Sport: Rainbow Defense

Rainbow is selected to defend the America’s Cup.

Behind that terse statement by the New York Yacht Club’s selection committee last week lay 25 summer days of trial races by the three contenders off Newport, R. I. Last fortnight the weakest candidate, Frederick H. Prince’s Weeta-moe, was eliminated. Harold Stirling Vanderbilt’s Rainbow settled down to the serious work of defeating Yankee, owned by a Boston syndicate and sailed by that fine old salt, onetime Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams.

Yankee had won most of the preliminary trials in June and July. Even the addition of five tons of lead to Rainbow’s keel was not enough to win the first race against Yankee in the final series. In her second race Skipper Vanderbilt outmaneuvered Skipper Adams at the start to win by three minutes over the international course. A squall from the north when the boats were running before a brisk southerly breeze blew Yankee’s parachute spinnaker flat against her mast, broke the jumper strut and forced her to withdraw from the third race. After the fourth, which Rainbow won in a fresh breeze over a 30-mi. triangle, by two-and-a-half minutes, observers were prepared to hear that Rainbow had been selected. Instead, they learned that another race had been scheduled for the next day.

That race will go down in yachting history. Yankee crossed the starting line to windward but Rainbow crept past her on the first tack. A sudden puff of wind tore Yankee’s Genoa jib. By the time she had replaced it, Rainbow had increased her lead. When the boats rounded the buoy 15 miles from the start, Rainbow was leading by 1 min. 34 sec. Coming back both set parachute spinnakers and Yankee began to gain. For 15 miles she inched up on Rainbow. A half mile from the finish, her bow was even with Rainbow’s mast. At the finish, a whistle blew as each boat flashed over the line but spectators had no idea which one had crossed first. The members of the race committee, shouting through cupped hands from the deck of the committee boat, told them: “Rainbow, by one second!”

In addition to the mishap to Yankee’s jib, she had been handicapped by a shift of wind that favored Rainbow. Her managing owner, Chandler Hovey, had just finished saying that he thought her showing amounted to a moral victory when he heard the news that Rainbow had been chosen. Said he: “It seems incredible.” Aboard Vanderbilt’s yacht Vara his guests did a war dance of delight.

Defender. Rainbow, unlike 4-year-old Yankee, was built last winter on purpose to defend the America’s Cup this year against Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith’s Endeavour. Owned by a syndicate which includes four Vanderbilts and 13 other sportsmen, she was called an “economy boat.” Fitted with some sails from the 1930 defender. Enterprise, she cost $500,000. She is 126 ft. overall. Her 165-ft. mast is taller than the Brooklyn Bridge.

Skipper. Until he sailed Enterprise to victory over the late Sir Thomas Lipton’s Shamrock V in 1930, Harold Stirling Vanderbilt was better known as a card player than as a yachtsman. He sponsored contract bridge in the U. S.; the “Vanderbilt” convention is named for him. Son of the late Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont, whose first husband was William K. Vanderbilt, he learned to sail off Newport when he was 7, took his Vagrant across the Atlantic in 1913 in 23 days, won the King’s Cup with Vagrant II in 1922 and 1925.

7-to-5. While Yankee was returning to drydock in Boston and Rainbow was trying out a mainsail borrowed from Weetamoe, Endeavour sailed up & down off Newport in informal practise runs with 20-year-old Vanitie. In Manhattan, Darnell & Co. despatched one of its representatives to inspect both boats, gave out their odds on the America’s Cup races which start next week: 7-to-5, on Endeavour.