1910 APBA Gold Cup
The Gold Cup Races
by C. G. Davis
Four fast motorboats started at the crack of the starting gun of Alexandria Bay at six o’clock, on Thursday, August 4th, and the old reliable Dixie II, with her proud owner, F. K. Burnham, at the steering wheel, and Engineer Rappuhn at the throttle, came home a winner in this, the first of the three days’ racing for the Gold Challenge Cup, beating Squaw, the Thousand Island Yacht Club entry, after a close and exciting race by 1 minute and 12 seconds. Skit, a monoplane, came in 17 minutes later and Skipper, the other entrant, came to a stop on the second round.
It was a well-fought race from start to finish, a race that meant the forfeiting of the leaders it should the motor falter at all, but neither the Dixie II’s nor the Squaw’s did, both roared around the whole thirty-mile course lijke two young volcanoes.
Skit was the more sensational in her actions, for she stuck her bow out of the water for half her length and "glided" with the bobbing up and down peculiar to all hydroplanes, and cut the water on either side of her flat bottom into two high fountains of spray but she could not leg it with the other two in spite of the fact that she carried 120 h.p. on a length of 24 feet.
More boats were expected to participate but some came to grief in preliminary tryouts. The Hoosier Boy did not show up and Louise, a smart little black flyer, was barred from starting by the judges as she did not comply with the race conditions in that she had no reverse gear. Another entry, Intruder, owned by Mr. Burnham, built form designs by H. J. Gielow, broke her crank shaft, and the Insurgent, a Thousand Island boat, owned by W. H. Harris, cracked a cylinder.
Squaw, the local boat, owned by Commodore F. G. Bourne, was built by Joseph Leyare, at Ogdensburg, and is as handsome a craft as one would care to see. She was equipped with the Simplex motor formerly installed in Messenger.
By three p.m. it was blowing from the west in vicious puffs, so that small motorboats had considerable difficulty in making landings. The little green and white houseboat for the use of the judges was anchored in the center of the triangle formed by the three flags that marked the turn off Alexandria Bay, where the start and finish ere to take place. Crossman’s Dock on the mainland was even at that early hour crowded with spectators and the docks along that shore lined with motorboats tied up to see the race. A large fleet of motor yachts was made fast to the trees on Hart Island and held close up to the stone wall bank there. From the top of George Boldt’s houseboat, La Duchess, the photographer and I had a bird’s-eye view of the whole race. The fast little black-hulled Louise, after a conference aboard the judges’ houseboat, went roaring away, her engine snorting the displeasure her owner felt at being disqualified, but the rules had not been observed and it was their own fault.
Then the peculiar little Skit cast off at 3:30 from alongside the judges’ boat and went roaring upstream, a small white flag at her stern bearing her racing number. From some unseen source the Skipper suddenly shot into view, a long red mahogany craft rocking from side to side as her crew let her out just to try the turn; then she ran downstream and mingled with the fleet of spectators’ yachts in the lea of Hart Island.
The boats were of all sizes and shapes, but all painted that one clean color, white, and white dresses and white suits predominated among their crews and guests which showed up in handsome contrast to the rich green of the trees that overhung the water almost to the yachts’ masts. Nearly all of the boats were decorated with strings of many colored flags.
Skit seemed little in comparison with the others, and everyone spoke of her as the "little one." She came throbbing down the river at full speed, half her length forward teetering up and down in a manner that fascinated one’s attention so that he hardly noticed the veil of spray thrown up at each side, almost hiding her crew from view.
Dixie II, the brave old warrior, was next to appear on the watery arena, being gently led around by a little midget of a motorboat.
Each of the Thousand Island Yacht Club’s one-design boats, distinguishable by a large black figure on either bow, just abaft their wide, sharp, brass cutwaters, appeared in readiness to patrol the course, clothed with the authority of the vertical striped revenue flag and uniformed crew off the revenue cutter Morrill, stationed here to see that the course was kept clear.
The race was to have been started at 4 p.m., but just at that time a big black lake steamer, the J. W. Keefe, shoved her blunt nose across the line, her officers high up in the pulpit-like bridge on top of her pilot house well forward, while dirty shirted coal passers hung out of the square open port aft right alongside of which a young waterfall came gushing from her pumps.
Evidently the race had been postponed, for no one molested a handsome, little, cedar-planked, canoe-shaped motorboat, that with a party of three or four pushed upriver against the wind. At 4:45 everyone expected that the race would surely start at five, and all eyes were focused on the judges’ boat, but not a sign of a start was to be seen when that hour came around.
The fleet of steam yachts and motorboats, anchored in a group between Sunken Rock Light and the big, black, iron, gas buoy moved up closer and more compactly towards the latter, and in the lea of each island a fleet of spectator boats lay anchored. Boathouses, stone walls and cottage verandas were lined with people but nothing happened. The sky overhead was blue but it was hazy and gray all around the horizon, and cat’s paws of wind rushed across the river, darkening its surfaces as they passed.
