A Day In History - 22 August 1851 and 2024

When ‘Old’ Dick Brown guided the schooner ‘America’ deftly across the finishing line at the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes in dying breeze and light, against the tide, and with the cutter ‘Aurora’ closing up fast, little could he imagine what the resultant racing some 173 years later would look like.

The prize back in 1851, like today, was an elaborate Victorian silver ewer, incapable of holdings liquids that had been purchased in 1848 by the Marquess of Anglesey, on spec from the Royal warranted jewellers, R&S Garrard of Panton Street, just off Piccadilly in London.

Having been gifted by the Marquess to the Squadron, it was originally named the ‘RYS £100 Cup,’ and a trial of speed around the Isle of Wight was suggested when the ‘America,’ an east coast Pilot Boat design of George Steers, came to England to take on the best of the British fleet in a happy coincidence with Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition taking place, that year, in Hyde Park in 1851.

At the time, the Royal Yacht Squadron was keen to test its fleet against the best and had rather hoped that the aged Russian Tsar, Nicholas I, would send over representatives of the newly-formed Imperial Yacht Club of St. Petersburg to trial.

That failed to materialise as the Russians, one of the great flax exporters and manufacturers of the time, entered the Thames for the Great Exhibition and never came further south, so it was the syndicate-owned ‘America’ of the New York Yacht Club with its first Commodore, John Cox Stevens, who arrived amidst a flurry of publicity in both the mainstream and satirical news outlets of the day.

An air of invincibility was almost immediately created around the speed of the ‘America’ after an opening encounter a few miles down the coast when the newly-built cutter ‘Laverock’ courteously escorted the Americans up the Solent on their first morning in British waters from Ryde to her mooring off Cowes. A good deal of bluff was in place too, as the swashbuckling, stylish American syndicate owners were keen to wager outrageous sums of money on speed trials which were declined or simply ignored by the cautious and stilted owners of the British fleet.

Eventually on August 22, a race around the Isle of Wight was arranged and the legend of ‘America’s Cup’ began. Now, 173 years later to the day, we are at the start of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup that still at its very core has the guiding ‘Deed of Gift’ that accompanied the original donation of the trophy to the New York Yacht Club by George L. Schuyler in 1857. Updated in parts, the Deed of Gift remains true to its central tenet of: “a friendly competition between foreign countries.”

Technology today has brought us to carbon fibre vessels capable of flying above the water on foils and hitting speeds – unimaginable back in 1851 – in excess of 50 knots. The crews today are elite, cross-discipline athletes, many with Olympic and endurance sport backgrounds whilst the helms and trimmers are Olympic medallists and World Champions.

Back in 1851, a government shipyard in Cherbourg was used to fit-out the ‘America’ into racing trim after her voyage from across the Atlantic before she crossed the English Channel to Cowes. Today, the boats are designed on super-computers, using the latest in Artificial Intelligence and simulation technology to create the fastest vessels on the planet.

Rumour and myth, just like in 1851, swirls around the Port Vell on a daily basis. What nobody knows for certain is just how fast all the competitors really are – and we may not know the true answer to that question until the Louis Vuitton Cup starts on the August 29 when everything gets ultra serious and every point, every race, matters.

In 1851 the schooner ‘America’ seemed invincible. Today the competition is simply too close to call with every team expected to be extremely similar in performance with only small differences across a wide range of conditions.

The skill of sailing, however, remains very much the same. ‘Old’ Dick Brown and the crew of ‘America’ (including a certain 15-year-old Henry Steers) had in their employ a skilled British navigator, Robert Underwood, who guided the schooner to victory around the tricky waters of the Isle of Wight. In Barcelona in 2024, the sailor’s skills will be tested to the extreme with the venue able to throw up a huge variety of wind and sea-states on any given day. Mother Nature will, just like in 1851, have a big part to play in the outcome and destiny of the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup.

August 22 is a legendary day for America’s Cup fans and aficionados. From 1851 to 2024, a lot has changed but an awful lot stays very much the same. It is the pinnacle of international yacht racing and 2024 promises to be the truest test of speed, seamanship and skill before the winner is crowned and the America’s Cup awarded.

Text and images courtesy of The America’s Cup.