Classic Boat - Charlie Barr Story

Charlie Barr The STORY OF A SKIPPeR SUPReMe

CHAPTER 1: THE EARLY YEARS

all barr one At the turn of the 20th century, one yachtsman was in a league of his own. Here, we profile the phenomenal career of the racing and record-breaking legend that is the Scotsman Charlie Barr WORDS BARRY PICKTHALL

D

id you know that Britain has a three-times America’s Cup winner?

No, it is not the American Dennis Conner claiming historic family roots embedded in olde England but a man called Charlie Barr, the diminutive Scottish yachtsman who won three consecutive Cups between 1899 and 1903. Dennis Conner (aka ‘Mr America’s Cup’) and Sir Russell Coutts have each won more Cups over a longer period, but Barr’s record is even more phenomenal following his remarkable victory in the storm-ridden 1905 transatlantic race when he set a record that stood for the next 75 years.

The full story of Charlie Barr’s incredible record as a yachtsman has come to light thanks to an archive of pictures, press cuttings and obituary notices recently unearthed for Classic Boat. The Scot, who stood little more than 5ft (1.5m) tall, was the youngest in a family of noted skippers, whose father, brothers and nephews all won fame racing yachts around the Clyde.

Born in Gourock near Glasgow in 1864, close to the famed Fife yacht building yard at Fairlie, Charlie Barr was a contemporary of William Fife III. His mother, fearful perhaps that she would lose all her sons to the sea, steered him towards life as a tradesman, starting out as a greengrocer’s clerk in the village, but the scent of saltwater was too strong, and he ran away to sea, finding a berth as a cabin boy on a little coasting schooner from Greenock. It was on this vessel and the hardy fishing boats that followed, that the young Charlie cut his teeth as a seaman. Agile, muscular and, above all, fearless, he was just the sort to have on board a racing yacht, and

before long, Barr was serving before the mast on the cutter Ulerin. It was aboard her that he learned the basics of yacht racing that would stand him in good stead for the rest of his short life. When the opportunity arose to join his elder brother, ‘Wee Johnny’ Barr, to deliver a Clyde-built yacht across the Atlantic, he jumped at the opportunity and arrived in the US in 1885 as one of Johnny’s crew aboard the cutter Clara.

In their first year Stateside, the two Barrs won many prizes racing Clara against American ‘skimming dishes’, and these successes gave Charlie his first command on board the Boston-based cutter Thana.

At the end of that year, he returned to Gourock only to find that ‘home’ had lost its charms, and was soon heading back west. Back in Boston, the owner of the Clyde-built Shona snapped him up for two seasons, during which Charlie and his brother John took up residence in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and became American citizens. There they built themselves a Scottish-styled fishing vessel, which they worked outside the yacht-racing season and amazed their American counterparts with the size of their catches.

In 1886 at the tender age of just 22, Charlie Barr was charged by Admiral Tweed of the Corinthians to return to the UK and take delivery of the famous 40ft (12.2m) Fife cutter Minerva, which he sailed back across the Atlantic and continued to skipper for two more seasons.

His record with Minerva was quite phenomenal, never actually losing a race, and it was aboard her that his reputation as a supremely talented and innovative racing skipper was made. He then took command of Albion B Turner’s 46ft (14m) Queenie, then won the

Right: with piercing black eyes and a striking moustache, Barr cut an impressive figure despite his lack of height

2

MYSTIC SEAPORT, ROSEnfElD COllECTIOn

“He is described as a sawn-off version of Lord Kitchener with black eyes and a massive moustache”

MYSTIC SEAPORT

CHAPTER 1: THE EARLY YEARS

Above: Charlie Barr’s skill and success on board Colonia attracted the attention of the US America’s Cup teams

championship aboard Gloriana – a Nathaniel Herreshoff interpretation of Minerva – before moving on to take the helm of her conqueror Wasp. It was during this time that his seamanship skills were tested to the full in saving the life of a seaman lost overboard near Marblehead on 15 July 1891, for which Barr was awarded a medal by the Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

In 1893, he took the big cutter Navahoe, owned by Mr Royal Phelps Carroll, to England. She was one of designer Nathaniel Herreshoff’s creations, designed specifically to challenge for the Royal Victoria Gold Cup during that year’s Cowes Week, and also to attempt to win back the Cape May and Brenton Reef cups, then in British hands. In her first outing, Navahoe encountered Valkyrie, Britannia, Satanita, Calluna and Iverna, the pride of the British fleet. Though Barr was helped by the private duel that developed between Valkyrie and King Edward VII’s Britannia, Navahoe could do no better than secure third place to these two. In the race for the Royal Victoria Gold Cup, she was easily defeated by Britannia, and it was only in the Brenton Reef Cup that the American yacht salvaged some glory with a win, thanks largely to the perceptiveness of Barr in realising that the Royal Yacht Squadron had moved the finish line. The course

had been from the Needles to the Cherbourg breakwater and back, but as the fleet returned, the committee boat could not be anchored in the strong tidal stream and so it was brought into the quieter waters of Alum Bay and moored. The finish was so close that just seconds divided Navahoe from her nearest rival.

