Yachting

I learn via a recent copy of the Metro that the upcoming America's Cup is going to feature boats like that snapped above. Known to cognoscenti as AC75s. From the snaps turned up by Bing they seem to carry a crew of about a dozen and I read at reference 2 that on a good day they can manage 60mph, held aloft by one of the two fins. Fast enough, one might suppose, to be dangerous - I remember being told by a kiteboarder that hitting the water at 30mph can do serious damage.

Not the sort of thing that a gentleman would sail back in the heyday of the Royal London Yacht Club, noticed at reference 3.

The days when they sailed proper yachts with keels, wooden masts and canvas sails, like that snapped above. This one is Shamrock III, actually built for a grocer, but he counted as a gentleman as he was rich and he had good manners. I recall Dr. Slater (from reference 3) reporting a squabble from those days concerning the then new-fangled spinnakers, aka balloon sails - apparently a derivative of the top sails of proper yachts, the idea being to help catch the tricky winds of the Thames Estuary. On that occasion, new-fangled won.

I guess that what has not changed is that, other things being equal, the team with the most money to burn wins.

PS 1: Google Images does rather well on the snap above, turning up a good selection of photographs of yachts of the same class. Including the very same snap at reference 5, from 2008. Taken from the collection of photographs to be found in the book at reference 6. With my copy having once been the property of my artistic uncle, who also liked to mess about in boats on the Medway. While Abebooks turns up lots of copies of reference 7, one of reference 8 and others from the same series. Including the one we started with, at reference 6. Prices very mixed. Perhaps Chatto & Windus brought the whole series out, more or less in one go.

PS 2: all of which came to an end with a memory failure. To wit, I put Mrs. Muff of reference 9 at Chatto & Windus rather than at Heal's, where she belongs. Perhaps the link is Aldous Huxley, another arty eminence from the same era who was, I believe, published by Chatto & Windus. Snap above from eBay.

PS 3: I have now found out what all the cyclists were doing at reference 1. The rules of the race are that all the sail hauling has to be done by muscle power and it seems that the legs of serious cyclists can deliver more power than anything else. So they work what I think are called the grinders. Furthermore, the rules allow electric power below decks to work the computers, but not above decks to work the grinders. Not yet clear whether the same legs have to charge up the batteries. In any event, the rules are different for the ladies, who get more use out of their batteries.

References

Reference 1: https://www.ineosbritannia.com/#.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC75.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/shanklin.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/last-knockings.html. Not to be confused with the rather older (and presumably more illustrious) Royal Thames Yacht Club which turned up last year.

Reference 5: https://intheboatshed.net/tag/shamrock/.

Reference 6: Sailing - A Courtauld - 1935. Chatto & Windus. Volume V in the series 'Life and art in photograph'.

Reference 7: Life and art in photograph II: The Polar Regions: An Anthology of Arctic and Antarctic Photographs - Scott, J.M (edited with an introduction by) - 1935. Published by Chatto & Windus, London.

Reference 8: Life and Art in Photographs: Wild Animals - Helen Sidebotham - 1935.

Reference 9: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/mr-muff.html.