Reliance (yacht)

"Reliance" was the 1903 America's Cup defender, the fourth America's Cup defender from the famous designer Nat Herreshoff, and reportedly the largest gaff cutter ever built.

Design

Her design took advantage of a loophole in the contemporary '90-foot' rule, to produce a vessel with long overhangs at each end, so that when she heeled over, her waterline length (and therefore her speed) increased dramatically (see image at left).

"Reliance" was one of the earliest pure large racing yachts; she was completely unfinished below deck, with exposed frames. She was also the first to employ winches (below deck), in an era when her competitors relied on sheer man-power.

Her sail plan was massive: from the tip of her bowsprit to the end of her 108 foot (32.9 m) boom, she measured 201 feet (61.2 m), and the tip of her mast was 199 feet (60.7 m) above the water (the height of a 20-story building). Everything else was to an equally gargantuan scale; her spinnaker pole was 84 feet (25.6 m) long, and her total sail area, around 17,000 square feet (1600 m²), was the equivalent of 8 12 meter class yachts.

Career

Her racing career was extraordinarily brief -- and undefeated. She bested her America's Cup challenger, Sir Thomas Lipton's "Shamrock III", designed by William Fife, in both races they actually finished (the third was called off due to light air). Sadly, this magnificent vessel was broken up the very next year; the 90-foot rule which had produced such extreme, dangerous and expensive vessels was abandoned, and "Reliance" became obsolete.

:"They tell me I have a beautiful boat. I don't want a beautiful boat. What I want is a boat to lift the Cup -- a "Reliance". Give me a homely boat, the homeliest boat that was ever designed, if she is as fast as "Reliance"." -- Sir Thomas Lipton, after his 1903 defeat

pecifications

* Overall length: 200 ft
* Length at water line: 90 ft
* Beam (width): 26 ft
* Draft: 20 ft
* Displacement: 189 tons
* Mast height: Over 200 ft
* Sail area: 16,200 sq ft

"Statistics compared with other America's Cup contenders:"

	LOA	LWL	Sail Area	Mast height	Displacement
Reliance	43.89 m	27.43 m	1501 m²	67,05 m	189 tons
Ranger	41.15 m	26.51 m	701 m²	46.98 m	166 tons
KZ1	36.57 m	27.43 m	627 m²	46.78 m	39 tons

Further reading

* N. L. Stebbins, W. H. Bunting, "Steamers, Schooners, Cutters and Sloops: Marine Photographs of N. L. Stebbins Taken 1884-1907" (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1974)

External links

* [http://www.herreshoff.org/ Herreshoff Marine Museum]
* [http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/ships/html/sh_075700_reliance.htm Reliance] from Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia