Sport: What a Pity!

Third Race. The sun was bright off Newport and a good breeze from Block Island (west southwest) turned the slow seas of the day before into a chop. There were about half as many yachts around the starting line as for the first two America’s Cup races of 1930. People had been saying that Enterprise could not lose so long as Skipper Vanderbilt kept sail on her. The course signals were up and both boats jockeyed at the line like boxers feeling each other out. Now the first drama of the series occurred. Captain Heard on Shamrock V timed the start better, had his boat over the line in the windward berth ten seconds ahead of Enterprise which had come up too soon and lost way delaying. They had raced a couple of miles on the windward leg before Skipper Vanderbilt caught up. Thrice they split tacks. Then Enterprise in the weather berth slid into her first lead. Her mechanical devices for sail-controlagain made her quicker coming about. Still, it was a good race, the closest yet, and on the Erin Sir Thomas Lipton was enjoying it. He was standing on the bridge, looking off at the boats, when suddenly he stiffened. He put up one of his big old hands to shade his eyes, and for a moment the other watchers, too, failed to understand what had happened.

Shamrock’s sail was down. Partly over the deck it lay, and partly in the sea. Some of the crew had been caught under it; some were on their feet, pulling at it. The sloop was coming up into the wind. The trouble was clear now: Shamrock’s main halyard had snapped. “What a pity,” said Sir Thomas Lipton as though to himself. He called his secretary, Major Westwood. “I wonder if anyone is overboard or hurt,” he said. “See what you can get on the radio.”

Skipper Vanderbilt too had been watching Shamrock closely. As the sail fell, he whipped Enterprise about. The committeemen were coming over in their boat. They shouted at Vanderbilt, telling him to go on. The rules of the America’s Cup races provide that if one boat is disabled the other is awarded the race, whether or not she completes the course. Skipper Vanderbilt knew that, remembered how Shamrock IV had won the first race of the series in 1920 by a similar accident. He sailed over to Shamrock V and came around her to make sure no one was hurt. Then he and Enterprise and her hard-sailing afterguard finished alone.

Sir Thomas had put the Erin about. A black tug had taken the disabled Shamrock in tow and started back to Newport. Sir Thomas was cracking jokes. They told him that one of his guests, Miss Eugenie Whitmore of Omaha, had gone down to her cabin to cry. When she reappeared Sir Thomas cracked a couple of jokes especially for her. He insisted that the race counted and said his boat would be ready to race again next day.

Last Race. The wind was west northwest. Skipper Vanderbilt kept away from Shamrock. He took a long time coming into the starboard tack and heading for the line, but still he was too soon and had to lose position running along the line waiting for the whistle. So Captain Heard won the start again. The first leg was to windward, to a buoy off Point Judith. Both crossed the line closehauled on the starboard tack with Shamrock about 200 yd. to windward. A minute after crossing the line Heard took the port tack and Vanderbilt followed him. Enterprise was footing faster, pointing higher as they headed toward Narragansett. Shamrock was far behind (9 min. 17 sec.) and the race practically over at the end of the first leg. On the two remaining legs Shamrock gained but only because Skipper Vanderbilt was taking no chances with his yacht’s gear. He was near home on the third leg before he set his spinaker and big balloon jib topsail. Never had the duralumin mast, the winches for every sail, the devices for measuring the strain on the stays proved their efficiency more clearly. Enterprise had swept the series, 4 to 0, winning this final race by more than five minutes.

On the Erin, Sir Thomas Lipton stepped away from his guests and the reporters on board gathered round him at the rail. All day they had been asking him if he would challenge again and he had refused to answer. Now he felt the time had come to speak. He looked tired and had abandoned his familiar pose of gayety.

“I will not challenge again. It’s no use. We cannot win,” he said. “I could not have had better . . . sportsmen to race against. You cannot blame them for doing their very best to win.”