America

Type

Schooner

Period

19th Century

Nation

United States

Overview: America was a 19th-century racing schooner yacht built for a syndicate of New York Yacht Club members, and she is famous as the vessel that won the 1851 Royal Yacht Squadron regatta at Cowes, England — a race whose trophy was later renamed the America's Cup in her honor. Specifications: According to her Wikipedia profile, America measured 101 ft 3 in overall (89 ft 10 in on the waterline), with a 22 ft 10 in beam, 10 ft 11 in depth, and a gaff schooner sail plan carrying about 5,296 sq ft of sail; her hull was built of white oak, locust, cedar, and chestnut, and she originally carried a light armament of two 24-pounders and one 12-pounder. A period account also notes her low, lean hull carrying her maximum beam far forward, rigged simply with a maximum of four sails carried on a pair of dramatically raked masts, and fitted with tightly woven cotton duck sails and low, carefully molded lead ballast. Service History: She was designed by George Steers and built at New York City in the shipyard of William H. Brown, for a syndicate headed by Commodore John Cox Stevens of the New York Yacht Club, and launched on 3 May 1851, after which she sailed for Europe. She won the Royal Yacht Squadron regatta around the Isle of Wight on 22 August 1851 and was visited by Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales, after which her owners sold her to a British purchaser on 1 September 1851. She passed through several owners and renamings (Camilla, briefly reputed as the Confederate blockade-runner Memphis) before eventually returning to the United States; she ended up laid up in a shed at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, and after the shed collapsed in 1942 the Navy ordered her broken up in 1945. Notable Facts: Steers modeled the yacht on the pilot schooner Mary Taylor, but made her longer, slimmer, and capable of carrying more sail, giving her a distinctive, fast hull form that was considered revolutionary for the era. Two well-known replicas exist for reference: a 1967 build by Goudy and Stephens Shipyard in East Boothbay, Maine (considered the most historically faithful), and a 1995 Albany, NY replica that uses a modified fin keel rather than the original's deep, straight keel — a detail worth noting for anyone modeling the underwater hull shape.