SCOTS IN OYSTER BAY - Chapter Three - The Scots return

Chapter Three

The Scots Return

Herbert Thom enjoyed three seasons with Westra, becoming class champion in 1934, 1935 and 1936. The main competition was coming from the Russell’s old boat Sanda, now sailed by James Buchanan.

Westra, No 1 and Sanda, No 5

Westra leads my Stroma, No 4 to the finish

The fleet

Just when Herbert Thom was looking for a new challenge he was approached jointly by Alexander Robertson & son and David Boyd, who suggested that they produce a new six metre for him. The result was Circe, which was Boyd’s first design for a metre boat. By the end of 1937 Circe had won 24 flags including six firsts, the largest number in any class, despite being dismasted on the first day of Clyde Fortnight. The Glasgow Herald reported that her helmsman already had 312 flags in 12 years, so was now up to 336.

When it was decided that a team of British sixes would contest the British America Cup and the Royal Northern yacht Club challenged for the Seawanhaka Cup, Circe had to be involved.

The British America Cup would go to the first team of four to win four races. Team racing requires a different cultural approach, a profound knowledge of the rules and the confidence to put boats at risk and get away with it. It’s best done on true one-design boats, which six metres patently are not. I suspect that the British team would have had little if any experience of this type of competition.

The British yachts were Mr R M Teacher’s Erica, Herbert Thom’s Circe, Mr J H Maurice Clark’s Vrana, all Scottish boats, and Solenta, owned by Eldon and Kenneth Trimingham of Bermuda. The American team consisted of Mr Briggs Cunningham’s Fun, Mr George Nichols’ Goose, Mr Paul Shields’ Rebel and Mr Henry Morgan’s Djinn.

The Scottish yachts were duly craned aboard the Anchor liner California, while Herbert Thom, accompanied by his mother and son John travelled on the Donaldson Line’s Letitia. The cost to each owner would have been about £1,500, a very substantial sum.

The races were a disaster for the British team. In the first race, sailed in variable but mainly light conditions, the Americans got first, second, fourth and seventh places, with Circe last. In the second race, sailed in a nice breeze of 10 to 13 mph, the Americans forced Circe and Vrana over the start line and they were recalled. The Americans got first, second, third and seventh places, Solenta at fourth was the best British boat and Circe came sixth.

The next day the wind was very light. Djinn forced Solenta and Circe over the start line at the expense of being over herself and all three got recalled. Later on Djinn fouled Circe and Henry Morgan promptly withdrew. The British boats were now generally doing rather well, when the race committee decided that the time limit of four hours would not be met and cancelled the race.

On day four Goose luffed Solenta and collided with her, causing both to protest. The yachts had been only five feet apart when Goose’s skipper put his helm down hard and at the subsequent hearing she was disqualified. As this was a re-sail of the third race Djinn remained disqualified for her skipper’s behaviour the day before. The British skippers pleaded with the committee to waive this and allow Henry Morgan to compete, but the rule was enforced, so the Americans had a serious handicap. They got the first and second places, but still lost on points. Circe came fourth.

In the fourth race, day five of sailing, there was a good breeze. The Americans won with first, second, fifth and eighth places and Circe came fourth again.

The Americans won again on the final day with first, fourth, fifth and sixth places in very light airs. Circe, considered to be a heavy weather boat, came seventh.

On the evening of the last day the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club declared that Goose would defend the Seawanhaka Cup and the Royal Northern nominated Circe to challenge for it. It is unlikely that the challengers felt they had much of a chance, but by now Herbert Thom had had time to learn about the local conditions. For the challenge he had his pick of crew from all the British boats. 

He selected William MacAusland (the wee fellow in the picture) from Mr Teacher’s Erica and Sandy Baird (on the left, later Harbourmaster at Bermuda) and Murray Maclehose (the tall chap on Thom’s left, later to be the Governor of Hong Kong) from Maurice Clark’s Vrana to sail with him and his son John (extreme right). He selected the best sails from all the British boats too.

On the first day of the series any American complacency was severely shaken. The Glasgow Herald reported,

“It was a nasty day for sailing, judged by the standards of ladies afternoon sailing parties. There was an easterly blowing up the sound, seventeen miles an hour at the start and clear to twenty five at the finish. It was piling up a real sea, steep, rugged navy, and out of the low grey clouds heavy cold rain squalls sluiced down now and again. Maybe Circe thought she was back at home in her own Firth O’ Clyde waters, for it was a dour day for these parts. At any rate she went, and Goose, fastest all-around yacht of the American sixmetre fleet, couldn't hold her under the conditions.”

The second race had a triangular course, sailed in another blustery day. Herbert Thom gave Circe a perfect start and Goose couldn’t catch her, finishing twenty four seconds behind.

The third race was sailed in Goose’s weather, a light easterly with a windward/leeward course again. Goose had by far the better start and covered Circe as the latter tacked several times in quick succession. Suddenly the wind whipped round to the southeast, giving a reach to the windward mark, at which Goose was two minutes thirty-five seconds ahead. The return was now a reach in about seven miles an hour of wind and Goose rounded the next mark just over five minutes ahead. There was now a run to the original weather mark. Circe made up a little and was four minutes ten seconds behind at the final turn.

