The AMERICA referred to here is the schooner built in 1851 by William H Brown of New York. She was
101.8 feet long, 23 feet in breadth, and 11 feet deep with a 180-ton displacement built of wooden
construction. She was conceived as an oceangoing racing schooner expressly to race, and beat, all the
English yachts in English waters.
Mr. Brown offered to build the vessel on the understanding that a syndicate headed by New York Yacht
Club Commodore John Cox Stevens would purchase the yacht AMERICA for $30,000 if she proved faster
than the local competition. Mr. Brown wanted to build a vessel to represent the United States in the races
held in conjunction with Britain’s Great Exhibition in 1851. AMERICA was launched two days after the
opening of the British Exhibition on May 1, 1851.
She was designed by 31 year old George Steers who made a significant departure from the traditional bluffbowed
design. 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, boom less foresail, and
single jib.
In the trails that developed after the launch, AMERICA lost to MARIA, a Cox-owned center-board 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 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.” She was fine tuned
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after arriving at Le Havre, then AMERICA anchored off the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes, Isle of
Wight, on July 31.
Unfortunately for the syndicate, which had paid the $20,000 for the yacht and 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 pound 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 padded 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.
All else being equal, however, money still talked. The syndicate sold AMERICA to an Anglo-Irishman
named John de Blaquiere, who promptly 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 ship-builder Henry Sotheby Pitcher, and then to Henry Edward
Decie, who in April 1861 sailed her to Savannah. She was then renamed CAMILLA, and 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 back at Jacksonville, Florida, where she was sold to
the Confederate government and, possible renamed MEMPHIS, used as a blockade runner.
She then suffered the indignity of being scuttled in the St. John River in Florida when the Union Army
captured Jacksonville, but she was salvaged by Lieutenant John Stevens (not relation to John Cox Stevens).
She was then re-rigged, armed with a 12-pdr. muzzle-loading rifle and two 24-pdr. smoothbore guns, again
re-named as USS AMERICA and 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 of the U.S. Naval Academy
midshipmen. She was then laid up at Annapolis in 1866. Four years later she was recommissioned in order
to complete in the first race for the cup named in her honor. America placed fourth in the fleet of 24
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 again sold on the grounds
that her upkeep was too costly. AMERICA’S new owner, General Benjamin Butler, nonetheless raced her
for two more decades. As an official contestant in the 1876 America’s Cup race, she came in only five
minutes behind MADELEINE and nineteen minutes ahead of 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.
She was then laid up for 15 years and subsequently donated to the Naval Academy. She was illmaintained,
and in 1940 she was hauled and stored under shed. When the shed unfortunately 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.
There is an excellent plank-on-frame kit model of the AMERICA available from Bluejacket Ship crafters in
¼ inch scale (pictured at front of article) for $335. There is also a 1/8 inch kit available from Bluejacket for
$95.00, which is less difficult than the ¼ in kit – also plank-on-frame. Bluejacket considers the first kit an
advanced kit, not one for a beginning modeler. Construto of Spain also offers a Plank-on-frame kit of
AMERICA through Model Expo, which also has an AMERICA by Mamoli of Italy, also plank-on-frame.
These last two kits range around $150.00. For the scratch builder, the plans by Bluejacket should be
excellent.