![]() The Yampa in 1893 | |
Yacht club | ![]() |
---|---|
Nation | ![]() |
Designer(s) | Archibald Cary Smith |
Builder | Harlan & Hollingsworth |
Owner(s) | Chester W. Chapin, Richard Suydam Palmer, Kaiser Wilhelm II |
Specifications | |
Length | 135 ft (41 m) |
Beam | 27 ft (8.2 m) |
Draft | 13.8 ft (4.2 m) |
The Yampa was an American ocean-going cruising schooner yacht for pleasure use from 1887 to 1899. The yacht was originally built for Chester W. Chapin, a rail baron and U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts. It completed several ocean cruises with no accidents. It passed through several hands and ultimately was purchased by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany as a birthday present for his wife. He had another larger yacht built based on the design of the Yampa, which was named the Meteor III.
The Yampa was a yacht originally designed by naval architect Archibald Cary Smith for Chester W. Chapin, [1] and the steel-keeled schooner was constructed in 1887 by the firm Harlan and Hollingsworth in Wilmington, Delaware, four years after Chapin died. [2] She was considered the best in her class until 1891. [3] The Yampa was 135 ft (41 m) overall, 110 ft (34 m) at the water line, and her draft was 13.8 ft (4.2 m). She had a registered tonnage of 162 tons net and 170 gross, [3] with a beam of 27 ft (8.2 m). [4] She participated in various events related to the America's Cup, a trophy award for best in a match race between two sailing yachts of different countries. [5] [6] [7] [8]
American banker James Hood Wright used the Yampa for pleasure cruising in the summer of 1894. [9] Chapin sold her that November to Richard Suydam Palmer who had memberships in various yacht clubs, and he refitted her in December 1894. [10] The Yampa sailed for Gibraltar on January 18, 1895, and from there she went to Tunis and Algiers in Africa. She then sailed to Malta and other ports in the Mediterranean Sea. She made several ocean cruises from 1894 through 1895 with no significant accidents, and sailors referred to this as "sea-kindliness." [11] In February 1896, Palmer traveled with the Yampa for three months to the West Indies, stopping at Bermuda, Barbados, Trinidad, St. Thomas, and Nassau. [12] [13] Cuthbert S. Thompson, who was a cousin of Palmer, committed suicide in Bermuda aboard the yacht while Palmer's guest in March on the West Indies trip. [14] [15] [16]
Palmer took her to Southampton in England in 1897 on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. [17] From there, he went through the North Sea and was towed to Kiel, Germany by way of the Kiel Canal. There the yacht anchored close to the German Emperor's yacht SMY Hohenzollern. The emperor liked the schooner and sought to purchase it. [2] [18] Palmer had left his business card on the SMY Hohenzollern and was informed that the emperor talked all day about how he liked the American vessel. [18] [11] The emperor immediately then took steps to acquire her for himself, [19] and bought the yacht from Palmer in December 1897. [2] [11] [20] The schooner was a birthday present for his wife Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. [21] The ship went to Southampton to be refitted to the emperor's luxurious specifications. [4] The German Royal family took many cruises on the Yampa which carried the Empress's flag; she was renamed Iduna and participated in several European regattas. [2] [22] In 1898, she competed in the international Emperor’s Cup regatta. [23] That same year, she was outfitted to race against the schooner Rainbow. [24]
The emperor had another yacht built based on the design of the Yampa, [22] [25] using Smith as the naval architect, and he had the yacht constructed in America instead of Germany. [11] [26] [27] The new vessel Meteor III was an enlarged and improved version of the Yampa, [18] [22] [28] and was the end result of a sequence of previous vessels designed and built by Smith. [29] Meteor III was built in New York harbor in 1902, [30] [31] and christened by Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt. [32] [33] [34] When the Meteor III was ordered in 1901 the Iduna, previously the Yampa, became the property of the emperor's wife. [35] [36] [37] The Iduna participated in various races into 1909. [38] [39] The Induna and the Meteor III were sold in the early part of 1920 and the proceeds as a wedding present went to German crown prince Wilhelm, the heir to Kaiser Wilhelm II. [40]
Prince Henry of Prussia was a younger brother of German Emperor Wilhelm II and a Prince of Prussia. Through his mother, he was also a grandson of Queen Victoria. A career naval officer, he held various commands in the Imperial German Navy and eventually rose to the rank of Grand Admiral and Generalinspekteur der Marine.
