PLANS LAID FOR BIG YACHT RACE
Probability Is That Other Ports Will Be Represented in Los Angeles – Honolulu Contest
An ultimatum has been sent to Hawaii Yacht club of Honolulu by the South Coast Yacht club that an hour and a half handicap a foot in favor of the smaller boats entered in the 1910 Los Angeles-Honolulu race does not find favor with local yachtsmen, and the half hour a foot handicap allowed in the two former races is satisfactory to the yacht owners of Los Angeles harbor.
At a meeting of the South Coast Yacht club the matter was thoroughly threshed out by the members of the committee on this side of the Pacific, was the result that Commodore R.C.P. Smith has been instructed to send a cablegram to Honolulu stating that the handicap of the two former races would stand for the race this summer.
This race, which is the greatest biennial yacht race in the world for deep-sea sportsmen, is arousing more interest over the coast this year than ever before, and four entries have already been made by local boats. There are good prospects of two more, making six boats in all which will sail from the local harbor.
According to members of the race committee, there are excellent prospects of 3 entries from San Francisco, seven entries from Seattle and three from Vancouver, B.C. Honolulu will enter two boats – the Hawaii, which was entered in the last race, and the Kamehameha, a 49-footer, which is eligible since the restrictions to boats with a forty-foot waterline have been taken off the race. The doing away with this restriction has resulted in the possibility of at least six more entries than would have been the case otherwise.
The Hawaii of Honolulu will sail under another skipper than in her last race. For two years the boat has been tried out for the race of 1910, Her ballast has been shifted and reshifted, her sails changed and numerous other features have been inaugurated in a desperate effort to land the race this year, so far the Hawaii is the biggest boat entered.
Commodore Smith of the South Coast yacht club has entered the schooner Sweetheart. He has had his craft pulled out on the ways at Fellows’ Ship yard and heavier sticks are being put into her. Her clumsy keel is being cut off into the shape of the keel of a racing schooner. Outside ballast and a greater depth are being added.
The third entry is Francis Hay’s Winsome, whose designer, C. D. Callahand, started the agitation for an hour and a half a foot handicap. The Winsome is a a 50 footer and can hold her own without such a big handicap, and had the latter held a number of big schooners which are preparing to enter the race would have been scared out with such an advantage over them as the smaller boats would have held.
Another entry which is arousing considerable speculation is a new 47-footer, the Swiwash, being built by Charlie Fulton especially for this race. She is a new style boat on the Pacific coast and combines the lines of a Gloucester fisherman with some deas of Fulton’s own. She will probably be one or the smallest entries In the race, but Fulton is so confident of what she is going to do that he scouts the idea of asking more than a half hour a fool handicap.
While Skidbladnir, Frank Garbutt’s big Schooner, has not been entered, there is every expectation that she will he in the race. New sticks are being hewn for her already, and she is being put in shape to show up a much faster race of speed than formerly.
Two other entries which are not ready to be announced are being arranged, and in the event they are pulled through all right will be announced to the public. They are expected to arouse much interest. So far, while definite entries have not boon made from northern ports, the race committee is being deluged with correspondence regarding the provisions of the race, And it is safe to assert that the greatest contest ever sailed on the Pacific ocean by amateur yachtsmen will be pulled off this summer. Everybody who has a boat big enough to carry a crew and provisions for the trip is contemplating entering the race, or at least making the trip, and yacht owners are already being deluged with offers from yaehtsman who are anxious to go along as crew in any one of the boats.
* Noteworthy
1602 – The Dutch East India Company is established.
1760 – The Great Boston Fire of 1760 destroys 349 buildings.
1854 – The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.
1915 – Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity.
1922 – The USS Langley is commissioned as the first United States Navy aircraft carrier.
1923 – The Arts Club of Chicago hosts the opening of Pablo Picasso’s first United States showing, entitled Original Drawings by Pablo Picasso, becoming an early proponent of modern art in the United States.
1948 – With a Musicians Union ban lifted, the first telecasts of classical music in the United States, under Eugene Ormandy and Arturo Toscanini, are given on CBS and NBC.