America

1851

(Aquarius AQ-S-7)

Type: Schooner (2m)
Displacement: 180 tons
Dimensions: 102 x 23 x 11 ft.
Hull: wood
Sails: mainsail, boomless foresail, jib
Passengers: 25

Designer: George Steers
Builder: William H. Brown, New York, 1851

Notes: Designed as oceangoing racing schooner for the express purpose of beating English yachts in English waters. Launched 3 May 1851, she sailed trials against the center-board sloop Maria. She departed for France 21 June under ownership of syndicate headed by Commodore John Cox Stevens of the New York Yacht Club. After fine-tuning at Le Havre, she crossed the channel to Cowles, Isle of Wight 31 July. She competed for the the Royal Yacht Squadron's Ł100 Cup on 22 August, a 53-mile race around the Isle of Wight, against fifteen English schooners and cutters. She won by 7.5 miles over the second-place finisher, and thus took possession of what became the America's Cup.
Afterwards, she was sold to a succession of owners, and in April 1861 sailed to Savannah, where she was renamed Camilla. She carried Confederate agents to England and was eventually purchased by the Confederate government, renamed Memphis, and scuttled in the St. John River, Florida when Union forces captured Jacksonville. Salvaged by Lt. John Stevens, rerigged and armed with a 12-pdr. rifle and two 24-pdr. smoothbores as USS America, she served with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. After 1863 served as school ship for the U.S. Naval Academy.
America was laid up in 1866, then recommissioned in 1870 to compete for the first America's Cup race. She finished fourth in a fleet of 24 schooners and center-board sloops, the race being won by Magic. Sold in 1873 to Gen. Benjamin Butler, who raced her for two more decades, including as an unofficial contestant in the 1876 America's Cup, where whe was only five minutes behind the winner, Madeleine. She passed to Butler's nephew, who last raced her in 1901. Laid up for fifteen years, she was donated to the Naval Academy, but she was not maintained, and in 1940 she was hauled up and stored in a shed that subsequently collapsed in 1942, leading to her being broken up in 1945.