The New York Yacht Club (NYYC) is a private social club and yacht club based in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1844 by nine prominent sportsmen. The members have contributed to the sport of yachting and yacht design. As of 2001, the organization was reported to have about 3,000 members. Membership in the club is by invitation only. Its officers include a commodore, vice-commodore, rear-commodore, secretary and treasurer.
William Fife Jr., also known as William Fife III, was the third generation of a family of Scottish yacht designers and builders. In his time, William Fife designed around 600 yachts, including two contenders for the America's Cup. The Royal Yachting Association was formed in 1875 to standardise rules, and Fife and his rival G.L. Watson, were instrumental in these rule changes. Around one third of Fife's yachts still exist. His last designs were built in 1938.
His Majesty's Yacht Britannia was a gaff-rigged cutter built in 1893 for RYS Commodore Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. She served both himself and his son King George V with a long racing career.
The Atlantic was a three-masted schooner built in 1903 by Townsend and Downey shipyard on Shooters Island, New Jersey. She was designed by William Gardner, and Frederick Maxfield Hoyt for Wilson Marshall.
Sir James Pender, 1st Baronet was a British businessman, yachtsman and Conservative Party politician. He sat in the House of Commons from 1895 to 1900.
George Lennox Watson was a Scottish naval architect. Born in Glasgow, son of Thomas Lennox Watson, a doctor at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, and grandson of Sir Timothy Burstall, engineer and entrant at the 1829 Rainhill Trials.
Kaiser's Cup was a yachting race across the Atlantic between Sandy Hook, New Jersey (USA) and The Lizard. This was a famous sailing race of the day, and was won by the yacht Atlantic which held the record for nearly a century
Samuel Havre Pine, was a 19th-century American ship designer and builder located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He built the racing yacht Enchantress as well as many sailing schooners and yachts; steam yachts; and steamships.
Herbert Lawrence Stone was an American magazine editor and publisher, and a renowned sailor. He was the editor of Yachting from 1908 until 1952.
The Shenandoah is a three-masted schooner with a steel hull, built in New York in 1902 as a private yacht for the American financier Gibson Fahnestock. She has had a series of private owners since, and is available today for charter.
Endymion was an American schooner owned by George Lauder III, son of billionaire George Lauder. Lauder III was Commodore of the Indian Harbor Yacht Club in Greenwich, Connecticut. Endymion and her crew won many races and owned several records during her era. The most notable of her records, held for five years, was the Transatlantic crossing record set in 1900 of 13 days 20 hours 36 minutes. Originally built for George Lord Day of the prominent law firm Lord, Day, Lord.
Constellation was the largest steel schooner when completed, having been designed by the yacht designer Edward Burgess and launched in 1889. She was built at the Piepgras Shipyard on City Island in the Town of Pelham on Long Island, New York. It was built for yachtsman Edwin D. Morgan III, who was a commodore of the New York Yacht Club, and grandson of New York Governor and state senator Edwin D. Morgan. The vessel remained in service on the United States East Coast at Marblehead, Massachusetts, until 1941 when the schooner was taken out of service and scrapped for its metal to aid the war effort.
James H. Reid, was a 19th-century American Maritime pilot. He is best known for being the dean of the Boston pilots, serving for 55 years. He was captain of the famous yacht America for 17 years when she was owned by Benjamin F. Butler. In 1897, he built a new America, named after the America's Cup defender.
