(later Camilla, Memphis, America) Schooner (2m).
L/B/D:
101.8 × 23 × 11 (31m × 7m × 3.4m). Tons:
180 disp. Hull:
wood. Comp.:
25. Des.:
George Steers. Built:
William H. Brown, New York; 1851.
In 1851, the New York shipbuilder William H. Brown conceived a plan to build an oceangoing racing schooner for the express purpose of racing—and beating—English yachts in English waters. To this end he proposed to build such a vessel on the understanding that a syndicate headed by New York Yacht Club Commodore John Cox Stevens purchase the schooner for $30,000 if she proved faster than the local competition, and that Brown would buy her back if she lost in England. Underlying Brown's confident challenge was his desire to build a vessel to represent the United States in races held in conjunction with Britain's Great Exhibition, which opened at the Crystal Palace on May 1, 1851, two days before America was launched into the East River.
Designed by the superintendent of Brown's mold loft, the thirty-one-year-old George Steers, America's design represented a significant departure from the traditional, bluff-bowed "cod's head and mackerel-tail" model. As John Rousmaniere describes it, "America's most notable feature was the combination of sharp, wedge-shaped bow tapering very gradually to her widest point about halfway back from the stem, and another subtle taper back to a broad, rounded transom." Her two masts, with a rake of about 2.75 inches to the foot (for an angle of about 14 degrees), carried a mainsail, boomless foresail, and single jib. In trials, America lost to Maria, a Cox-owned centerboard sloop designed for inshore racing, but the syndicate offered Brown $20,000 for the jaunty schooner. She sailed for France on June 21, bearing a heavy responsibility for her country's honor, for as Horace Greeley declared to syndicate member James Hamilton (the son of Alexander and a former Secretary of State), "The eyes of the world are on you. You will be beaten, and the country will be abused.... If you go and are beaten, you had better not return." After fine-tuning in Le Havre, America anchored off the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes, Isle of Wight, on July 31.
Unfortunately for the syndicate, who hoped to recoup their expenses with winnings from match races, America's mere appearance scared off bettors, and she lay unchallenged until Stevens decided to compete for the Royal Yacht Squadron's £100 Cup on August 22. This was a 53-mile race around the Isle of Wight, without time allowance, and "open to yachts belonging to the clubs of all nations." America was the only non-English entrant in the fleet of seven schooners and eight cutters. Despite a bad start at 1000, an hour into the race she was in fifth place. After rounding Noman's Land buoy, the wind picked up and she stepped out in front of the fleet. Although she broke a jibboom (acquired in England), when she passed the Needles at 1750, she had a 7.5-mile lead over the second-place Aurora. Fifteen minutes later, America dipped her flag as she passed the royal yacht
Victoria and Albert, an honor returned the following day when the Queen and Prince Consort visited the victorious schooner, which had crossed the finish line at 2053. America's triumph was admired in England and greeted with rapture in the United States. Addressing the Massachusetts House of Representatives, an exultant Daniel Webster declared, "Like Jupiter among the gods, America is first and there is no second!"
With an eye to the bottom line, however, the syndicate sold America to Anglo-Irishman John de Blaquiere, who set off on a Mediterranean cruise. In a second Isle of Wight race the next year, America came in less than two minutes out of first place. Laid up, she was sold to Henry Montagu Upton in 1856, two years later to shipbuilder Henry Sotheby Pitcher, and then to Henry Edward Decie, who in April 1861 sailed her to Savannah. Renamed Camilla, she returned to England with Confederate government agents; Decie raced her a few more times near Cowes before sailing for France in August. By the end of October she was at Jacksonville, Florida, where she was sold to the Confederate government and, possibly renamed Memphis, used as a blockade runner. Scuttled in the St. John River, Florida, when the Union Army captured Jacksonville, she was salvaged by Lieutenant John Stevens (no relation to John Cox Stevens). Rerigged and armed with a 12-pdr. muzzle-loading rifle and two 24-pdr. smoothbore guns, USS America was commissioned for service with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, in which she captured or caused to run aground three Confederate vessels.
After a refit at New York in 1863, she began duty as a school ship for U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen. Laid up at Annapolis in 1866, she was recommissioned four years later in order to compete in the first race for the cup named in her honor. America placed fourth in the fleet of twenty-four schooners and centerboard sloops; the race was won by the centerboard sloop Magic, and the sole foreign contestant, the schooner Cambria, came in tenth. Three years later, she was sold on the grounds that her upkeep was too costly. Nonetheless, her new owner, General Benjamin Butler, raced her for two more decades. As an unofficial contestant in the 1876 America's Cup race, she came in only five minutes behind Madeleine and nineteen minutes ahead of the Canadian Countess of Dufferin. After Butler's death in 1893, she passed to his grand-nephew Butler Ames, who raced her for the last time in 1901.
Laid up for fifteen years, she was donated to the Naval Academy. Ill-maintained, in 1940 she was hauled and stored under a shed. When the shed collapsed in 1942, America's fate was sealed, though it was not until 1945 that the Navy ordered her broken up. A near replica was built in 1967, and another in 1995.
Rousmaniere, Low Black Schooner.
