Classic_Boat_2016-09

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

62 CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2016

I

t was late October 1866 and the streets of New

York were littered with leaves which scuttled and

swirled around in the autumn air. On Park Avenue

the wind fairly howled down its wide walkway and

as darkness fell, a passer-by would have perceived three

figures dashing across the street and plunging into the

Union Club, one of the oldest in the USA. The men were

three of the richest and most influential in America:

Pierre Lorillard, a tobacco merchant; George Osgood, a

successful financier; and John Gordon Bennett Junior,

whose father owned the New York Herald, the most

successful newspaper in America at that time.

The trio made a beeline for the roaring fire at the

heart of the club and, making themselves comfortable in

the wing-backed leather chairs surrounding it, they took

to drinking, smoking cigars and bragging. The Union

Club may have been utterly hidebound, but there was

still room for merrymaking and the trio pickling

Offshore racing owes

a lot to an old Clipper

ship captain and a

millionaire playboy

STORY SAM JEFFERSON

THE

BIRTH OF

TRANSATLANTIC

RACING