Despite the victory, the American yacht had not fulfilled expectations and Barr resigned his berth to deliver George Gould’s America’s Cup-winning yacht Vigilant back across the Atlantic in under 18 days, where he sailed her against Defender during the 1895 US trials – his first taste of America’s Cup sailing.

Described as a sawn-off version of Lord Kitchener, with black eyes and a massive black moustache, Barr was a man of few words, and those he did utter had such a strong Glaswegian twang that Americans found him almost incomprehensible. But despite this o bvious barrier to communication, Charlie Barr’s seamanship and tactical skills were now attracting the attention of top yachtsmen, including Commodore CA Postley from the Larchmont Yacht Club who secured the Scot to skipper his schooner Colonia. It was on board this boat that his reputation for close-quarters battling became the stuff of legend.

Barr developed a starting routine of remaining to windward of the fleet then sweeping down at full speed

“Barr’s record with Minerva was phenomenal, never losing a race”

4

Above, top to bottom: Jubilee (left) and the cutter Colonia (right) on the slip; Barr on board Shona in 1888; certificate of Barr’s induction into the National Sailing Hall of Fame at the San Diego YC ppl

on a reach to harden up on the line just as the gun fired.

It served him well on just about every occasion. The bigger the boat under his command, the more frightening it was for any opposition. During the 1895 season at Larchmont, Colonia was matched against the smaller Amorita. Having taken his customary position to windward, Barr bore away and approached the line on a broad reach to achieve a last-minute overlap, then squeezed Amorita out from the buoy, whose crew were forced to free sheets to avoid a collision. Being closehauled, those on Amorita had thought they had right of way over Colonia, which had been running free, but Barr’s timing was so impeccable, that he established an overlap just moments before the two yachts might have hit each other. The manoeuvre so impressed the correspondent from the Tribune newspaper that he described it thus: “If Hank Haff [the skipper of Amorita] had hit him at the mark, which he could have done easily enough, it would have been found that Charlie had the rights of it. The chances are that he had planned the move beforehand. From Colonia’s point of view, it was a daring piece of work that was technically correct. It also provided the most exciting moment of the season.”

Barr’s remarkable skill, intelligence and racing pedigree with Colonia were principally responsible for him being chosen as the first non-American skipper to lead a US America’s Cup defence campaign, commanding Columbia against Sir Thomas Sopwith’s Shamrock in the 1899 Cup series, at the age of 35.

c/o spnea/n l stebbins

Mystic seaport, rosenfeld collection, arthur f. aldridge

5

CHAPTER 2: THE AMERICA’S CUP

the hero at the helm With his tactical nous, endeavour and an unbreakable will to win, Charlie Barr became the helmsman every American yacht club wanted to lead them to America’s Cup glory

F

or all Charlie Barr’s celebrated exploits as the most sought-after America’s Cup captain of his time, it was actually his older brother John who hit the headlines first as he was judged to be the better individual sailor. Charlie, on the other hand, was the supreme starting helmsman, one of the best students of the racing rules and the better man manager, able to drill and captain his crew to tack, gybe, and set and recover spinnakers better than anyone.

In 1887, John Barr was named skipper of James Bell’s secretive Scottish challenger, Thistle. Designed by George L Watson, the shipwrights and other workers at D&W Henderson’s yard on the Clyde were sworn to secrecy about her shape and size. When she was launched, the whole yacht was swathed in a canvas modesty screen to stop prying eyes like those of the New York Sun newspaper reporting any detail back to members of the New York YC, holders of the America’s Cup. Their correspondent speculated that she was a centreboarder.

James Gordon Bennett Jr, the proprietor of the New York Herald and a keen Cup follower, took great delight in showing up this uninformed comment by interviewing Dixon Kemp, secretary of the Yacht Racing Association, who confirmed that had Thistle carried a centreboard, she would not have been allowed to compete in the Royal Thames YC’s Harwich race.

