HISTORY OF HOLLOW SPARS
there was a regular trade in liquor smuggled in the
hollow masts of various Folkestone luggers. As those
unknown reprobates filled their masts with brandy they
probably never got to appreciate the performance
benefits that could have resulted, but they were evidently
small spars as they were said to carry them up the beach
under the noses of the customs officers.
Robert L Stevens, the brother of the first commodore
of the NYYC, was the designer of the sloop Maria
(1845, known as Black Maria in the UK) and is widely
credited with making the first hollow wooden yacht
spars; but that may be more justly attributed to the spar
builders, if they could be positively identified. Maria was
originally built as a sloop by William Capes in Hoboken,
and was 92ft on deck. In 1850 she was lengthened 18ft,
and Vanderdecken, quoting a date of 1852, said the
hollow spars were made by Fish & Morton of New
York, who built an iron-strapped “barrel stave” boom
and bored her mast. He was writing within 25 years or
so of the events, so the best explanation seems to be that
Fish & Morton made new spars for Maria, possibly on
more than one occasion. Robert L Stevens though was
widely recognised as a freethinking man willing to
pursue new ideas, and it is likely that the impetus to try
hollow spars was his. WP Stephens describes the mast as
92ft from deck to hounds, 32in in diameter at deck and
23in at the hounds, bored out 12in diameter for the
lower 20ft, then 10in for 20ft then 7in to the hounds. He
describes the boom as 92ft long, 31in in diameter in the
middle and 26in at the slings “built like a barrel” of
white pine staves 2½in x 2½in that were dowelled to
prevent slipping, the whole bound outside with ironbands, supported with iron trusses inside and outside
“over whiskers 3ft long”; plus a hollow gaff (50 or 60ft
long) and a 70ft hollow jib-boom. Captain Coffin
described Maria as being prone to dismasting; “a bad
habit which she contracted in her youth” but she was a
“racing machine” and a remarkable yacht, featuring
several innovative ideas. Her mainsail was hoisted on a
track (the use of which Stevens pioneered in 1840), she
had external lead ballast fitted as strips along her hull,
and she had cross-cut sails. Said to have cost $100,000,
she distinguished herself by beating America in several
trial races; but she was considered unsuitable for crossing
the Atlantic. She was eventually re-rigged as a schooner
and, renamed Maud, worked as a fruit-carrying cargo
vessel until she was lost with all hands in 1870.YACHTS ON CANVAS/JAMES EDWARD BUTTERSWORTHCAPT CHARLES BARR ARCHIVE/PPLAbove: The sloop
Maria with
America by
Butterworth
Right: The
broken top mast
of Columbia
Below: Robert
L Stevens