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1920 America's Cup

Field	Value
competition	13th America's Cup
image	Resolute 1914.jpg
image alt	Black and white photograph of the yacht Resolute under full sail
caption	NYYC's defending yacht, Resolute
defender country	United States
defender flag variant	1920
defender burgee	Burgee of the New York Yacht Club.svg
defender club	New York Yacht Club
defender yacht	Resolute
challenger country	United Kingdom
challenger flag variant	civil
challenger burgee	Burgee of royal ulster yc.svg
challenger club	Royal Ulster Yacht Club
challenger yacht	Shamrock IV
location	New York Harbor
coordinates
dates	1901
rule	Universal Rule
winning club	New York Yacht Club
score	3–2
prev	1903
edition	13th
next	1930

The 1920 America's Cup was the 13th challenge for the Cup and the first since 1903. It took place in New York Harbor and consisted of a best-of-five series of races between the defender Resolute, entered by a syndicate of New York Yacht Club members headed by Henry Walters, and Shamrock IV, the fourth in Sir Thomas Lipton's line of Cup challengers. Charles Francis Adams III was the skipper of Resolute in this race.

Despite being disabled in the first race and losing the second, Resolute won the final three races and in doing so retained the Cup on behalf of the NYYC, continuing the club's unbroken record of defending the America's Cup.

The 1920 America's Cup was originally scheduled to take place in 1914 but was postponed upon the outbreak of World War I.

The 13th Cup challenge was the last to take place in New York, and the first held under the Universal Rule of measurement. Due to the rule, Shamrock IV owed Resolute seven minutes time.

Lipton challenges a fourth time

Following his unsuccessful Cup challenge in 1903, Lipton, founder of the Lipton tea company, attempted to persuade the NYYC to adopt new rules of measurement for America's Cup yachts that would reduce their cost, which was widely seen to be a result of the Seawanhaka rule then used by the club. Despite the NYYC having adopted the new Universal Rule in 1903, formulated by Nathaniel Herreshoff, for its own races, it was reluctant to allow its use for America's Cup races and refused several challenges issued by Lipton until finally accepting in 1913.{{cite book

Trials

The 1914 defender selection trials pitted Resolute against Vanitie. In winning, Resolute set a course record.

Race

The American defender Resolute won 3–2 against the challenger Shamrock IV.{{cite news |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120331213418/http://32nd.americascup.com/en/acclopaedia/circlinggalaxy/bateau.php?idContent=4869&idRubr=74 |archive-date=2012-03-31

During the first race, Shamrock IV crossed the line ahead of the start, having to circle back around and provide an early lead to Resolute. However, later in the race the shackle holding Resolute's mainsail broke, forcing the boat to complete the race only under jib. This provided Lipton with his first America's Cup victory, although he refused to celebrate the win.

The second race was without incident and Shamrock IV won by a corrected two minutes ahead of Resolute.

The following three races were under lighter conditions, which disadvantaged Shamrock IV and allowed Resolute to win. Police estimated that over 75,000 people watched the final race.

The course for the race was laid out by Lewis Blix.

References

(January 16, 1934). "Capt. L.W. Blix Dead; Yacht Race Expert". The New York Times.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

america's-cup-regattas 1920-in-sailing 1920-in-american-sports 1920-in-sports-in-new-york-(state)

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