An American, a Scotsman and an Englishman Part 3

Because so many of the boats built in the early part of the 20th century were designed to different rules on opposite sides of the Atlantic, Nathanael Herreshoff’s rivalry with his British counterparts was mostly in the America’s Cup.

It is highly likely that William Fife would have met Herreshoff when he first went to America with George Lennox Watson for the 1887 Cup. The pair definitely met 12 years later – Fife was ill, but Herreshoff called on him at his New York hotel to pay his respects. They met again in 1903, when Reliance and Shamrock III were in a dry dock being scrutinised by Charles Mower, the New York Yacht Club’s official measurer. The New York Times reported: “Designer Nat Herreshoff, of whose genius Reliance is a product, went out in a skiff and was helped aboard the challenger by her designer, William Fife Jnr. The rivals then chatted together for a few moments, and then Mr Fife took Capt Herreshoff below and showed him the internal construction of the boat. When Mr Mower was ready, the two designers got into the skiff and watched the measuring of the waterline”.

Ian Dear’s book , on the history of the yard, that Fife designed in 1911 for the International Rule A-Class proved to be one of his rare failures, being beaten consistently by Herreshoff’s and the German Kaiser’s , the owner approached Nicholson instead. He asked him to make some alterations to , but Nicholson suggested he should build a new boat, saying it was a matter of “national pride” to beat his foreign rivals. The result was , which had a very successful racing record, starting with Kiel Regatta in 1913. This must have hurt Fife very badly, particularly as much of ’s rig and many of her fittings were used on the new boat.