America
First Winner of the America’s Cup

Built at New York in 1851
Length 93 ft.; Beam 22 ft.; Depth 9 ft.; Tonnage 170 tons

A syndicate of New York yachtsmen, headed by Commodore John C. Stevens, commissioned William H. Brown to build the America from designs by George Steers. She was rigged and modeled after the New York pilot boats of the time, wide and shallow, and proved to be very fast. In July of 1851, she left New York for England and on August 22nd off Cowes she won the Royal Yacht Squadron’s regatta over fifteen English yachts. The cup which she won on this occasion became known as the America’s Cup, the world’s leading yachting trophy. Since 1870 sixteen unsuccessful attempts have been made by English yachts to win back this trophy and many millions have been spent by challengers and defenders of the America’s Cup races.

Shortly after winning the Cowes Regatta, the America was sold to an English yachtsman and was active in English yachting under various owners for the next ten years. In 1861, soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, she appeared at Savannah as a blockade runner and is said to have carried Confederate emissaries back to England. In 1862 she was found sunk in the St. Johns River, Florida, by the Union forces, which had captured Jacksonville. She was later raised by the United States Navy and put on blockade duty. After the war she was used as a training ship for cadets at Annapolis. In 1873 the United States Navy sold her to General Benjamin F. Butler who fitted her as a yacht again, and she was active as such for the next thirty years. After being out of commission from 1901 to 1902, she was presented to the Navy and is now moored as a memorial as the Naval Academy at Annapolis.

Robert E. Peabody, "America" catalogue entry in ed. John Ratté, Models of American Sailing Ships, rev. ed. (Andover, MA: Addison Gallery of American Art, 1994), 72–73