The Hesper was a 19th-century Boston pilot boat built in 1884, designed from a model by Dennison J. Lawlor as a Boston yacht and pilot-boat for merchant and ship owner George W. Lawler. She was known to be the largest pilot boat under the American flag at 104 feet long and the fastest of the Boston fleet. She competed in several first-class sailing races, and in 1886, the Hesper won the silver cup in what was known as the first Fishermen's Race. She was withdrawn from the pilot service and sold in 1901. The Hesper became a wreck on the point off Cape Henlopen in 1919.
Edward Isaac Sycamore (1855–1930) was a British sailing skipper widely regarded as the leading British yacht skipper of his generation during 1890 to 1929. He was often referred to as Syc and later Old Syc.
The Actaea, or Actea, was a 19th-century Boston yacht built in 1880 by Weld and David Clark of Kennebunk, Maine for David Sears, Jr., of Montgomery Sears of Boston. She was purchased by a group of New York Sandy Hook Pilots in 1890. She was one of the largest and fastest pilot boats in the fleet. In the age of steam, the Actaea was sold in 1896 to John J. Phelps of the New York Yacht Club and used as a pleasure yacht.
The Fleur de Lis was a 19th-century yacht and pilot boat built in 1865 by J. B. Van Deusen for Captain John S. Dickerson of the New York Yacht Club. She was bought by pilot Franklin B. Wellock and became the Boston pilot boat No. 7. She was known as one of the best pilot boats in the Boston Harbor. By 1904, the pilot boat Fleur de Lis was lying in a graveyard for old boats in East Boston.
The Coquette was a 19th-century yacht and pilot boat, built in 1845 by Louis Winde, at the Winde & Clinkard shipyard in Chelsea, Massachusetts for yachtsmen James A. Perkins. Her design was based on a model by shipbuilder Dennison J. Lawlor. The Coquette was a good example of an early American yacht with a clipper bow. As a yacht, she won the attention for outsailing the larger New York yacht Maria at the second New York Yacht Club regatta in 1846. Perkins sold the Coquette to the Boston Pilots' Association for pilot service in 1848. She continued as a pilot boat until 1867 when she was sold as a Blackbirder to be used on the African coast.
The Idler was a 19th-century schooner-yacht built in 1864 by Samuel Hartt Pook from Fairhaven, Connecticut, and owned by yachtsman Thomas C. Durant. She was one of the fastest yachts in the New York squadron. Idler came in 2nd place in the America’s Cup defense in 1870. She was sold as a racing yacht several times before she capsized and sank in 1900.
{{cite book}}
: |work=
ignored (help){{cite book}}
: |work=
ignored (help)... the Emperor desired an American ...
{{cite book}}
: |work=
ignored (help){{cite book}}
: |work=
ignored (help){{cite book}}
: |work=
ignored (help)The German Emperor saw the American schooner Yampa last summer in the Baltic, and fell in love with her. The result was that he purchased her from Mr. R. S. Palmer"
{{cite book}}
: |work=
ignored (help)"Meteor III.," which was designed by Cary Smith & Barbey, of New York, is an improved and enlarged "Yampa"—the latter, a very successful schooner that was designed by Mr. Smith and spent a great deal of her time in European waters. The "Yampa" eventually passed into the hands of the German Emperor, and under the name of "Iduna" has figured largely in the foreign regattas. The Emperor was so well pleased with the "Iduna" that last fall he placed an order with these architects for the construction of a larger and faster yacht, which should embody the best features of the "Yampa"
The noble schooner yacht, Meteor III, just launched at Shooters' Island, in Newark Bay, is the legitimate outcome of a practical study of the American schooner, begun by Mr. Smith in Prospero as long ago as 1877. She is largely a bigger and finer edition of the ocean cruiser Yampa, designed by him in 1887, and now owned by the Emperor under the name of Iduna.
{{cite book}}
: |work=
ignored (help)