AMERICA CUP

Hokitika Guardian, 3 July 1929, Page 7

AMERICA CUP

NEW STYLE. It seems a far ci v now to the days when British tempers were quite seriously ruffled in sympathy with Lord Duimiven’s protest that his yacht Valkyrie had been fouled by pleasure steamers in her attempt to regain the America Utip, or even to the years when eager crowds would gather round the windows of newspaper offices on the day of the race to watch Shamrock and Columbia flit in miniature, as the cables arrived, across the face of a vast map of the American course (says the “Manchester Guardian”). Many a sport, from dog racing to dirt tracks, has seized upon the imagination of the public since then. But life and interest will undoubtedly return to the historic yachting contest when next year there takes place the fourteenth race for the Cup since America won it nearly eighty years ago. It is not only that Sir Thomas Lipton’s dogged belief that the thing can be done—a belief that has survived four defeats, of which the first was thirty years ago—deserves respect. The race itself will be fought under fairer conditions than it has been since the first contest in Southampton Water, when two typical seagoing yachts of the period fought it' out. In latter years the American defender, sailing in home waters has tended to become a marvel of ingenuity for racing purposes, .whereas the challenger, with the Atlantic to cross, has had to conform much more strictly to the standard of normal yacht design. Recently, however, the New York Yacht Club decided that all vessels built to its rules must conform, as do British yachts, to Lloyd’s regulations for construction and classification. That decision eliminates tlie racing freak from important American yachting fixtures, for Lloyd’s rules demand stout and seaworthy building that ■ can find no place for excessive refinements aiming at mere lightness. With this disparity between the craft at last removed the contest takes on a fresh reality, If British design and seamanship cannot this time achieve victory -it will not be for lack of an even chance.