Unlike the Americans, the British sailing hierarchy did not view centreboarders as seamanlike and discouraged their development.

This secrecy over Thistle’s design gathered pace when she arrived in New York. The World newspaper went to the trouble of hiring a diver one night to go to the lengths of measuring her underwater profile while John Barr and his crew slept. The subsequent drawing was wildly inaccurate; when it came to measuring her in dry dock, the challenger’s waterline was found to be

almost 1½ft (46cm) longer than stated when the challenge had been lodged.

Unfortunately, Thistle’s performance did not match the hype nor the vast amounts of money bet on her to beat the Cup defender Volunteer, skippered by Hank Haff who would become Charlie Barr’s greatest adversary. Haff sank Thistle’s hopes with two straight victories by wide margins. Little more is heard of John Barr, but you can be certain that his younger brother learned a great deal from this one-sided rout.

Charlie Barr’s first clash with Hank Haff was during the Cup trials to select a defender against Lord Dunraven’s Valkyrie III in 1895. It was an acrimonious, protest-ridden introduction. Haff had command of Defender, a new 89ft (27.1m) Herreshoff cutter, while Barr had the helm of Vigilant, the successful 1893 defender. In their first skirmish, Barr had Vigilant hard on the wind, aiming to close out Defender, when Haff simply barged his way in, forcing Barr to bear away.

The committee deferred the protest, but when the two yachts met on the line two day’s later, Haff again forced Vigilant from her course.

This second violation of the rules complicated matters, for the New York YC had a rule that barred any yacht from racing under the club’s auspices again if it had lost two or more protests. There is little doubt that Barr would have known this, and his winner’s mentality would have pressed for both protests to be heard in an effort to eliminate the faster yacht from the trials. In the end, wiser council prevailed, and Mr E A Willard, the owner’s representative aboard Vigilant who had spent $50,000 having her upgraded, withdrew from the series. Barr was furious: “I have been made a fool of.

Vigilant has had the better position, and it is unfair that we have to give way. If these races had been for the Cup, then Valkyrie III would have held her course each time.”

Perhaps it was just as well, for the 1895 series between Defender and Lord Dunraven’s Valkyrie III

6

MYSTIC SEAPORT, ROSEnfEld COllECTIOn

“Sycamore was so incensed by Barr’s tactics he threatened to ram him”

CHAPTER 1: THE EARLY YEARS

Above: Charlie Barr at the helm of Reliance during a test run in 1903 7

CHAPTER 2: THE AMERICA’S CUP

turned into one of the most acidic events in the Cup’s history. By the time Sir Thomas Lipton came on the scene in 1899 with the first of his Shamrock challengers, Hank Haff had quite a reputation for bending and breaking the rules, while Barr was seen by American eyes at least, as the white knight. This is perhaps why he, rather than Haff, was given command of Columbia, Herreshoff’s latest creation.

It took time for Barr to bring his crew up to speed and improve their sail handling, but by August, Columbia had the measure of Defender in every race and her choice as the New York YC’s Cup defender became a formality to all but Haff Hank who, relegated to an opinionated bystander, concluded that Shamrock “…is the best boat that has ever crossed the Atlantic in quest of the America’s Cup”. His refusal to endorse Barr’s chances with Columbia could not have been wider from the mark: the American crew easily had the measure of Lipton’s challenger, winning the first two races by comfortable margins. And to show their appreciation, Columbia’s owners, which included the banker J P Morgan, awarded Barr $3,965.75 for the campaign – the equivalent of around $112,000 today.

Barr’s rivalry with Hank Haff was renewed during the defence trials for the 1901 Cup series against Sir Thomas Lipton’s second challenger, Shamrock II. Initially, Haff had the helm of Thomas Lawson’s new scow-shaped challenger Independence. This was a radical design in many respects, with a latticework of struts replacing traditional frames and such a mix of metals that the resulting electrolytic action made her fizz like an Alka-Seltzer. Despite Haff’s best efforts,

problems caused by flexing within the hull were so severe that her rudder had a habit of binding up at inappropriate moments and there were constant problems with her rig. Defender proved to be an expensive experiment, costing Lawson $205,000 (the equivalent of $5,780,000 today) and was scrapped just three months after her first race.

Haff then took command of Herreshoff’s latest design Constitution, in the hope that he would turn around her fortunes against Barr in the final defence trials. Charlie was working on the same financial incentives as before: $3,000 for the season plus $1,000 bonus if he retained the Cup against Shamrock II. Constitution should have been the faster boat but a series of rig failures and poor sails hampered her development. Haff made a difference but he did not have enough time to work up his crew as Barr had done. In their 22 matches, of which 18 were concluded within the time limits, Constitution won nine, but all in light conditions.

