There were 15 boats in the very first race for the Royal Yacht Squadron’s £100 Cup back in 1851, 14 British, and one not. The odd one out was a 101ft schooner named America, which had been built in New York, and brought across especially to show off the prowess of US shipbuilders. It arrived, in the words of one writer, like a sparrow hawk among a flock of wood pigeons. As every young English sailor learns at his grandfather’s knee, the story goes that when America came into sight at the end of the 53-mile (98km) race around the Isle of Wight, Queen Victoria, watching from the Royal Yacht, turned to a signalman and asked who was in second place behind it. “Your Majesty,” he is supposed to have said back to her, “there is no second.”
America won that first race by 24 minutes, and, the best part of 200 years later the British still have not come close to winning the trophy, which was soon renamed in the winner’s honour. They have not even had a chance since 1964, when Sovereign, skipped by Peter Scott, only child of Antarctic explorer Robert Scott, lost 4-0 to the US yacht Constellation.
