Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1885 — AMERICA STILL LEADS. [ARTICLE]

AMERICA STILL LEADS.

England’s Phenomenal Yacht Outsailed in Her Contest for the America’s Cup. Victory Snatched by the; Furitan from What Seemed to Be Almost Certain Defeat. The possession of the America’s cup was decided at New York on the 16th inst., by the Puritan beating the Genesta over the long course by 1 minute 38 seconds, corrected time. The race is said to have been the closest ever contested; the Genesta leading for nearly three-fourths of the distance, and being 2 minutes 6 seconds ahead at the outer mark. The wind was fresh at the start, and increased toward the finish to half a gale, resulting in a lumpy sea. A New York dispatch says of the great race: The cup won by the America more than a generation ago was never in such peril as to-day. Its possession has been often challenged and warmly contested, but never before has Great Britain sent a champion so hard to vanquish. Had it not been for the building of the Yankee yacht and the sailing of the Yankee skipper we might have been compelled to yield the trofmy which we have so often defended, and always with much greater ease.than to-day, when for the first time American yachts have had to bend their sails in competition with an antagonist lobe feared in any weather. There never was such a raoe in American waters. There probably never was sailed before, in the history of yatching, a race in which the laurels hung tantalizingly before two famous rivals until the very end of a long fifty-mile course. No boat but the Puritan could have saved the day; none but the Genesta could have made victory so dubious. It was a grand race from the moment that the fleet-winged racers crossed the imaginary line until the whistles blow and the guns belched forth their welcoming to the returning conqueror. The yachts looked grand as they dashed across the line. Both weie taken in tow by the tugs Scandinavian and Luekenbach *and cast oft at their Staten Island anchorage. At 6 o’clock the race was over, and the America’s cup was still retained on this side of the Atlantic. In speaking of the race ex-Commodore Smith, who has seen every important race for the last thirty years, said: “It was the grandest race ever seen in the world, and if the Puritan had been properly handled she would have beaten the cutter more yet. ” The Genesta was regarded as the best “all around” boat in the British fleets of last season. She won her first race in a fresh" whole-sail breeze, beating the Vauduara two minutes and fifty-five seconds. In her third race she beat the fastest twosticker in British waters, in a fresh wind and a nasty jump of the sea. In her fourth race she beat, in a light wind, the fastest light-weather boat in England. In another race she won with the wind unsteady, varying’ from a lower-sail breeze to a flat calm.