"The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it and
ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is." - Winston
Churchill
24 YEARS BEFORE THE 1st OLYMPIC REGATTA
While multihulls are a very old branch of sailing, and Britain's Royal Society timed
a 20-foot multihull at 17 knots in 1662(!), multihull racing in the modern era
began on 23 June 1876 in New York.
The greatest of all boat designers, Nathaniel Herreshoff, brought his catamaran "Amaryllis"
to the Centennial Regatta in New York. Never having seen a catamaran before, the other skippers merely scoffed at this
oddity.
The race was two laps of a 10-mile triangle course off Coney Island, with thousands watching from the beach.
Here are excerpts from the actual mark by mark race report and editorial published in The World, June 24, 1876:
| Race Report: |
A Yachting Wonder |
|
| Sudden Development of the Fastest Craft in the
World |
"The catamaran "Amaryllis", "constructed
by Mr. Herreshoff, of Providence...fairly flew along the Long Island shore, passing yacht after yacht as if they
were anchored.
As "Amaryllis" "dashed over the line a winner she was saluted by guns from
the yachts that were lying at anchor, and the excursion steamers screeched their loudest in honor of her victory.
After the race was over, the captain of the Clara S. protested against the "Amaryllis",
on the ground that she is neither a yacht nor a boat."
| Editorial: |
A Revolutionary Yacht |
|
"Nobody protested against entering her for the race yesterday, for the reason probably
that everybody expected to beat her, but everybody seems to have objected to being beaten by her.
It behooves the owners of the large schooners, however, to take counsel together lest somebody should build an
"Amaryllis" a hundred feet long and convert their crafts into useless lumber.
It is a matter quite as important as keeping the America's Cup..."
BANNED
The owners did take counsel together and catamarans were banned
from racing. And, the effect of the ban is shocking to consider.
L. Francis Herreshoff wrote:
"While AMARYLLIS won easily boat to boat, she was protested by several of
the competitors and subsequently ruled out.
At that time, the papers called AMARYLLIS a life raft and several things, but created all at
once an interest in catamarans.
However, their popularity was short lived, principally because they were
barred from all the regular classes".
Catamaran racing would certainly have been a very active branch of sailing 1900 if there
been no ban and Herreshoff had continued to focus his genius on the development of lightweight,
high performance boats.
Instead, the early enthusiasm and market for catamarans was destroyed.
Nathaniel Herreshoff wrote, later in his life:
“There is no doubt the catamaran outclasses the ordinary craft as to speed, but
it is deplorable the clubs did not recognize them and arrange for special classes.”
Multihull development and participation in racing did not begin to recover until the
1950s, when the Prout brothers first brought their Seawind catamarans to Cowes.
90 YEARS LATER
In July 1967, the International Yacht Racing Union held observation trials at the Catamaran
Yacht Club, Sheppey, Great Britain for two of the four 'box rule' catamaran divisions.
To some degree, the trials are the culmination of interest that began building in 1955, when the Prout brothers'
"Endeavour" was sailed at Cowes with HRH Prince Philip aboard.
In the A Class, Graham Johnston's "Australis" won 3 of 7 races to beat out the
Prout-designed "Bambi". The Australis Association was formed shortly afterwards,
but it progressed slowly and lost it's International status in 1973.
Instead it was the open, dynamic, innovative A-Catamaran box rule boats that succeeded. And, these boats have long defined
the pinnacle of all single-handed International class sailing.
In the B Class, Rodney March's "Tornado" displayed overwhelming superiority
in all conditions. It became the first double-handed International multihull class; and 40 years later, it remains the
highest performance production B Class catamaran.
100 YEARS LATER
100 years after "Amaryllis" changed the reality
of racing sailboats; and 76 years after Sailing became an Olympic sport, the first multihull event was included in the
1976 Olympic Regatta.
In 1976 and at each Olympic Regatta since Kingston, the multihull event has been the highest performance event in the
Olympics.
It is also the event that has evolved the most. The Tornado is still the most modern, highest performance equipment
used in the Olympic Regatta.
100th ANNIVERSARY OF ISAF
In November 2007, ISAF celebrated its 100th Anniversary and the inauguration of the
Sailing Hall of Fame.
Four of the six inductees have great achievements in multihulls: Paul ELVSTRÖM, Sir Robin KNOX-JOHNSTON, Dame Ellen
MACARTHUR, and Éric TABARLY.
Yet less than a week later, ISAF decided to remove the multihull event from the slate of events for the 2012 Olympic
Regatta.
AN INDEPENDENT CRITIQUE
Famed sailor and yacht designer Garry Hoyt once wrote in Sailing World:
"On the face of it one might reasonably assume that better
speed is a natural goal for racing sailors and that progress in that direction would therefore be
warmly embraced by the racing sector.
Dead wrong. The first reaction of the racing sailors was to ban "Amaryllis"
for her high crime of better speed… banning is always a popular reflex to unwelcome progress.
Perhaps to cover the inherent illogic of their position, to the ban they added social scorn, false rumor, and the discredit
of risk, to create the totally unfair image under which multihulls have labored ever since.”
Garry Hoyt's observations still hold true, and the performance benchmarks set by the Tornado have not been warmly
embraced; nor has there been any serious effort to increase the number of multihull events at the Olympics.
