"VALKYRIE."
THE CHALLENGER AND DEFENDER OF THE "AMERICA'S" CUP IN DRY DOCK.
But to return to the yachts themselves, and to what I said about their uselessness as cruisers. The Valkyrie that sailed against Defender on September 7th was not the Valkyrie that crossed the ocean in August. The racer is an empty shell, with a towering mast and thousands of square feet of sail, whereas the travelling Valkyrie was the home of the forty or forty-five men who constituted her crew, and she was a two-masted craft—with stubby masts at that. As the one aim of both Valkyrie and Defender is to attain the highest possible speed, everything is done that experience and money can do to make the boats as light and as swift-sailing as possible. The one thought of the builders from the moment they got the orders to design the yachts was to make the shape of each boat the best to cut through the water, and the sails the most efficient to catch every breath of air stirring overhead.
In order that his rival might not know what kind of a boat was going to be turned out, both the English and the American architects worked with the greatest secrecy, and even after the boats had been launched and seen by the public their true measurements were withheld. But enough is known about the construction of racing sloops in general, and sufficient has leaked out about the building of Defender in particular, for us to have a pretty good knowledge of the boat that was depended upon to keep the America's Cup on this side of the water.
About three months were required for the construction of Defender. She was built at Bristol, Rhode Island. The plans were first fully discussed by the owners and the architect and his assistants, and were then laid out on paper to a scale, probably one inch to the foot—although this would make a pretty large working plan. But still, the larger a plan is the better, and in an important matter of this kind no pains are spared to reach perfection. A model of a yacht under construction is unnecessary, and is seldom made, except for the pleasure or curiosity of the owner.
"DEFENDER"
It was decided to give up the centreboard this year—much to the disappointment of a great many patriotic yachtsmen, for the centreboard is a purely American institution—and the plans were consequently designed for a keel boat. Defender's keel is of lead, and weighs 80 tons. It is 5 feet 6 inches high, 3 feet 6 inches wide, and 35 feet long on top, and was cast in the shop where the yacht was built, for such a weight as that could not very well be moved from one end of a ship-yard to the other. A cross section of this lead keel would look very much like the cross section of a pear cut lengthwise, with the bulge at the bottom. Fore and aft it is shaped somewhat like a whale or a cat-fish—that is, it is largest forward and tapers toward the stern. This doubtless seems strange to a great many unobservant landsmen, who know that ships are usually made as pointed and sharp as possible at the bow. This is all very well for a body that is intended to cut through the water, but for anything meant to travel under the surface the fish shape is the proper thing. All fish are larger at the head than at the tail, and yet they seem to find no difficulty in getting through the water very rapidly. Following this natural phenomenon, the keel of Defender is bulging at the bow and tapering at the stern.
Just, as the size and position of every stone in a large building are figured out before the work is begun, so was every part of Defender designed and laid out in the mould loft at Bristol long before the actual work of construction could commence. The mould loft is a very large room, with a spacious floor and plenty of light. On the floor every part of Defender was sketched out in chalk to the actual size required. Every beam and section was accurately laid down, and the workmen made wooden moulds or patterns from these sketches. To these wooden moulds the metal ribs and frames were afterwards bent. This work was done on the "bending table" by methods fully described in an article on ship-building published in No. 784 of Harper's Young People. When the steel ribs were satisfactorily completed, and had been found to be exactly as designed in the mould loft, they were taken into the shed where the yacht was being constructed. This shed, by-the-way, was a harder place to get into than the palace of the Czar. The doors were kept locked all the time, and watchmen were on duty day and night to drive away intruders. Only the owners, the architects, and the workmen were permitted to enter.
The keel, which is made of cast brass in three sections, was bolted to the lead with great screws from six to eight inches long, and the ribs were riveted to the keel and steadied across the top with wooden cross spalls until the deck beams were ready to be put on. The latter are of aluminium bronze. Everything in the make up of the yacht so far has been metal, and everything will be metal to the end. Even the stern and stem are brass castings, and there is no wood in the body of Defender, except the deck, which is of 24-inch light pine. The two or three partitions inside of her are made of canvas stretched on light pine frames, and the only other wood on board is in the mast. Even the boom is metal—that is, since Valkyrie came over with a steel boom.
To the ribs were riveted the plates, which are of manganese bronze, which is a kind of refined brass, only three-sixteenths of an inch thick, and the upper two streaks are of aluminium. This aluminium is said to be almost pure, and is the lightest metal known.