Before you read some of the history of the "Little Americas Cup" we should say that this event has possibly the least amount of documentation of any major sailing competition. The data given in this section is gleaned from a number of sources, personal contacts, magazines and most significantly "Catamaran sailing to Win" by Max Press.
If you have any facts, anecdotes, stories or snippets, please contact us, we would love to add it to our pages and those of the forthcoming C class website and ICCC website.
What's In A Name?
The Name “Little America’s Cup” is apt only in the fact that, like the “Big” America’s Cup, it is a match-racing event around a similar course. In every other way the 2 events are worlds apart.
The History of the Cup has no official biography, however the early years are described well in Chris Wilson and Max Press’s book, “Catamaran sailing to win”. The following pages are a summary of the enormous amount of work that has gone into the boats and the events over the years.
The America's Cup is the worlds oldest sporting trophy, played for with sky high budgets. It has a history that includes the most glamorous sailing craft ever built, with the most famous heads of industry nearly bankrupting themselves in the quest to win it or retain it.
The “Little America's Cup” began after an American catamaran was described as “the fastest small sailing boat in the world”, this was Tigercat and the year was 1959.
This was noted by the British catamaran pioneer, Roderick Macalpine-Downie, who challenged the Eastern Multihull Association of the USA to a series of match races (one-on-one racing). The catamarans would conform to the IYRU C class catamaran rules, which had recently been brought into existence (along with, obviously, A, B and D classes) by the equally new International Yacht Racing Union (IYRU, now ISAF).
Sea Cliff Yacht Club of New York put up a trophy, to become known as “The International Catamaran Challenge Trophy”
A deed of gift was written up, drawing heavily from that of the America's Cup. The race would follow the same course as the America's Cup (this has remained unchanged since). The deed specified the class should conform to the new IYRU C class rules.
The ICCT
The Rules For The Developmental C Class Catamarans May Be Summarised As:
Length: 25ft
Beam: 14ft
Sail area: 300sq ft
Crew: 2 with a single trapeze
With such simple rules the designers could innovate, virtually anything went (even hydrofoils if you wished).
The 19.5 mile course was made up of windward/leeward/zig-zag legs with an upwind finish. The Cup was to be decided by a series of match races, with a defender series and a challenger series. The winner of each was decided based on the best of seven races.
The First Race
The Royal Highland Yacht Club put forward Macalpine-Downie’s “Hellcat”, the first ever C class catamaran. Until this time catamarans used heavy “bridge-decks” to join the 2 hulls, “Hellcat” used 3 lightweight beams joined to 2 long and narrow hulls to give the prototype layout for all catamarans to follow.
“Hellcat II” was built on lessons from the 1st boat and in 1961 it was this craft that sailed and won the first “Little America's Cup” for Great Britain.
This was the start of 8 years of British dominance of the event, and names such as Austin Farrar, General Parham, Bob Fisher and Reg White were to become involved, forming a nucleus of the best designers, sailors and builders in the country.
The Reg White Years
After the Hellcats came “Emma Hamilton” who fended off the American “Sealion” in 1964 and the Australian “Quest II” in 1965. She was sailed by Reg White who was later instrumental in the development of the Tornado, (which was then selected for the Olympics and in which event, Reg won the class’s first Olympic Gold Medal).
By this time it was clear that it was in the area of the rigs (sails) that the largest advances came. The early C class catamarans sported “sloop” rigs, a main sail and a jib. Austin Farrar recognised that a sail is like an aeroplane wing standing on end. The only problem was that wings only need to lift in one direction, sails must perform equally well on both port and starboard tack.
In “Lady Helmsman” Farrar grew the mast in chord and tried to make the leeward side of the sail as close to glider aerofoil section as possible. To get the best compromise of camber and twist, the luff of the sail was made curved, such that the wingmast chord was maximum at mid height tapering down towards the top and bottom. The wingmast was up to 40% of the total chord, with the remaining 60% being “soft sail”. The wingmast was made from 3mm ply and spruce and came in at just over 90lb in weight. Lady Helmsman and her rig still exist today in preservation at the national maritime museum in Cornwall.
In practice Lady Helmsman was a master at upwind sailing, and on a reach she was almost too powerful. With such a power plant she won 3 times and was hailed as the “fastest sailing boat in the world” and was “clocked” at over 30mph, a claim that led to the Weymouth speed sailing weeks that followed.
A tired Lady H lost the trophy to Denmark in 1969 and the trophy has never since touched British soil.
French, Italians, Danes, Americans and Australians have challenged in subsequent years, though the trophy has only resided alternately between the USA and Australia since leaving the UK.
Arrival Of The Fully Rigid Wingsail
“Wing-sails” were a natural evolution from the “wing-masts” of Lady H etc. One of the first was Miss Nylex, shown below:
In the 70’s the American team of Dave Hubbard and Tony DiMauro built a series of boats named “Patient Lady” (I-VI) and these developed into the first fully rigid wing sails to be develop controllable power plants that are now essential to win the “Little America's Cup”.
The Patient Ladys dominated for many years, mainly fending off challenges from Australia and the Cunningham family from Melbourne.
Patient Lady
Patient Lady VI was seen as the ultimate expression of wingsail technology and with so many successful campaigns behind them they were surprised that they were out-developed by the Australian, Lindsay Cunningham. The Australian wingsail again used the slotted flap arrangement (almost universally used on commercial airliners) but they allowed a degree of overlap of the flap against the wing. This provides more high-energy air from the windward side of the sail onto the leeward side, preventing stalling. This rig proved devastating downwind and in light airs where the very high lift coefficients could be used to maximum benefits.