Columbia proved to be the better boat across the board, and in the end, the New York Cup Committee decided to go with Barr’s proven credentials.

Shamrock II was a new G L Watson design and Lipton spared no expense on her construction, plating her in Immadium, a superlight aluminium alloy.

During trials against her Fife-designed predecessor, Shamrock II was clearly faster and Lipton and his crew believed they had a winner. They may well have been right, for during the Cup races later that year, she had the speed to match Columbia, but not the crew to beat Barr’s well-honed team.

In their first encounter, Shamrock II’s skipper, Edward Sycamore, came off second-best during the pre-start manoeuvres. The race was later abandoned through lack of wind, but Sycamore was so incensed by Barr’s tactics, that he threatened to ram the American defender if it

“Columbia had the measure of Defender in every race”

Below, left to right: Reliance (left) breaks her topmast during a practice run in New York Bay with Columbia (foreground) and what is thought to be Constitution (far right) in 1903; captain Charlie Barr at the wheel of Reliance

far left: Mystic seaport, rosenfeld collection; left: ppl

8

CHAPTER 1: THE EARLY YEARS

Mystic seaport, rosenfeld collection

happened again. That brought the crowds out in force to watch the rerun. This time, Sycamore claimed the windward berth, crossed the line two seconds ahead and pulled out a 39-second lead by the weather mark.

Sailing back downwind, it soon became clear that the smaller Columbia was better sailed. Barr soon drew level and went on to win by 10 lengths – the closest margin of victory since these Cup races had begun.

When the yachts met next for a 30-mile race, Shamrock II edged ahead and led by 3mins 20secs at the windward mark, and extended this to a half-mile lead when the race was abandoned. That simply whetted the appetite for more among the spectator fleet, and Lipton too was buoyed by their performance.

Two days later, the two yachts faced a strengthening offshore breeze. Sycamore again outmanoeuvred Barr at the start to cross the line 1min 34 secs ahead and then maintained this advantage to the weather mark. Columbia clawed back some ground on the reach, and as the wind strengthened, continued to gain on the final beat. Within 20 minutes of being hard on the wind, Columbia crossed astern of Shamrock II, and after the Irish yacht tacked, the two drove towards the New Jersey shore. Barr had the measure of his rival and held windward advantage to the finish. Columbia eventually finished 3min 25secs ahead on corrected time, much to the relief of the New Yorkers.

It was now 2-0 to Barr in this best-of-five match, but no one was being complacent, least of all Charlie who had been beaten to the start on both occasions. Edward Sycamore forced Columbia to start to leeward of Shamrock II during their third encounter too, though this time, the two yachts crossed the line abreast. The Irish yacht’s greater sail area gave her the edge, and by the first mark, Shamrock II led by 49 seconds. To those in the spectator fleet, it looked very much as if Lipton’s yacht might become the first challenger to win a race since these Cup races began 31 years before.

Columbia regained some ground on the reach inshore after Shamrock II failed to cover, but Lipton’s yacht recovered lost ground during the initial beat back to the finish. But then the wind began to falter and Barr instigated a tacking duel. The crew on the smaller Columbia proved themselves quicker through each tack, and slowly but surely, the gap narrowed. Sycamore defended his starboard advantage to the end, but it was not enough. Shamrock II crossed the line first followed

by Columbia just two seconds behind to win the race and retain the Cup by 41 seconds on corrected time.

The New Yorkers may have seen off Lipton’s second Cup challenge, but the narrowness of Barr’s victory sent shockwaves through American ranks. Club members rallied round to contribute $300,000 towards a new

Above: Shamrock and Columbia (foreground) racing neck-andneck at the start of the second race of the 1899 America’s Cup

9

MYSTIC SEAPOrT, rOSEnfELd COLLECTIOn

CHArLIE bArr ArCHIvE/PPL

Herreshoff design that would have a bigger sail area than any previous 90ft (27.4m) waterline yacht. Back in the UK, Lipton too was planning a third Shamrock, reverting to William Fife for her design.

Barr was retained to skipper the defence yacht a year ahead of the 1903 Cup races and told to secure the best sailors even before Herreshoff had agreed to design his Reliance. Shamrock III was the first to be launched and immediately made a favourable impression, beating her Fife-designed predecessor on every point of sail. Disaster struck during a second round of racing off Weymouth a few weeks later when Shamrock III’s rigging screws failed and her mast came crashing down, knocking Lipton’s steward overboard. He disappeared in seconds and it was the worst possible start to a Cup Challenge.

