Donan Raven's Sailing Trivia: NYYC/RYS Transatlantic Race

Here is Daniel Forster's photograph of a poster titled "The Evolution of Yacht Design in Transatlantic Winners" and presented yesterday at the New York Yacht Club. The annotations are not readable, I suppose that the first half-hull is that of James Gorden Bennett, Jr.'s 1861 Steers-built 205-ton Henrietta, winner of the first transatlantic race in 1866, but I have never seen a model and I am not sure at all of the plumb bow portrayed here, so it could be a later schooner instead. [[erratum: the half-hull actually matches the Coronet (1885) very precisely. Her owner Rufus T. Bush won a match across the Atlantic ocean in a $10,000 wager against the Dauntless (1866), which had lost another transatlantic match in 1870 against the first America's Cup challenger Cambria (1868). The Coronet still exists and is currently undergoing a complete rebuild by the Newport International Yacht Restoration School with a $15m budget in a purposely-built shed. Work is carried out by pupils and volunteers and is therefore slow, but visits can be arranged. Follow the project here]]
The second model is the Atlantic (1905 Kaiser's Cup) and the third model is the S&S yawl Dorade (1931 race). The underbody of the stunning Phil Rhodes 1969 sloop Carina, which won in her class in 1969, looks remarkably like the fourth hull. The 2011 winner Rambler (100ft Kouyoumdjian supermaxi) was swapped for the half-hull of the 90ft Reichel/Pugh Rambler, which never took part in the race at all. Look here instead. [[erratum: Rambler 90 did win the 2007 Newport-Hamburg race]]

Both Dorade and Carina have entered this year's race in IRC Class 4, and today, the exciting Class 1 match between Rambler 88 and Comanche starts.

Jumping slightly ahead of the finish gun for winner predictions, the 63ft Reichel/Pugh-designed Lucky (originally Loki, winner of the 2011 race from Sydney to Hobart) is expected to take line honours and the IRC overall flag. She is followed rather closely by the 138ft Herreshoff schooner Mariette, but unlike the larger Herreshoff racer Elena which won the race in 1928, Mariette is a cruiser, having taken a leisurely 12kt average since the start and keeping most of the faster chasing fleet in check, though the 100ft Finot/Conq fast cruiser Nomad IV is due to overtake her before the finish.