English Letter. 
The New Shamrock a Winner. 
Although only three races of tlie season have 
been sailed it is evident thus early that at last 
Sir Thomas Lipton has hacked a winner. No 
one who saw the latest Fife Shamrock win her 
maiden race can .deny the fact that the boat is 
a rare good one—probably the fastest ever built 
in this country. She made an exceedingly bad 
start—not at all what we expect from Sycamore 
—being left to leeward of the line and was four 
minutes late in crossing. The only excuse that 
can be made for Sycamore is that the neighbor¬ 
hood of the line was rather crowded and that 
he was in danger at one time of fouling a 
steamer at anchor. Shamrock, too, was the only 
boat in the race which had not enlisted the ser¬ 
vices of a pilot with the result that she man¬ 
aged to secure the worst of the strong tide 
running up from the Shoebury Sands. As Syca¬ 
more himself remarked at the conclusion of the 
race, he is not at all likely to make many such 
starts in the course of a season. 
Before proceeding to describe the first match 
I will give the dimensions of the three 23-meter 
cutters as supplied by the official measurer. They 
are: 
r——Rating- 
Length. Beam. Feet. Meter.-;. 
Shamrock . 81.38 21.00 75.38 23 
White Heather . SO.95 21.30 75.3(1 23 
Brynhild . 81.34 21.80 75.25 23 
From the above it will be seen that the new 
boat has the longest waterline, while she has 
also the smallest beam of the trio. In the water 
she looks the smallest hulled craft of the three, 
but this may to some extent be due to her green 
topsides, the other vessels in the class being 
painted white. Before her first racing appear¬ 
ance a good deal was written and talked about 
the enormous sail spread of Fife’s latest creation, 
but when we come to hard facts and figures it 
is found that she has only 64 square feet more 
than Brynhild and 69 square feet more than 
White Heather. The actual figures are : 
Sq. ft. ■ Sq. ft. 
Shamrock . 9493 White Heather . 9424 
Brynhild . 9429 
The explanation will be found in the fact 
that the new craft's canvas is rather more lofty 
than that of either of her opponents. 
To return the actual racing. The weather was 
thick all day and the breeze from light to moder¬ 
ate—conditions which were popularly supposed 
to be none too favorable to Shamrock. It was 
in the main, however, a true wind, all the com¬ 
petitors being served about alike. White 
Heather, however, was none too well equipped 
for the test, as Bevis had unbent his new main¬ 
sail and substituted one of last year’s with an 
extra cloth in it, as he anticipated much more 
unfavorable weather than was experienced. As 
matters eventuated this was a piece of bad judg¬ 
ment on his part, and to some extent it was a 
factor in his defeat. But the real fact remains 
that the new Shamrock was the best boat in the 
race and her win was thoroughly deserved. She 
pointed higher than any of her rivals and com¬ 
pletely outsailed them with the exception that 
on the only bit of running there was on the 
course Sycamore was on the wrong jibe; Sham¬ 
rock was sailed faultlessly. 
There is no love lost between our two leading 
skippers, and it must be admitted that Bevis was 
none too pleased with his beating. That there 
will be fun during the season was soon evident, 
as at the Royal Harwich Y. C. regatta, when 
the boats met for the second time, they came to¬ 
gether at the last mark, and Sycamore, trying 
to force a passage, fouled White Heather. The 
new boat finished im. 18s. ahead—the course was 
thirty-eight miles in length—but there was. of 
course, a protest and Shamrock was disqualified. 
The collision was within an ace of having serious 
results, as Mr. W. P. Barton’s 15-meter cutter 
Britomart was nearly involved, and had she been 
struck by Shamrock, life would probably have 
been sacrificed. The third race of the class was 
from Harwich back to Southend and was sailed 
under extraordinary weather conditions, includ¬ 
ing almost flat calms and thunderstorms which 
made the boats stagger. Bevis and Sycamore 
again looked after each other at the start anti 
White Heather had the worst of it with the 
result that she was whipped into the fleet all day. 
Shamrock was too busy engaged attending to 
White Heather to pay much attention to Bryn¬ 
hild who led from start to finish and won by 
3m. 3s. The victory was a very popular one, 
as Brynhild’s owner, Sir James Pender, has been 
very unfortunate in his racing career. Last sea¬ 
son he only won one first prize, so that his suc¬ 
cess thus early gave great satisfaction. The 
boats will meet again next week on three days, 
two being matches in the River Thames—which 
are very fluky as a rule—and one the historic 
Nore to Dover fixture. As a result of the three 
first races the records of the three boats are 
equal, each having won one first and one second 
prize. 
In addition to the interest which will this sea¬ 
son center in the big cutter class, we will have 
a lot of sport with the unlimited class of schoon¬ 
ers and yawls which are rated and sail on an 
international time scale. Great Britain and 
America are well represented in this section 
which is known as the “A” class. From your 
side of the Atlantic we have the German Em¬ 
peror's Cary Smith two-sticker Meteor and the 
Empress’s Iduna, which is perhaps better known 
as Yampa. British built schooners are repre¬ 
sented by the Watson designed Hamburg, which 
was originally the Rainbow, Fife’s Susanne and 
Cicely, and Soper’s Clara, though only Cicely 
sails under a British flag. The German-owned 
boats had a fast sailed race all to themselves 
from Bremerhaven to Felixstowe to open the 
season, and among the competitors was the old 
America’s cup challenger Thistle, now known as 
Komet and used as a sort of training ship in 
the German navy. She had an allowance of two 
hours from Meteor and Hamburg which were 
the scratch boats, while Iduna had an extra three- 
quarters of an hour. The latter was an easy 
winner, as will be seen by the corrected timings 
which were: 
Iduna . 12 31 07 Meteor . 2 20 15 
Kcmet . 1 40 24 Hamburg . 3 10 08 
The distance sailed was about 370 miles and 
tlie winner did the trip in twenty-six hours. 
Hamburg was rather unfortunate in the race, 
losing nine minutes at the start through her club- 
topsail fouling, while about an hour and a half 
later she broke her spinnaker boom and lost 
some time in repairing it. 
1 he Prince of Wales, who is commodore of 
the Royal Harwich Club and who has bought 
the old ketch Corisande for his sons, gave a cup 
for the class at the Harwich regatta, and we 
were all anxious to see how Cicely, which has 
been laid up for several seasons, would shape 
against her old rival Meteor. In the early days 
of the boats the Fife craft was generally too 
good for the Imperial schooner and her new 
I * 
AILS A CRAIG, WINNER OF THE BERMUDA RACE. 
IRENE II. BEFORE THE START. Copyright, 190S, by E. Levick. 
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