"Reliance was a yacht like no other, built in 1903, at the end of
the age of sail. A marvel of her time, "Reliance's topsail yard
towered nearly 190 feet above the water, with sails stretching 202
feet from the bowsprit to the boom's end. Many said "Reliance,
carrying more sail than any single-masted boat before, was simply
too dangerous to sail, but the stakes were awesome. By the turn of
the century, racing for the America's Cup had become more than a
gentleman's game. In 1903 it was an all-or-nothing contest-fraught
with political tension-between two great rivals, Britain and
America.
Behind "Reliance was a gallery of American greats. There was
Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, America's greatest yacht designer,
also known as the Wizard of Bristol. And there were the robber
barons like J. P. Morgan, James J. Hill, William Rockefeller, and
Cornelius Vanderbilt III, who had made America an industrial force
to be reckoned with. Such men spent hundreds of thousands of
dollars to win the America's Cup, but they weren't willing to
bankroll the contest indefinitely and endeavored to build a boat so
powerful it would discourage the British for years to come. On the
other side of the Atlantic, however, Sir Thomas Lipton, scrappy
founder of the Lipton tea and grocery empire, was determined to win
and put his personal fortune behind the construction of an equally
bold challenger, his "Shamrock III.
From conception to construction, through hair-raising sea
trials-including fatalities during the testing of the yachts-to the
grand finale of a race like no other, author Christopher Pastore
brings to life this most beautiful and dangerous vessel, as well as
the hearts it won and the hearts itbroke. It is simply one of the
most exciting sea tales ever told.
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