48 CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2019THREE DESIGNERS
she lost 3-0 to Columbia in the 1899 Cup. Lipton then
declared that “Mr Herresho has shown himself to be the
greatest designer of yachts in the world” and went back to
the more experienced Watson for his next challenge.
However, it made no dierence as Shamrock II lost to the
same defender by the same score. Although Fife didn’t
have to wait long for his next America’s Cup opportunity, it
brought more disappointment – Lipton suered another
whitewash when Shamrock III was beaten by the mighty
Reliance in 1903.
After the 1901 cup, Charles Nicholson had sent Lipton a
telegram trying to persuade him to give him the
opportunity to design his next cup boat. Although nothing
came of that, Nicholson got his chance in 1913, and he
produced Shamrock IV to the Universal Rule. In a match
postponed until 1920 because of the First World War, she
was up against Resolute, the last defender from Herresho
who had had gained considerable experience with smaller
boats built to the Universal Rule, which he been instrumental
in introducing in 1902. By contrast, Nicholson had no
experience of it at all – in fact no British designer had, as it
was very much an American rule. In the last America’s Cup
held in ga-rigged boats and with handicap time
allowances, Shamrock IV won the first two races, but then
lost the match 3-2.
Lipton gave Nicholson another chance with the 1930
cup – the first to be competed for in the J-Class – but
Shamrock V lost 4-0. However, probably because Nicholson
made obvious improvements with Velsheda – built in 1933
but never intended for America’s Cup racing – TommySopwith saw him as the obvious choice for his two
Endeavours in the Cup races of 1934 and 1937, but both
lost. All three successful J-Class defenders were designed
by Starling Burgess, Edward’s son.
All of Herresho’s and Nicholson’s cup boats were built
at their own yards, but Fife’s were too big to be handled at
Fairlie. Shamrock I was built at Thorneycroft in
Southampton and Shamrock III at William Denny in
Dumbarton.THE BIG SCHOONERS
Away from the America’s Cup, schooners were among the
biggest boats that each of our designers produced.
Herresho is particularly well-known for his, but for many
years he had been extremely reluctant to produce any as
he scorned their lack of windward ability and he thought
them too expensive to build. However, in 1903 he was
persuaded by Morgan F Plant to produce the 122ft
waterline Ingomar, and this led to a further 10 magnificent
schooners – with an average waterline length of 95ft – over
the next 20 years. All were of riveted steel and one of
them, the 1913 Katoura, was the biggest boat ever built by
the HMC. Her overall length of 162ft, and her other
dimensions, were entirely determined by the maximum
that the company’s South Shop could accommodate. Her
masts were taken from the America’s Cup boats Reliance
and Constitution.
Fife produced the two racing schooners Cicely and
Susanne in the very early part of the 20th century. Both
were built elsewhere – the former at the Southampton yard
of Fay & Sons which subsequently considered recruiting
Fife as their in-house designer before deciding to sell the
yard to Camper & Nicholsons in 1912 – as they were too big
at that time for the yard at Fairlie. The cruising schooner
Altair, designed by Fife when he was 72, was built at Fairlie
in 1930 by which time the launching facilities there had
been improved.
The largest sailing boat ever built at Camper and
Nicholsons’ Gosport yard was the 689-tonne staysail
schooner Vira, later renamed Creole. She got o to a bad
start when her American owner – in ill health and feeling
frail – asked Nicholson to shorten her masts considerably,
which made her a poor sailing boat. Charles Nicholson’s
largest ever design was the 2,240-tonne Spanish sail-
training, four-masted topsail schooner Sebastian De
Elcano, built in Cadiz in Spain.NEITHER UNIVERSAL NOR
INTERNATIONAL
Even though the Americans had adopted the Universal
Rule in 1902, the Europeans decided to go their own way
five years later by introducing the International Rule. The
title given to both rules was a misleading exaggeration
because it wasn’t until 1930 that an agreement was
reached whereby the racing on both sides of the Atlantic in
the bigger classes would be to the Universal Rule, and the
International Rule would be used for smaller ones. So while
Nicholson and Fife enjoyed a long rivalry in the Metre boats
designed to the International Rule, Herresho only ever
designed a handful.
Similarly, the two British designers’ Universal Rule
output was very small – Nicholson’s four America’s Cup
challengers of course, three R-Class boats between themBelow: Nicholson’s
Brynhild II which
sank after her
mast came out of
its step and went
through the
bottom of the
boatBEKEN OF COWES