Seamarks: Three Pivotal Designs by L. Francis Herreshoff Part Three: The WHIRLWIND Debacle

摘要

In the summer and early fall of 1929, with the fun and games of the '20s still roaring, public interest in a new challenge for the AMERICA'S Cup from "the gallant Tommy Lipton," as the press liked to call the Irish tea magnate, was high. There hadn't been a Cup race for 10 years. Since 1899, Nathanael Herreshoff, with his COLUMBIA, RELIANCE, and RESOLUTE, had turned back four of Lipton's SHAMROCKS-two designed by William Fife Jr., the others by George L. Watson and Charles E. Nicholson. In the last Cup series, delayed from 1914 to 1920 by World War I, Nicholson's SHAMROCK IV had won the first two races in a best-of-five series. And Nicholson was the designer of the new SHAMROCK V. Who would be able to take the place of the 82-year-old Capt. Nat Herreshoff?