Cunningham’s victory came in the shape of “Victoria 150” (named after Victoria state’s 150th anniversary), and this brought the “Little America's Cup” to Australia in 1985. Her rig was very powerful downwind but also highly complex, with 5 moving sections which were then split again to allow the lower part of the wing to be cambered more highly than the upper part, introducing a crude twist effect to de-power the wing in strong winds.
As a measure of how powerful these rigs had become, the double slotted flapped rig on the Australian boats could produce as much lift as a conventional soft sail nearly 3 times its area, however a sail 3 times the area would have such a high centre of effort that would make that area largely un-usable.
The Last British Challenge
The Patient Lady team did not re-challenge, therefore the Australians approached the British to put together a challenge for 1987. Twice National Tornado Champion John Downey took up the challenge and got together with Roland Whitehead to design K37, “The Hinge”
"The Hinge"
Dr Stephen Fiddes of the aerodynamics dept of Bristol University developed the basic design of The Hinge’s rig. This was a radical departure from the slotted flaps that seemed to be converging as the standard rig layout. Fiddes designed a rig with a split flap. Split flaps (as used on older aircraft) are not capable of producing as much lift as a slotted flap, however the mechanics are relatively simple and the layout would be aimed at attacking on the windward legs of the course.
Unfortunately the timescales and financial constraints meant that only 1 boat was built and it was not even tested before being shipped to Melbourne.
“The Hinge” suffered mechanical failures with shrouds pulling out and rudder failures, which added to the other disadvantages, however in the right conditions “The Hinge” showed good windward performance despite a measurement rule handicap and being rather overwight. The split flaps, when closed formed a very clean aerofoil with very little drag. Given more development and less weight, this rig may have given Cunningham’s “The Edge” a closer run for the money.
This was, to date, the last British challenge, though there have been some interesting craft challenging since.
The Australians Continue To Dominate
From California came the “Wingmill”. This had a wing, rectangular in planform but was asymmetrical in section. It worked by being pivoted in the middle, at the top of a pole and one end being held down at deck level. On tacking, the whole rig would rotate about the top of the pole, such that the foot of the sail became the top and vice versa. The first race never happened however as “Wingmill” capsized and broke up on the way to the start line. The Australians won by default.
"Wingmill"
The configuration was later tried again by the French boat “Otip” in the first race in many years to have more than 1 challenger This time the rig was held under much greater control, with the foot of the sail locking into a device on the leeward hull. Sadly Otip suffered the same fate as Wingmill, capsizing and breaking up. The other contender that year was the more conventional looking US “Freedoms Wing” from California and was designed by Gino Morelli. This raced against the Australian “The Edge III” but was beaten, though she had given a good showing, being beaten by just 1 second in one race. It was the closest series for many years and showed that the Australians could be beaten.
The Cup Heads Back To The US East Coast
In 1996 the cup left Port Phillip Bay and headed back to the USA.
The current resting place for the trophy is currently Bristol, Rhode Island USA, after a very well engineered challenge from the New England team of Duncan Maclane and Steve Clark and their boat “Cogito”. This convincingly beat the defending boat “Yellow Pages Edge” which was in effect a highly refined version of Victoria 150. Lindsay Cunninham had spent the years between challenges building a speed record machine, “yellow pages Endeavour” which entered the Guinness book of records with a speed in excess of 45 knots.
Steve Clark, owner and team leader of Cogito is a 2nd generation C class sailor, after his father had been involved in the very beginnings of the event. The team also included Duncan Maclane and Dave Hubbard, and they were all descended from the Tony DiMauro Patient Lady boats of the 70s and 80s.
Steve Clark
Today, “Cogito” represents perhaps the best-engineered, most professional C class catamaran ever built. It is recognised as the fastest course racing boat in the world and is also probably the lightest C class ever built too.
The International Catamaran Challenge Trophy And The C Class Fraternity Part Company
After many years without a challenge, Team Invictus approached the ICCT trustees and Steve Clark and expressed an interest in challenging. Steve Clark and Duncan MacLane welcomed the renewed interest and talk of a new challenge started. At a similar time, a new Australian team also contacted the trustees and Steve. It looked as if a 2004 event was taking place, nearly 8 years since the Americans won in 1996.
In Feb 2002 The Autralians mounted an official challenge with Sea Cliff YC. This was rejected on the basis that as there had not been a challenge for over 5 years, they considered that the event should be completely re-vamped. They later announced a revised deed of gift which outlawed the C class catamaran and replaced it with standard, factory built Formula 18 beach cats. They planned the next ICCT for Sept 2003.
Team Invictus, along with the US and Australian teams stated right from the start that they were not interested in racing in F18s. So, despite the fact that the C class had been dropped by both SCYC and ISAF (as the IYRU had evolved into), the 3 teams agreed to run an event in C class catamarans in 2004.
Steve Clark arranged a new trophy and organised the event which was staged at Bristol YC, Rhode Island in Sept 2004.
The media has found renewed interest in the C class. There has been a lot of support for the C class event and the future of the “Little America's Cup” will depend on our ability to maintain the momentum acquired in 2004.
The winners of the ICCT over the years
1961 Hellcat II
1962 Hellcat I
1963 Hellcat III
1964 Emma Hamilton
1965 Emma Hamilton
1966 Lady Helmsman
1967 Lady Helmsman
1968 Lady Helmsman
1969 Opus III
1970 Quest III
1972 Quest III
1974 Miss Nylex
1976 Aquarius V
1977 Patient Lady III
1978 Patient Lady IV
1980 Patient Lady V
1982 Patient Lady V
1985 Victoria 150
1987 The Edge
1989 Edge II
1991 Edge III
1996 Cogito
The winners of the ICCC
2004 Cogito