Yachting: Battle fought both on and off water

By Suzanne McFadden

Back in 1871


"It's becoming cold. Let's get on with it" - British challenger James Ashbury, after arguments with the New York Yacht Club to make the America's Cup a more just competition.


Railroad entrepreneur James Ashbury may have created a bitter controversy, but he also shaped the future of the America's Cup.

The Englishman, back in New York after failing to win the year before, wanted to change the rules making them more fair for the challenger.

With a lawyer, he raked over the Deed of Gift and came up with his own conditions. Ashbury demanded a 12-race series, and that he sail one-on-one with an American defender, not the club's whole fleet like the last race.

New York agreed to a match-race, as long as they could chose which boat they would sail each day, in a best-of-seven series. Ashbury agreed because he was tired of arguing.

He had ordered a new boat to be built in England, the 127ft Livonia, but she was fated from the start, battered in a hurricane on her transatlantic passage.

She was sluggish in the first race against the lighter Columbia. She had a better start in the second race, leading until she rounded the windward mark on starboard, while Columbia took the easier port route, and won again.

Ashbury was livid, his protest was thrown out, but he believed the series was 1-1.

The next day, all four defender boats could not sail. As they were about to concede the race, Columbia and her crew turned up worse for wear and lost to Livonia.

Keel schooner Sappho took over the defender duties and won the next two races convincingly, and held on to the cup.

But Ashbury refused to accept it was all over and turned up the next two mornings to sail the course alone, claiming the British were the winners, 4-3.

He then accused the New York Yacht Club of unfair and unsportsmanlike practises, and vowed that if he returned to race for the cup he would bring his lawyer with him. He never came back.