A Very Short History of the America's Cup

Part II, J-Class

The evolution of the America's Cup event and the yachts racing in it has been irregular and uneven. As with any sporting activity at that level, the story is largely about money and egos with the addition of long water lines. It wasn't until 1870 when the first serious attempt to wrest the Trophy away from the New York Yacht Club was made by James Asbury, out of the Royal Thames Yacht Club. He challenged the New York Yacht Club with his 264 ton yacht Livonia. At this time fleet racing, and not match racing, was the model for competition, therefore Asbury would have to have beaten every single boat in the NYYC in order to capture the Trophy. The New York fleet didn't let the Livonia get any where near to capturing the trophy.

Over the following 33 years, the competition for the America's Cup resembled cats in the a bag with a lot of squabbling back and forth across the Atlantic. England wanted the cup badly and mounted a series of extremely aggressive challenges for it. On occasion, she came close to winning the America's Cup but each time New York beat the challenging boat back. However, according to Wikipedia, the NYYC spent WHAT EVER it took to keep the Cup in New York, including through the depression in the 1930’s.

Both sides of the Atlantic continued to build bigger and bigger boats but two great names in yachting, Nathaniel Herreshoff and Sir Thomas Lipton, attempted to bring sanity back into the process by recommending the use of smaller, more sane boats. In 1914 a new rule was implemented that effectively restricted Cup boats to 75 feet, however the race was put on hold until 1920 because of World War I.

The 1930’s arrived along with the 12 meter rule and the J-Class rule. The three Cup races from 1930 to 1937 were raced with boats built to the J-Class rule. The yachts were huge, but at least there was a rule. The American and the British yachts were also drop dead beautiful as well as big. According to the J-Class Association web site, the reproduction of the Ranger, American defender in 1937, will have an over all length around 136 feet and weigh around 120 tons. Compare that to a ton and a half Olson 30.

The J-Class Association is responsible for keeping at least five boats on their keels. Three are original British boats with the other two being newly constructed reproductions. Rainbow, Lionhart, and Svea are under replication. Check out the J-Class Association web site at www.j-classyachts.com to see how the modern iteration of these very classy boats is progressing.

Hal Nauman