Stebbins-27-America - A black and white photo of a sailboat in the ocean

the yankee schooner America won the 1851 RYS £100 Cup for a New York Yacht Club syndicate. She was designed by George Steers, built at Henry H. Brown's shipyard in Brooklyn in 1851, and is shown here in a 1887 photograph by Nanthaniel Livermore Stebbins) which has served on a book cover: "America's Victory" (David W. Shaw, Free Press 2002)Note that this is not America's rig as that with which she won the £100 Cup in 1851: Donald McKay and Edward Burgess refitted her in 1875 and 1885 respectively. By 1887, the rake in her masts was reduced, all her spars were lengthened, she featured a lead keel and carried two extra headsails and a fore gaff topsail. An enlarged rig and modernised build would have kept the ageing America competitive in the light yankee airs.