Cup & Quarrel

Yacht races for the America's Cup in the 19th Century were customarily accompanied by bitterness and suspicion. That the tradition of rancor had stoutly survived the 31-year period in which the late Sir Thomas Lipton made five amiably unsuccessful attempts to win the Cup was evident last fortnight when Rainbow completed its defense against Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith's Endeavour. Skipper Sopwith sharply expressed his dissatisfaction when the New York Yacht Club's Race Committee refused to hear his protest after the fourth race. Both Rainbow and Endeavour finished the sixth race with protest flags flying so that it was hours before anyone knew that Rainbow had won the series. Last week, when Skipper Sopwith's ire had cooled a little, he explained his views:

"I am disgusted at the spirit in which international racing is conducted here. I would not have minded losing but I did not want to be beaten like this. I feel completely disillusioned by my treatment at the hands of the Race Committee. We came to the United States to try to make yachting a great sport..... It is a business--a great thriving business--and we in England . . . can never win the America's Cup until we make it a business, too." He said that he had flown a protest flag in the last race principally to gain a hearing for his previous protest, had withdrawn it because after leading at the start, Endeavour had been fairly beaten in the race. To newshawks he announced that he would never challenge for the Cup again. While a party at Newport's Clambake Club broke up in a row over whether the Committee should have heard the Sopwith protest and Designer Charles G. Nicholson of Endeavour went home disgusted, fair-minded yachtsmen had no trouble reaching a conclusion about the historic truths of the 1934 series: Endeavour, as a boat, was definitely faster than Rainbow. Mr. Sopwith, as a skipper who took the blame for "all my wrong tactics," was decidedly less able than Harold Vanderbilt. And Rainbow's crack crew outsmarted Endeavour's amateurs at nearly every turn.

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