''Reliance'' was the 1903
America's Cup
The America's Cup is a sailing competition and the oldest international competition still operating in any sport. America's Cup match races are held between two sailing yachts: one from the yacht club that currently holds the trophy (known ...
defender designed by
Nat Herreshoff.
''Reliance'' was funded by a nine-member syndicate of members of the
New York Yacht Club
The New York Yacht Club (NYYC) is a private social club and yacht club based in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1844 by nine prominent sportsmen. The members have contributed to the sport of yachting and yacht design. ...
headed by
Cornelius Vanderbilt III.
''Reliance'' was designed to take full advantage of the
Seawanhaka '90-foot'
rating rule and was suitable only for use in certain conditions. The 1903 America's Cup was the last to be raced according to the Seawanhaka rule.
Design
The design took advantage of a loophole in the Seawanhaka '90-foot' rating rule, to produce a racing
yacht
A yacht () is a sail- or marine propulsion, motor-propelled watercraft made for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a ...
with long overhangs at each end, so that when
heeled over, her
waterline
The waterline is the line where the hull of a ship meets the surface of the water.
A waterline can also refer to any line on a ship's hull that is parallel to the water's surface when the ship is afloat in a level trimmed position. Hence, wate ...
length (and therefore her
hull speed
Hull speed or displacement speed is the speed at which the wavelength of a vessel's bow wave is equal to the waterline length of the vessel. As boat speed increases from rest, the wavelength of the bow wave increases, and usually its crest-to- ...
) increased dramatically (see image at left).
To save weight, she was completely unfinished below
deck, with exposed frames. Reliance was the first racing boat to be fitted with
winch
A winch is a mechanical device that is used to pull in (wind up) or let out (wind out) or otherwise adjust the tension (physics), tension of a rope or wire rope (also called "cable" or "wire cable").
In its simplest form, it consists of a Bobb ...
es below decks, in an era when her competitors relied on sheer man-power. Despite this a crew of 64 was required for racing due to the large
sail plan
A sail plan is a drawing of a sailing craft, viewed from the side, depicting its sails, the spars that carry them and some of the rigging that supports the rig. By extension, "sail plan" describes the arrangement of sails on a craft. A sailing c ...
.
From the tip of her
bowsprit
The bowsprit of a sailing vessel is a spar (sailing), spar extending forward from the vessel's prow. The bowsprit is typically held down by a bobstay that counteracts the forces from the forestay, forestays. The bowsprit’s purpose is to create ...
to the end of her
boom, ''Reliance'' measured , and the tip of her mast was above the water (the height of a 20-story building).
Everything else was to an equally gargantuan scale; her
spinnaker pole
A spinnaker pole is a spar used in sailboats (both dinghies and yachts) to help support and control a variety of headsails, particularly the spinnaker. It is also used with other sails, such as genoas and jibs, when sailing downwind with no s ...
was long, and her total
sail
A sail is a tensile structure, which is made from fabric or other membrane materials, that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails may b ...
area of was the equivalent of eight
12 meter class yachts.
''Reliance'' was built for one purpose: to successfully defend the America's Cup.
Career
Her racing career was extraordinarily brief – and undefeated. She bested her America's Cup challenger, Sir
Thomas Lipton's ''
Shamrock III'', designed by
William Fife, in all three races, with ''Shamrock III'' losing by such a margin in the third that she was forced to retire. ''Reliance''s designer, Nathanael Herreshoff, immediately proposed the
Universal rating rule to avoid such extreme, dangerous and expensive vessels, which made ''Reliance'' an inadequate contestant in subsequent races. There was much speculation as to whether ''Reliance''s victory was due to the design of the yacht or the skill of Charlie Barr in sailing her. Lipton himself proposed to allow the two boats to swap crew after the race to decide the matter, but the offer was refused by the owners of ''Reliance''.
[
] Her very successful career was short-lived, and she was sold for scrap in 1913.
References
Further reading
*N. L. Stebbins, W. H. Bunting, ''Steamers, Schooners, Cutters and Sloops: Marine Photographs of N. L. Stebbins Taken 1884-1907'' (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1974)
*
Temple to the Wind- The Story of America's Greatest Naval Architect and His Masterpiece, Reliance'' by Christopher Pastore (
Lyons Press
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group is an American independent academic publishing company founded in 1949. Under several imprints, the company offers scholarly books for the academic market, as well as trade books. The company also owns t ...
2005, )
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reliance (Yacht)
America's Cup defenders
Individual sailing vessels
Yachts of New York Yacht Club members
1903 ships
Sailboat type designs by Nathanael Greene Herreshoff