The 'Yankee Sloop': PURITAN and the 1885 AMERICA'S Cup

摘要

On a cold, gray day in December 1884, the New York Yacht Club received a letter from the 35-year-old Irish-born naval architect John Beavor-Webb, who announced that two yachts of his design intended to challenge for the AMERICA'S Cup. The first challenger would be the cutter GENESTA, owned by Sir Richard Sutton, a baronet, sportsman, and member of the Royal Yacht Squadron (RYS). Should GENESTA fail, Lt. William Henn and his wife, Susan, owners of GALATEA, would then try. Beavor-Webb's letter prompted a nine-month period that would pit GENESTA against an American yacht that, in December 1884, didn't even exist. That vessel, PURITAN, would in due course be recognized as the fastest American yacht yet built. What's more, at a time when the first iron yachts had appeared along with "composite" hulls of steel framework and wooden planking, PURITAN would be the last AMERICA'S Cup defender built entirely of wood until COLUMBIA in 1958.