| Description: | 1850 - On the urging of the New York Yacht Club to build a fast sailing boat, George Steers creates plans for the America. The low black schooner is designed using the reversal of the "cod-head-and-mackerel-tail style." 1851 - Answering a challenge from the Royal Yacht Squadron, the schooner America enters the Hundred Guinea Cup race, a 53-mile race around the Isle of Wight. It easily defeats the 14 British ships and is awarded the Hundred Guinea Cup. On August 25, Queen Victoria herself visits the ship. America returns home and presents the New York Yacht Club with its prize, which is renamed America's Cup. 1863 - For the next 12 years, the America had a number of owners on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1863, the schooner returns to Newport, Rhode Island to serve as a training ship for the United States Naval Academy. 1870 - The America races in the America's Cup where it finishes fourth of 15 entries. 1901 - The America sails in her 51st, and last race. For the next 15 years she will lay under cover in Boston. 1921 - After years of different owners, the America is once again returned to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where she is poorly maintained. 1940 - The America, already decaying, is left to rot in a shed in the Annapolis Yacht Yard during World War II. President Roosevelt pressures Congress to appropriate $100,000 to turn the America into the National Naval Museum. Unfortunately, the war takes priority. In 1942, under heavy snow, the roof of the shed collapses and the heavily rotted wood gives way. What wood was salvageable is used to make a model of the ship, which is at the Naval Academy museum. |