The final leg was now a beat. The wind died and both boats drifted along, Circe holding inshore of Goose. Herbert Thom must have scented a land breeze, because while Goose lay becalmed Circe silently eased sheets and started moving very gently, gradually overhauling her and steadily easing sheets again, picking up speed, while the crew of Goose could only sit and watch. The wind eventually reached Goose, but it was too late. At the very end she tried the expedient of setting her spinnaker, but to no avail. Circe finished half a minute ahead and won the Cup.

Aftermath

After their return from the States the Russells stayed with six metres and commissioned a new boat, Mara, from Alfred Mylne. Their yacht Kyla has enjoyed a long retirement and now sails, fully restored, in France.

Herbert Thom successfully defended the Cup against a Norwegian challenge on the Clyde in late 1939. He then sold Circe and went back to the Islanders after the War, commissioning a new yacht Canna. He continued in his unbeatable ways, winning virtually everything until by August 1963 he was exhausted and, perhaps mindful of his father’s history of heart trouble, decided to retire. Over a racing career that lasted 60 years Herbert Thom had won 690 flags, including 453 first places. He died in 1986 at the age of 96.

Circe didn’t enjoy a happy retirement. She was sold to the Russians who took her to Helsinki for the 1952 Olympic Games, where they came a bad last. The story in Finland is that afterwards they held a party and barbecue during which they burnt Circe. Only her drawings remain, in the archives at Kilmory, Argyll.

Of the American boats Bob Kat II is believed to be still around, possibly in Italy, while Goose has been fully restored and is based in Puget Sound, Washington State.

Mystery Yacht found - She's a Herreshoff!

Thanks to a sharp-eyed contributor to this blog, Allen Clarke of Dartmouth, the mystery yacht has been spotted in the South of England, where she is evidently all shipshape and Bristol fashion, in more ways than one, having been launched in Bristol Rhode Island in 1921 as design no 861 of the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company.

She was the first boat built by the company that they hadn't designed in-house, being from the pen of W Starling Burgess, whose assistant and no doubt partner in the drawing work was the thirty year old L Francis.

Sheila was commissioned by her first owner Paul Hammond to compete in the inaugural British America Cup Races and was shipped along with two other six metres from the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club to the Isle of Wight in the Summer of 1921.

It seems the American's weren't too successful in the first series, something they rectified later.

I don't know who bought the Sheila from Mr Hammond, but in 1933 she was acquired by Iain W Rutherford, who converted her for cruising by closing in the forward hatch, adding a mizzen and the huge windlass I noted in my last post. He also renamed her Suilven, after the famous Scottish mountain, although she has now reverted to Sheila and carries sail number K25.

Mr Rutherford and (I guess) his wife are probably the cosy couple in my original pictures. They cruised in Suilven extensively around the North west of Scotland, also managing a trip to Norway and a circumnavigation of Ireland, until 1938 when he bought the eight metre Pleiades of Rhu. He wrote about his trips, and his wartime experiences, in his book "At the Tiller".

I reckon that conditions in a converted racing yacht must have been pretty extreme, compared to those in something designed for the job. Nearly forty years ago I nearly bought the six-metre Nada, a William Fife III design, when she was lying at Dumbarton in terrible condition. Her cockpits had been covered over to keep the seas out leaving a couple of small hatches for access and the helmsman with a shallow fibreglass tray to sit in, there being a pair of steel lugs to which he could attach himself. Down below presented a long, narrow, dark, dank space equipped with a row of pipe-cots, although on a long beat across the North Sea I imagine you would probably be sleeping more on the side of the hull than in your berth. She had apparently made several long sea voyages in this configuration.

Periods spent in cruising rig have of course enabled many of these old treasures to survive, Nada included, as she's now again in fine racing trim.

Sheila is a lot less extreme than Nada and her principal dimensions are interesting, considering her year of design. They are:-

LOA, 27' 0"; LWL, 23' 6"; beam, 7' 0"; draft, 5' 2"

Very similar to my own Scottish Islander of 1928, which has been compared to a sawn-off six, but Sheila has a longer waterline in an even shorter hull.

She's much shorter than Fife designs of the same period and I guess that W Starling Burgess and L Francis were expecting rough conditions in England and designed a powerful short hull rather than a long slender one that would be better in light airs. In any event she's incredibly modern for her year and it's a pity she didn't do better. It would be interesting to find a report of the racing, which no doubt will be somewhere within the Seawanhaka archives.

I'm going to give Allen ten out of ten for spotting Sheila and myself five for getting some of my guesses right in the last post. She was a much earlier design than I thought, although the photos were from the thirties and she doesn't have a fin keel, see here:-

The mast had been built curved, Swedish square-metre fashion, to improve the aerofoil shape (although it added weight aloft in pre-carbon fibre days).

And of course she has a wee tiller below the deck, in common with most sixes of the time.

I hope that our American friends are pleased to find that the product of two of their best-loved masters of design survives after ninetyone years.