Across the Atlantic, Reliance with Barr at the wheel was the boat to beat during the defence trials against Constitution and Columbia, winning 16 of her 19 races.

Her scow-shaped bows were seen as a major advance, and so too were her two-speed winches sited below deck.

Her 4in (10.2cm)-thick mainsheet was 800ft (244m) long and controlled by a giant drum winch below, and the crewmen who handled this rough rope, bound their fingers with spun yarn to stop their skin splitting.

This was the era when big was beautiful. Reliance carried 4,833sqft (449m²) more sail than Shamrock III, needed eight more crew to handle it all, and had to give the challenger 1min 45secs over the 30-mile course.

Shamrock III Reliance LOA

LOA

104ft 8in (31.9m)

108ft 4in (33m)

LWL

LWL

89ft 8in (27.4m)

89ft 7in (27.3m)

MAST HEIGHT

MAST HEIGHT

144ft 8in (44.1m)

149ft 7in (45.6m) SAIL ArEA

SAIL ArEA

14,337sqft (1,332m ) 19,170sqft (1,781m2) 2

10

CrEW

CrEW

56

64

The start to the first race was even. Barr secured the windward berth, but Bob Wringe, the skipper of Shamrock III, crossed the line four seconds ahead.

It remained this way for much of the first beat, the British challenger making most of the lumpy seas, while Reliance pointed higher. It was only when the two reached the calmer waters along the New Jersey shore that Barr and his crew gained any real advantage, and once Reliance crossed ahead of Shamrock III, it was game over. At the weather mark, the halfway stage, Reliance led by 3mins 17secs, and stretched this to seven minutes on the run back to the finish.

The second race was closer, but had the same outcome. Barr had the measure of Wringe from the start, leading Shamrock III away from the line by 19 seconds – almost a half-mile advantage with these enormous yachts. Reliance gained a further 49 seconds on the beat, 1min 23 secs more on the spinnaker reach, and an additional 45 seconds on the close reach home. To the home crowd, the Cup looked to be safe for another year or two. Race three would have been a walk over had the winds allowed it. Barr blocked Shamrock III at the start and by the windward mark was more than 12 minutes ahead. The time limit expired when Reliance was less than a mile from the finish, but it simply delayed the inevitable. When the two yachts lined up for the final encounter on 3 September, Wringe, now totally demoralised by Barr’s pre-start tactics, avoided any close-quarters conflict and was probably just as surprised as the Scot when Reliance was judged to have crossed the line early. In those days, there was no call to restart so the time difference between the two yachts was simply deducted from the transgressor’s handicap allowance.

But it made no difference. Reliance rounded the weather mark 11 minutes ahead and finished to a chorus of horns and whistles with Shamrock III’s crew in the dim distance. In addition to his basic pay and rewards, Barr was given a further $2,000 annuity for life, which he used to purchase Shamrock II for $7,000.

It was another 84 years before Dennis Conner drew level with Barr’s America’s Cup record, and 100 before New Zealander Russell Coutts could claim the same.

That was the measure of Charlie Barr’s success, acknowledged only last year when the Scotsman was inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame.

Above, left to right: Reliance crossing the finishing line in the 1903 Cup races; Reliance hauled out to dry between races

CHAPTER 3: TRANSATLANTIC TRIUMPH

Racing Royalty Charlie Barr was much more than a champion short-course racer. He beat the best over longer distances too – a point he proved by setting a new transatlantic race record Then, addressing the quartermaster at the wheel of Ingomar, he added: “Hold her as she is.”

Moments later, Meteor and Ingomar came together but without damage – the Kaiser had blinked first.

The wager stipulated that the victor would select a trophy, and that evening, Barr was summoned by Wilhelm to ‘talk yachting’ with him. It was then that the Scot demanded that Meteor’s ensign be lowered and handed to him as his trophy. The Kaiser objected, but Barr would settle for nothing less and the flag is now on display in the Royal Yacht Squadron’s Pavilion.

atlantic launch That winter, when back in America, Barr was approached

by Wilson Marshall, a somewhat reclusive American millionaire who had commissioned William Gardner to draw what was then the largest private yacht of her day – the schooner Atlantic. At 187ft (57m) overall, 138ft (42m) on the waterline, and with 29ft 5in (9m) beam, 303 tonnes displacement, 18,514sqft (1,722m²) of sail, and a 350hp triple expansion steam engine driving a folding propeller, Atlantic was also one of the first yachts to be equipped with 120ft (36.6m) hollow steel masts.

