Epilog

In Manhattan's City Hall, Mayor James John Walker presented a very heavy gold cup to Sir Thomas Lipton. It was the cup for which U. S. people who admire Sir Thomas had been sending in money--a consolation cup to show they thought him a good loser. Sir Thomas was feeling too badly to read all of his speech but got through some of it. ". . . After one of my former attempts to lift the cup I received a letter from a lady sympathizer inquiring whether it was true that the Americans had put something in the water to prevent my winning. I wrote back at once telling her that what she said was quite true and that as a matter of fact it was no secret that they put the Columbia in the water for that very purpose. ... I hope to challenge in 1932. . . .' Meanwhile on the Olympic arrived Captain Irving Johnson, mate of Sir Thomas Lipton's Shamrock V on the return voyage to England after the America's Cup races. He told briefly what can happen to a little sailing boat trying to cross the north Atlantic in October. "Seven times we scudded straight through hell and out again. ..." Shamrock left Narragansett Bay Oct. 2. The only man going back who had been on her coming over was Captain William Paul, navigator. He went because he had signed a contract to sail her both ways. He had advertised for a crew and managed to get eight men. Five of them had worked on Enterprise in the races. Stimulated by success, they were ready for more adventures. The anchor was stowed below decks and everything battened down. Before they lost sight of Nantucket Light-ship the sea freshened. The cook got seasick, the barometer went down. It looked as if there might be trouble. Captain Irving Johnson took some notes of that wild homeward journey of the little boat, a 19-day trip through seven fearful storms that amounted practically to one continuous storm. He had even held a camera steady enough to photograph the deck after a sea broke over the bow. Pinnacle and compass were washed overboard. Water poured in, set the food afloat in the galley. Five times a tilt of a wave threw the green-faced cook onto the hot stove. The men slept in their oilskins. For 18 hours Shamrock plowed through the Gulf Stream under bare poles. A seam opened in the delicate bow, bashed 'by tons of water every minute. For days on end two men were lashed to the wheel day & night, three worked the pumps, three slept. Nobody looked sternward where the seas piled up. They felt better looking ahead. Every man on board was seasick though all were experienced sailors except 200-lb. Whitey Peterson of Bristol, R. I. Landlubber Peterson fought the sea like a personal enemy, took the longest stretches at the wheel. Weak from lack of sleep and living on canned goods and apples, the eight adventurers and their bosses could hardly stand by the time they made Southampton. Said Sir Thomas when he heard the story, "Why, I'm surprised. Nobody told me. The trip was so fast I thought it must have been a good one."

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