The motorboat Nameless then came by just as I counted one hundred motorboats in sight and told the people on the deck below us that there would be no race until six o’clock by holding up six fingers. It was a long wait until six o’clock and one by one the big yachts got under way and their spars disappeared behind the heavy foliage of the various islands. Small open boats, their parties tired of lying still, started to run about; boys in frail little skiffs rowed back and forth across the course, and the crowd on the mainland thinned out noticeably while those on Hart Island stretched out in the grass under the trees and waited. Mr. Miles, in charge of P.D.Q., with a revenue flag on her tall forward flagpole and with the Morrill’s commander aboard, did an act of charity by going around notifying people of the postponement.
Sharply at 5:55 p.m. the crack of the preparatory gun started spectators to their feet. It was blowing then just as hard as ever. Dixie II started the music by the sharp roar of her exhaust as she went tearing upstream followed by Skit. Outrider, once known as the Standard, cast off from a handsome mahogany craft that looked very much like Dixie II. She lay quietly in midstream, content to make a standing start, while the three others, roaring like volcanoes, electrified the crowd as they came tearing the water into spray, increasing their roar as throttles were open as they neared the line and the sharp crack of the starting gun sounded.
It was a beautiful sight to see Squaw, her crew confident, allow those boats to get almost neck and neck before she, too, jumped ahead and the Skipper and Squaw apparently crossed the line neck and neck. The judges’ split timing showed Dixie and Squaw exactly even, twelve seconds after the signal and Skipper thirteen seconds, while Skit was slightly behind in crossing, being seventeen seconds after the gun.
Four sprays of white water, each with a dot of varnished wood in the center, went gliding out of sight down the river pretty nearly as fast and very much the same viewed from astern as the flat stones we, as boys, used to skitter over the surface of ponds. Dixie II seemed to be forging ahead but we could not tell from so far away.
The crowd had suddenly reassembled at Crossman’s Dock by some sort of magic but there were fewer spectators’ boats than there had been an hour earlier.
The wind was every bit as strong, the flag halliards beat a tattoo on the pole beside me and the flag snapped and cracked overhead, while the bunting on the many flagpoles of the hotels was stretched out flat and hard.
At 6:15 two white spots were seen coming up the river. One of these gliding spray spots was well in the lead. The pall of soft coal smoke out of the funnel of a little white steamer downriver made a background against which the spray loomed up clearly. In a moment we saw a bright red bow, which proclaimed the leader as Dixie II, and the lighter color of the second boat’s varnished mahogany hull told that she was Squaw.
At 6:19:04 Dixie was officially timed on her first round. Mr. Burnham, swathed in white to deaden the roar of her engine, stood up to make the turn and when her nose pointed downstream he reached over, tapped Rappuhn on the shoulder and, words being useless in that roar, motioned to let her out. "Rap" did let her out, as Dixie’s actions showed. Squaw, cutting a beautiful, clean circle and looking the shadow of the leader, rounded at 6:20:09. Skipper came next at 6:21:53 and I noticed that she swung outboard s she rounded. She had a crew of three, and her skipper, with a two-handed grip on the steering wheel on her port coaming, made a pretty turn. Skit came last, rounding at 6:25:11, and she scooted around with that peculiar glide characteristic of all planers, she looked as terrifying head on as a "fire engine in full blast to the man on the crossing getting out of its way." She certainly looked wicked but the big, long, sharp fellows were too much for her.
After they had passed out of sight the suspense was relieved and people who had watched in silence found relief in laughter and conversation. Many audibly expressed a hope that some other boat than Dixie II would win; it would be more interesting they thought, but Dixie was running them all off their feet, and, with her capable owner at the wheel and "Rap" at her throttle, she had a crew hard to beat. The next time they came into view one had a long lead, and there was no use to ask who. The spray they threw coming across the open stretch of the bay was the same as before. Again we saw one long, red hull with yellow deck and a long, flat streak of suds; the second boat a more yellow tint of hull with two high sprays of water off either side. They were Dixie II and Squaw.
The turns were laid out so that Dixie had to turn against the thrash of her screw which accounted for the rattle of her exhaust as "Rap" slowed her engine for the turn to roar again when around. The times as they rounded were: Dixie II, 6:38:21; Squaw, 6:39:28.
Both helmsmen stood up, gripping the wheels in positions which would inspire a sculptor. Squaw’s engineer was sitting low pumping up pressure as puffs of thin, black smoke shot out of her low funnels. She is a beautiful craft. Her bright mahogany glittered in the sun while the polished brass deck fittings shot back starts of sunlight as they caught the rays just right. The two other boats were not in sight, and it was learned later that Skipper’s engine had run short of oil and rather than burn out his bearings her pilot slowed her down and withdrew, but the Skit was still running and by the time the others were out of sight she made her appearance and came gliding around at 6:50:20. One of her crew of three men was not visible, and the other two with lifebelts on were crouched low behind the little peaked khaki tent-like cover over her motor. Her motion over the water was exactly like that of the steamer Cero II, only the peculiar whistle of that craft was missing.