Marshall had specified the best materials and Atlantic was built using the most expensive method then available – ¼in (6mm) wrought-iron plates, flush riveted to produce a smooth hull finish. He then had the yacht fitted out with all manner of stately items, including solid marble bathtubs, gold-plated taps, mahogany furniture in her staterooms, and a system of bell-pushes to summon her 12 stewards to any part of the ship.

When it came to her launch, Marshall invited 200 of New York’s finest to witness her passage down the slipway at the Townsend-Downey Shipbuilding Company in July 1903. But it soon became apparent that something had gone badly wrong. The $750,000

BEKEN OF COWES

F

ollowing Charlie Barr’s successful defence of the America’s Cup three times in succession between 1899 and 1903, the highly skilled Scotsman was in hot demand and there were no shortage of attractive and lucrative offers.

One of the more interesting came from Morton F Plant, Commodore of the Larchmont YC, to take command of his 118ft (36m) schooner Ingomar on an excursion across the Atlantic to compete against the cream of the British and German fleets. Barr oversaw her rating conversion at Herreshoff’s yard in Bristol, Rhode Island, to fit the English measurement rule. This included the removal of her centreboard and lowering of her keel, which increased draught by 2ft (0.6m) to 16ft (4.9m). Small changes were also made to her rig, and to her interior for the 28 crew.

The principal aim was to win back the Brenton Reef Cup, which had been held by the Royal Yacht Squadron since Genesta had won it nine years before in 1895, but Ingomar did much more, winning 19 out of her 22 races in the Solent and Baltic that year. The most notable was a challenge from the German Emperor, Wilhelm II or ‘Kaiser Bill’ as he became known in English-speaking circles, to race Ingomar against his schooner Meteor.

Since Ingomar’s American owner was not a member of the Imperial YC of Kiel, Barr was obliged to carry a club representative on board for the match race. As the start time neared, Barr approached the line hard on starboard tack. The Kaiser had the wheel of his yacht, which was on port tack and was bound to keep clear.

But as the two yachts began to converge and it became apparent that a collision was imminent, the club representative shouted: “Captain. The Kaiser. Tack!”

Barr turned on his visitor: “The Kaiser ceases to be the Kaiser when he steps on board a racing yacht.”

11

CHAPTER 1: THE EARLY YEARS

Barr’s Ingomar (left) and the Kaiser’s Meteor (right) nearly clash. Barr held his course and won and his prize was the German’s ensign

12

CHAPTER 1: THE EARLY YEARS

ian dear archive/PPL

BeKen OF cOWeS

Above: Barr at the helm of Atlantic with the owner, Wilson Marshall (centre), and a guest, Mr F M Hoyt (right)

yacht was a dog, reaching poorly and unable to point into wind. Quite simply, Gardner had miscalculated the positioning of Atlantic’s drop keel – a design fault that looked like condemning the yacht to an early date at the breakers yard.

In desperation, Gardner had an 80-tonne fixed keel bolted on the bottom and the result was dramatic.

The extra weight pulled Atlantic far below her waterline, making her very wet, but also remarkably stiff. Like many schooners, she was still sluggish to windward, but on a reach Atlantic could beat anything on the American East Coast. Marshall was delighted and looked for a worthy occasion to show off his new yacht.

Enter the German Kaiser once more. Hearing that his British uncle had almost been killed by a falling block while sailing with his tea magnate friend, Sir Thomas Lipton, aboard the America’s Cup challenger Shamrock III, the Kaiser joked: “Serves him right for going yachting with his grocer!” This bitchy wisecrack got back to both the New York Yacht Club, and the hierarchy within the Royal Yacht Squadron, who, miffed at this slight to King Edward VII, blackballed the Kaiser from their two clubs or racing in their waters.

Not a man to apologise, the Kaiser responded by commissioning The Kaiser’s Cup, and offering what was billed as a $5,000 gold ewer trophy for a yacht race to be run entirely in international waters from the Sandy

Hook Lightship off New York to a line drawn across the Western Approaches between Lizard Point and Ushant.

This was just the type of challenge Wilson Marshall was looking for, but being a man who had trouble tying his own shoelaces, he relied heavily on Charlie Barr’s experience. The Scotsman, who already held the East/ West Atlantic crossing record with Vigilant, signed up 31 of the toughest Nova Scotian fishermen who viewed racing on Atlantic as infinitely more preferable to fishing for cod on the cold fog-strewn Grand Banks.

master tactician Eleven yachts took up the Kaiser’s challenge. German hopes lay with Hamburg, the most powerful two-masted schooner in Europe, which had begun life in 1898 as the Clyde-built Rainbow. One to be heavily tipped, however, was another schooner, the 137ft (41.8m) Endymion, owned by New York banker George Lauder, which already held the record between Sandy Hook and the Lizard – a time of 13 days, 20 hours and 36 minutes.

