PLAIN SPEAKING

Born in 1878, C Sherman Hoyt sailed in every racing yacht imaginable for the best part of 60 years. Tireless, highly skilled, with an almost uncanny ability to spot a wind shift, he helmed Rainbow in her magnificent 1934 America’s Cup defence against Tommy Sopwith’s Endeavour. Despite the English yacht being generally agreed to be the faster, he out-foxed Sopwith and retained the Cup. In his own era he was arguably the world’s most famous yachtsman and his appearances on the international scene brought him into direct contact with such notable figures as the Dowager Empress of China, Adolph Hitler and ‘The Sailor King’ himself, George V.

In this extract from his memoirs written from the New York Yacht Club in 1950, he describes the race from Bermuda to Cuxhaven in 1936. He has shipped as mate aboard the brand-new Henry Gruber yawl Roland von Bremen with an all-German crew and we join them as they approach the English Channel. Hoyt’s comments about his inexperienced shipmates pull no punches. Yet, perhaps because of his influence, this unlikely crew win comprehensively and his generous seaman’s spirit speaks well of them at the last.

5.45. SS just passed us close aboard – loud cheers! She made signals but our crowd seemed at first too excited