As the spots of spray again appeared the fleet of steam yachts edges across the river to be nearer the finish.
It was again Dixie II that led as they came down the home stretch. Her spray shot out like puffs of steam from her side, and her rival, far astern, was throwing it up in clouds. Dixie didn’t run—that don’t express it—she shot along the water like a projectile out of a gun—shooting out of sight behind one craft—across the interval of open water to disappear behind another and that’s all we could see, just an intermittent flash—between spectator boats until she crossed the finish line and the bark of the committee gun announced her winner.
Cannon boomed and whistles tooted all over the bay while both contestants and spectators hustled for boathouses and docks, and there was but slim attendance when the Skit came gliding home at 7:15:45.
No one imagined for a moment that the race would be started at four o’clock on Friday as the weather conditions at that time were far worse than those of yesterday. It was not only blowing much harder but the direction was such that instead of crossing the river as it did the day before it made a clean sweep right downstream; a heavy, lumpy sea was running and rain did not improve things. So little did Mr. Burnham expect to be called upon to race Dixie II, that at fifteen minutes before the start, both he and Rappuhn were taking a nap when word was received announcing the start of the race at four. Dixie was there, nevertheless, though the preparatory gun had sounded and only four minutes remained before the start when her motor was started.
A little blue flag with white square in its center had been hoisted on the flagstaff of the judges’ boat under the red and white club flag. Things happened fast when they did begin. The bark of the cannon on the judges’ boat sent Dixie II shooting for the line which she crossed about 15 seconds after the gun, while Skit was five seconds behind Dixie II, roaring louder than ever, her nose up higher and a bigger white wake astern. She carried a crew of only two men to-day. Mr. Gillespie’s oldest son was at the wheel, his younger brother "Bub" having had that pleasure the day before.
Old guides who had been down the river earlier in the day reported a nasty sea up towards Chippewa Bay and we could see by the way they threw the water that it was rougher than yesterday. I happened to look to see how they were weathering it, just as Dixie II took three high jumps, disappearing each time behind walls or jets of spray that must have been seven or eight feet high, but the reason for this was explained by a big lake steamer, the Toronto, that was coming into Alexandria Bay Dock. Dixie had struck the steamer’s wash. Skit danced the same time and then they were soon out of sight.
"Here they con! See them,--right up by Whiskey Island," shouted one of the onlookers, as they reappeared. Dixie II was cutting clean and running fast and came sweeping around the triangle of white flags at 4:21:03, slowing up perceptibly as she did so and then opening up for the straight run. She was away beyond Sunken Rock Light, passing down on the far side of the river with Skit coming up on the other side, a sliding shower bath.
Skit rounded at 4:23:15 with her nose up high turning sharp around the corner flags which caused some to think she was not going outside the middle flag.
Dixie rounded the second time at 4:42:30, with Skit a speck of spray far away. It had been blowing a gale, and was so cold that everyone had his collar turned up and hands dug into pockets, but now it began to rain and people scurried for shelter under verandas or under the wide spreading threes on Crossman’s Landing. At 4:48:20 Skit rounded her second time while hundreds of spectators tried to peek under the awnings or past the ends of big steam yachts two or three of which had tied up to the dock so that a favored few could sit in camp chairs and watch the sport, blocking the view of all others.
At 5:04:20 Dixie II came roaring across the line, and was half a mile up the river when the bark of a gun from the judges’ boat startled us. Then several steamers tooted three very tardy blasts of appreciation.
"As cold as the weather was" was a remark made at my elbow by a party of men but Dixie II’s rattle-like exhaust had disappeared between the islands on her way to Mr. Burnham’s handsome boathouse.
We waited and waited—six o’clock came and still no Skit appeared nor did she finish—the first of her six cylinders had not been working properly all during the race and finally her dry cell fed jump-spark ignition quit on the last round and she had to be towed home.
This, under the conditions of the race, eliminated all but Dixie II as a boat must finish to be eligible to start the next day.
On Saturday, the final day of the races, Dixie II had a sailover, and she covered the course in 57 minutes, 7 seconds. Squaw raced with her, but since the latter boat failed to finish in Friday’s race she was not in the running, but served to make things interesting for the spectators. Since Dixie II raced under the colors of the Frontenac Yacht Club the Gold Challenge Cup goes to that club.
The judges were H. T. Koerner, president of the American Power Boat Association, G. Averill and R. H. Eggleston. The Regatta Committee was composed of Dr. M. J. Gibbons, chairman: Lee Rumsay, A. G. Miles, Maxwell Rafferty, George Hasbrouck, F. K. Burnham and C. L. Hayden.
(Excerpts transcribed from MotorBoat, August 10, 1910, pp. 37-40.)
[Thanks to Greg Calkins for help in preparing this page — LF]