Sport: Yachts & Yachtsmen

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Encouraged by the shouts, cheery or derisive, of Provincetown's Portuguese fishermen, the fleet then set out across Massachusetts Bay for Marblehead, for the first formal gaieties of the cruise. It was a day of light, following airs;Andiamo, lifting and gliding under her great spinnaker, made the most startling run of the cruise and reached Marblehead more than an hour ahead of the rest. After a day's racing at Marblehead the weather was calm again; the fleet had itself towed through the canal at the base of Cape Cod to Buzzard's Bay. There was a fresh breeze for the last day of the cruise but it chopped, changed, and finally almost faded away while Weetamoe led the fleet home to Newport.

Two days of racing off Newport ended the cruise. Twenty-two year old Elizabeth ("Sis") Hovey, sailing her father's Istalena, beat Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams (called "Chick" by fellow yachtsmen) in the Vanitie to win the Astor Cup for sloops; Rowe B. Metcalf's Sachem won the Astor Cup for schooners. Next day, in a fine fresh breeze, Weetamoe won the cup presented by King George V, beating Valiant by one second over the 30-mile triangular course.

Though dull weather made the New York Yacht Club cruise, like several regattas this year, slightly disappointing, U.S. yachtsmen have enjoyed a lively summer. Instead of racing for the America's Cup, there was the transatlantic race, won by Olin J. Stephens' yawl Dorade which, still in British waters last week, also won the Cowes-Fastnet-Plymouth race. Gales made a majority of the boats in the Fastnet race seek port before the finish; they caused the second death of the year in British yachting when Col. C.H. Hudson, joint owner of Maitenes II was swept overboard and drowned.*

New York Yacht Club members talked last week as though the club had already received its challenge, expected within a fortnight, from barnacle-bearded Sir Thomas Lipton to race for the America's Cup in 1932. America's Cup racing next year will be done according to new and stricter specifications forbidding such oddities as the Enterprise's light and springy duralumin mast, or the winches below decks which made her easier to handle. Woodenmasted Weetamoe, slightly remodelled, might well be the 1932 defender.

Depression's influence on sailing this summer has been slight; on steam and power yachts more noticeable, though with notable exceptions. The new Morgan Corsair, launched in 1930, has crossed the Atlantic six times, once in record time (for steam yachts) to Southampton (7 days, 7 hr.). A dozen or more new yachts have been placed in commission this year; the biggest is Mrs. Richard M. Cadwalader's 407-ft. 10 in. Savarona, built in Germany at an estimated cost of $5,000,000. Now being built for Edward F. Hutton at Kiel is a square-rigged, 322-ft. four-master. Cost: $1,250,000.