Description: Shane Michael Couch
(b.1963)
Dauntless ahead of Sappho off the Battery in New York
Harbour
signed 'Shane Michael Couch' (lower left)
oil on
board
9 x 12 in. (22.9 x 30.5 cm.)
Notes: Both the
yachts depicted in this work played prominent parts in the events surrounding
the first-ever defence of the fabled America's Cup by the New York Yacht Club
in 1870.
Dauntless , built by Forsyth & Morgan at Mystic
Bridge, Connecticut, in 1866, was launched with the name L'Hirondelle and
originally rigged as a sloop. Sold to the colourful New Yorker James Gordon
Bennett in the spring of 1867, he re-rigged her as a schooner, renamed her
Dauntless and introduced her to the New York yachting scene that same summer.
Grossing 299 tons, she measured 121 feet in length with a 25 foot beam and
proved a flyer from the start. Although Dauntless was never actually selected to
defend the America's Cup, she nevertheless played a leading role in both the
1870 and 1871 British challenges. During both series she took part in a number
of races and, more significantly, had earlier participated in the famous
transatlantic race from Daunt's Rock, Cork Harbour (Ireland) to Sandy Hook
which preceded the 1870 Cup match. James Ashbury won that transatlantic dash in
Cambria but Dauntless was less than two hours behind him in the race that had
lasted twenty-three days. Straight after his failure to recover the Cup in 1871,
Ashbury then pitted his brand new Livonia against Dauntless in a private race
which Livonia won so convincingly that it merely made Ashbury feel even more
aggrieved that he had been so decisively beaten for the Cup two years in
succession. Dauntless's career continued for a further twenty years and she was
still collecting trophies as late as 1896.
Sappho,
grossing 392 tons and measuring 128 feet in length with a 27 foot beam, was
designed and built by C. & R. Poillon at Brooklyn for Colonel W.P. Douglas in
1868. In her maiden season her owner took her to Cowes where he hoped to emulate
America's legendary win in 1851; in the event, she was soundly beaten by Mr.
James Ashbury's Cambria , a win which convinced the latter that he should make
the first challenge for the America's Cup. In fact, Sappho had fared badly at
Cowes because she was still in her ocean rig after the North Atlantic crossing
and was also carrying several tons of extra stone ballast from the trip over.
Therefore, once those restrictions were removed back home, she more than held
her own in future competitions and even found herself pitted against Ashbury's
Livonia in the 1871 America's Cup challenge races.
NOTES AMERICA-SCOOP :