Built as a compromise wooden centreboard sloop by George Lawley & Son at Boston for General Charles J. Paine from Boston.
05 May 1886 launched under the name MAYFLOWER.
Displacement 110 tons, dim. 30.55 x 7.19 x 3.00m. (draught) length on waterline 26.06m.
Sail area 774 m².
Designed by Edward Burgess.
During the American cup trial selections on 21st and 25th August 1886 she defeated the yachts ATLANTIC and PURITAN and the MAYFLOWER was chosen to defend the America Cup.
During the 6th America Cup race off New York was the MAYFLOWER under skipper Martin V.B. Stone the defender against the British yacht GALATEA under skipper Dan Bradford.
09 September 1886 was the first race in which the MAYFLOWER beat GALATEA by 12 minutes 02 second in corrected time.
11 September 1886 was the 2nd race in which the MAYFLOWER beat again the GALATEA by 29 minutes 09 seconds in corrected time.
The America Cup stayed after these two races in the U.S.A.
1887 Was she used in a private race between the MAYFLOWER and GALATEA the race took place in the spring of 1887 off New York. That day there was a strong breeze but again the MAYFLOWER defeated the GALATEA.
The MAYFLOWER raced in the selection trials for the 1887 Cup defence, but she was that year not selected but the yacht VOLUNTEER.
The MAYFLOWER was soon thereafter sold and returned to Boston.
1889 Was she again in New York at that time owned by F. Townsend Underhill a New York Yacht Club member.
He ordered that she was altered in a schooner. She was then sold to a Boston yachtsman and raced for some time under the flag of the Eastern Yacht Club.
1905 She was bought by Lady Eva Barker and an auxiliary engine was fitted in.
1908 She chartered the vessel out to the Southern Research Company, a company specializing in finding sunken or buried treasures.
19 September 1908 the MAYFLOWER sailed from New York with on board 7 crew and 5 expedition members.
The expedition was planning to look for the treasures of a Spanish galleon which had sunk two centuries earlier off the coast of Jamaica. The Expedition was under command of Guy Hamilton Scull who had been a war correspondent in the Boer and Russo-Japanese wars.
After leaving the yacht was heading for Kingston, Jamaica sailing along the eastern coast of the U.S.A.
About 300 miles east of Cape Canaveral, Florida in early October the MAYFLOWER was running into a hurricane.
The first twelve hours they were hove to under double reefed foresail and fore staysail, but when the sails blown away, the yacht was running under bare poles before the hurricane, which made it almost impossible to steer.
When daybreak came the rudder broke and the MAYFLOWER broached to and was rolling so heavily that her masts toughing the water.
The ballast of pig-iron shifted to leeward, which made it necessary to cut her two masts, otherwise the masts when reaching the water would act like a brake and the yacht would capsize.
After the masts and rigging were cut, one of the masts punched a hole through the deck when they went overboard, the yacht now without masts and sails and rudderless drifted helpless round the next few days.
As cargo she carried three tons of dynamite in the after stateroom, what was needed for the expedition on the wreck of the Spanish galleon.
The weight of this dynamite on the strain of the ship and feared that it would detonated they throw the dynamite overboard.
At least they were sighted first by a ship of the Panama Line, but due to the weather they lost sight of her.
Then a Norwegian tramp ship the RAN fully loaded tried to lower a boat but the boat was smashed.
Then they lowered a buoyed line which was taken on board the yacht, where after they fastened a heavy hawser on the line, but when they were hauling it in the line was caught in her screw and parted.
Then they give up to rescue the crew of the yacht and stood by.
The next day the Norwegian steamer HIPPOLYTE DUMOIS arrived, and they got a line on board the yacht, after the crew of the yacht hauled in a hawser..
Then by mean of a life buoy and a snub line, the crew of the yacht were hauled through the water on board the HIPPOLYTE DUMOIS.
A few days later she were landed at Baltimore.
Solomon Islands 1986 18c sg570a, scott
Source: http://32nd.americascup.com/en/acclopae ... &idRubr=74 Guy Hamilton Scull, Soldier, writer, explorer and war correspondent by Henry Ian Case.