There was Lord Brassey’s 159ft (48.5m), 532-tonne Sunbeam, and the Earl of Crawford’s 245ft (74.7m) square-rigged Valhalla. Another contender was the 150ft (45.7m) Thistle, owned and skippered by Wall Street stockbroker Robert E Todd. And then there was Marshall’s Atlantic. Not only did she have Charlie Barr, the most celebrated skipper of his era at the helm, but 13

CHAPTER 3: TRANSATLANTIC TRIUMPH

the yacht had already beaten all comers in both the Brenton Reef and Cape May races the previous year.

How would she fare with her low freeboard in the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean?

The rules of the race, laid down by the Imperial YC of Kiel, required propellers to be removed and displayed on deck to avoid any chance of cheating when the yachts were out of sight on the open ocean. Count Hebbenhaus, the German naval attaché in Washington, fired the start gun at 12:15 on 17 May 1905.

The day dawned with a slight wind from the east and mist over the water. Hamburg was the early leader followed by the 103ft (31.4m) Fleur de Lys, the smallest in the fleet and the only entry with a woman on board – Candace Stimson, the daughter of a doctor from Gloucester, Massachusetts.

The yachts beat into the easterly breeze to get into the Gulf Stream that would then carry them north-east at a helpful two knots towards the Labrador Current.

It was from here that tactics came into play. One option was to stay on the 40th parallel and head due east towards the Azores, then run before the prevailing southwesterlies across the Bay of Biscay to reach the English Channel.

The 198ft (60.4m) barque Apache took this route, had an easy voyage and finished a week behind the winner!

Another course was the shortest Great Circle route across the Grand Banks – the only place where you can encounter thick fog and 40-knot winds at the same time.

Fleur de Lys went this way, suffered light, variable winds on the Banks, and finished seventh.

set by the British yacht Dauntless in 1887. A jubilant Barr ordered a double issue of rum all round.

By 26 May, nine days out from New York, Atlantic was running before a full gale, and carrying nothing more than a squaresail and storm trysail. As darkness loomed, she was running wildly, her decks awash and with oil bags deployed along her weather side. Two men lashed to the wheel and working in half-hour shifts were needed to keep her from broaching out of control.

Barr was faced with a tough choice: if the weather worsened during the night, he would be forced to send crew aloft and clamber out on the yards to furl the squaresail. If he altered course to run directly before the wind and breaking waves there was the perilous chance of Atlantic broaching and being knocked down, or worse, have her rigging carried away.

But the person running most scared was Marshall. He pleaded with Barr to lie hove-to and wait for the storm to pass. That drew a withering look from his skipper. “Mr Marshall, sir. You hired me to try and win this race. I’m keepin’ her going.” Barr then escorted the shaking owner back to his stateroom and locked the door. The chastened Marshall spent the rest of the night on his knees, leading his six guests in prayer!

Barr’s commitment was rewarded the next day with a run of 279 miles, a rate that Atlantic maintained for three more days as the weather eased. On the morning of 29 May, the schooner sped past Bishop Rock lighthouse, marking a time of 11 days, 16 hours and 21 minutes since the start from New York.

Then, as so often happens in the Fastnet Race, the winds died, and Barr spent a nail-biting 12 hours pacing the deck to keep his crew alert to the slightest zephyr over the final miles to the finish at Lizard Point.

There, the German cruiser Pfeil was on hand to record Atlantic’s time of 12 days, 4 hours, 1 minute and

“You hired me to try and win this race. I’m keepin’ her going”

The third option, the one favoured by Charlie Barr, was to sail to a point just south of the Grand Banks, and from there, steer a Great Circle track to the Lizard.

Alfred F Loomis reported in Yachting magazine: “Barr seems never to have made an error, never to have wasted as much as half an hour.” That of course is the way to break records, though at one point, owner Wilson Marshall would have willingly swapped all his millions and his yacht, to be sitting safely under a tree.

During their second day at sea, the winds backed round to the south-west, and by midnight, Atlantic’s huge rig had her reaching along at 10 knots. The following day, the wind swung west and Atlantic’s main topsail split, forcing her crew to climb up and cut away the remnants and set another sail. The fourth day was less eventful, and the fifth saw Atlantic make her worst day’s run – just 112 miles from noon to noon as Barr dodged between icebergs south of the Grand Banks.

