Previously called 'The 193-ton yacht
Alarm in a light swell' but now retitled from the related print version (NMM
PAD6514). This was one of 24 lithographed by Louis Haghe in 1832 as 'Views of
the principal Seats, and Marine and Landscape Scenery in the vicinity of
Lymington, Hants…', from pictures by Gilbert, probably watercolours given that
there are minor changes in this instance.
The 'Alarm', here shown as
a brand-new cutter, was one of the best known early Royal Yacht Squadron
vessels. She was built by Thomas Inman at Lymington in 1830 for the famous
yachtsman and landowner Joseph Weld (1777–1863) of Lymington and Lulworth
Castle, Dorset.
This was her very successful first season in which,
cutter-rigged, she won both the Ladies Cup and, on 21st August, the prime trophy
of Cowes Week that year – the King's Cup presented by the new king, William IV:
the latter is also in the Museum collection (PLT0256). The Ladies Cup commenced
the week, on 14th August, pitting 'Alarm' against James Maxse's 164-ton
'Miranda'. The course was about 60 miles from Cowes to the Nab Light, then
back to a buoy off Lymington and return to Cowes. Gilbert here shows her passing
the stake-boat marking the finish, which fires a gun. 'Miranda' follows at far
left, two minutes behind, after being one minute ahead at the Nab turn. Weld
retained the Ladies Cup when presented, it being the third successive season he
had won it, according to the report in the 'Hampshire Telegraph' of 16th
August: this adds that 'the weather was boisterous the whole of the day', as
Gilbert shows it.
In 1851, 'Alarm' raced the US schooner yacht
'America' in the challenge-cup event which, when 'America' won, laid the basis
of the 'America's Cup' still contested today. Weld then had her lengthened by
20ft and thereafter she was rigged as a schooner and continued racing until
1867. She was broken up in 1889.
The Museum has an oil painting by
Nicholas Condy, the younger, depicting a deck scene on the 'Alarm', c.1842–1851
(BHC4178).
This painting is inscribed '“Alarm” 193 tons, built in
1830'.
NOTES AMERICA-SCOOP :