Description

Responded to Sir Thomas Lipton’s challenger Shamrock V, four syndicates of Americans commissioned, at great cost, their own contenders. Starling Burgess led the effort for one of the New York syndicates. He promptly engaged the Wizard of Bristol, Nat Herreshoff, dean of American yacht designing, as his adviser. Together, they designed the largest and fastest racing machine ever seen and named her the Enterprise. This great and gorgeous J-boat was eighty feet long at the water line and sported a heavy keel with two centerboards. Her great 162-foot mast tapered from one and one-half feet at the base to nine inches at the top. It was made of two hollow tubes of aluminum and was supported by a large array of stays and rigging. Below deck she had two dozen winches for handling lines. Enterprise made short work of the other three would-be defenders of the Cup and was chosen to take on Shamrock V off Newport, Rhode Island. There, in September 1930, she went on to win a clean sweep of four races, maintaining the 80 year record of uninterrupted possession of Americas Cup.