good cutters on Lake Ontario at the time, but the Canadian syndicate did no shopping around. They cabled to Will Fife, Jr., of Fairlie in Scotland, the leading British designer, to let them have plans and specifications for a cutter of 42-ft. racing length, the minimum agreed upon. Within two months of the arrival of the plans, the new yacht was sailing the first of her trial races on Lake Ontario. She had grown like a mushroom from the ballast up, in the building shed of Capt. James Andrew of Oakville. She was ready for caulking six weeks after her keel timber was cut.

Aemilius Jarvis, then 36 and manager of the Bank of Hamilton, was the managing owner in the syndicate from the day the cable was sent to Fife—on his suggestion—and he was not one to let the grass grew under his feet.

Four months after her blueprints arrived from Scotland the Canada, as she was happily christened, was racing off Toledo on Lake Erie for the trophy which has borne her name ever since.

Nor was she pitchforked into the contest half rigged and with the fresh paint peeling off her bottom and the crew running around in circles looking for the key of the keelson and trying to find which way the sails went up. She had been perfectly groomed for two months, and her crew had done nothing but train daily in the same period.

Jarvis ruled ship and crew, syndicate and race committee, with a rod of iron, nicely polished, never flourished, seldom seen.

The Canada's racing crew of prominent business men did all their own work, from potleading to palm-and-needle. They lived on board. No pullmans, no cocktail lounges, no parties while the Cup was unwon. They did have one good pro sailor, Ed. Roach, for "beef on the rope" and shipkeeping and cooking. But they all, including Jarvis, worked as hard as Roach and harder. They sailed Canada on her own bottom all the way from Toronto to Toledo. It gave more opportunity for training.

Before starting, Jarvis explained to his gentlemen crew that to live together in comfort in small compass it was necessary to have a place for everything and everything in its place. Each day after breakfast he would make an inspection of the ship.

The first morning he found pyjamas sticking out of lockers, the odd shoe on the cabin floor, and a shaving brush rolling around. The Canada towed up the Long Level of the Welland Canal with a wake of loose belongings floating till they sank.

Next morning one of the amateurs—at home a business magnate—was howling for his towel and toilet kit. He hadn't even a toothbrush.

"Isn't it in your bag, So-and-so?" asked Jarvis. He always used the sir-name in formal address.

"No, Aemilius," replied the big shot. "I don't remember bringing it down yesterday after I shaved on deck. Dammit, it must have blown overboard!"

"No, So-and-so," said Jarvis. "I threw it overboard when I found it draped around the skylight. A place for everything, and everything in its place, you know."

Later Jarvis threw another erring amateur onto the deck at Cleveland and left him there, for an indiscretion connected with hoisting, although he was a lifelong friend.

Big Shot gnashed his teeth, but the result of such discipline was that the crew of the Canada could lay hands upon anything that was wanted, daylight or dark, blow high, blow low. They could reef the 1,000-foot mainsail in two minutes, they could shift jibtopsail in 30 seconds and gybe the enormous spinnaker in a minute flat. They knew where everything was, for they had put it there hundreds of times, and they knew where everything should go. That wins races.

It—and Jarvis' skill and judgment-won the Canada's Cup.