The sixth day drew few remarks in Atlantic’s log as the wind backed SSE. On the next, 24 May, she began to make the most of the freshening winds, covering 341 miles noon to noon, to break the 328-mile 24hr record 14

Below: Atlantic at full sail as she crosses the finishing line close to Lizard Point

charles barr archive/ppl

weathering the storm

charlie barr archive/ppl

CHAPTER 3: TRANSATLANTIC TRIUMPH

barry pickthall/ppl

17 seconds – a remarkable record that stood for a further 75 years.

Barr continued winning races. In 1910, he skippered the Herreshoff-designed Westward for New York carpet magnate Alexander Cochran. He sailed her across the Atlantic to take on the cream of the European fleet, including Germania, Hamburg and the Kaiser’s Meteor, at regattas in Cowes, Cuxhaven and Kiel, winning all 11 races. Cochran was so pleased that he calculated exactly how much Westward had cost him to date and made out a cheque for the same amount to be distributed among all the hands at his carpet factory as a thank you for making it possible for him to have such a lovely boat.

Then, on 24 January 1911, just when the Scotsman was at the height of his powers and seemingly in good health, Barr suffered a massive heart attack and died.

The 56-year-old captain was buried in Southampton Cemetery. Newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic printed fulsome eulogies and the good and the great paid their respects at his funeral. Sir Thomas Lipton who had seen his America’s Cup ambitions thwarted three times at the hands of Barr, sent a telegram saying: “I am greatly shocked to learn the sad news of your great and terribly sudden bereavement. I held your dear husband in the highest possible respect and esteem and had for him the utmost admiration, both as regards his high personal character and his wonderful ability in his profession.”

Lipton sent the crew from his motor yacht Erin to act as pallbearers, and Alexander Cochran was so shocked

by Barr’s death that he never sailed on Westward again.

Barr was buried close to the chapel in Southampton Cemetery under a granite cross with an anchor at his feet.

When historian John Rousmaniere, a member of the New York YC, set out to locate Barr’s last resting place a few years ago, he found the grave largely reclaimed by nature.

Moves are now afoot for either the New York YC or the America’s Cup Hall of Fame Foundation to refurbish the grave and have it maintained into perpetuity.

Like his grave, memories of Barr’s feats might have faded into history had Atlantic’s 12-day record crossing not stood the test of time. In 1980 The Sunday Times newspaper resurrected her record with a £10,000 prize and a trophy made from Atlantic’s wheel for the first boat to beat what was still seen as a near impossible feat.

record breakers The record lasted just four months. Ironically, it was another legendary sailor, Frenchman Eric Tabarly, and a crew of three who took over Barr’s mantle. They didn’t just beat Atlantic’s time; they shattered it by two days, setting a time of 10 days, 5 hours and 14 minutes aboard the 56ft (17.1m) foil-assisted alloy trimaran Paul Ricard.

It was another 17 years before a monohull finally bettered Atlantic’s time. In April 1997, Swedish sailor Ludde Ingvall, sailing the 80ft maxi Nicorette, took 14 hours, 38 minutes and 50 seconds off the time.

Today, the outright record is held by Pascal Bidégorry’s 131ft (40m) French trimaran Banque Populaire V, which set a time of 3 days, 15 hours, 25 minutes and 48 seconds in 2009 – an average of 32.94 knots over the 2,880-mile distance.

And what happened to the Kaiser’s gold cup? In 1917, Wilson Marshall put it up for auction and it raised £150,000, but when it was later broken up it turned out to be made of thinly plated pewter. “I wish it was lead, so that we could fire it back at the Kaiser as bullets. The feller is obviously a cad,” said the indignant Marshall.

Replicas of the yachts Barr raced have been built in recent years. Eleonora, built at the Van der Graaf yard in Holland in 2000, is an exact replica of Westward. Van der Graaf also completed a new copy of Atlantic in 2007, and then started a new replica of Ingomar in 2012.

Make no mistake, Charlie Barr’s remarkable seamanship and racing success over such a short space of time, mark him out as one of the greatest captains the yachting world has ever seen.

Above, left to right: America’s Cup historian Bob Fisher views the inscription on Barr’s gravestone; Sir Thomas Lipton’s sailors acted as pallbearers at Barr’s funeral – the ultimate sign of respect

15

Charlie Barr 1864 – 1911

First published in Classic Boat 2013