Jonathan Griffin

The romantic story of the steam-engine is well known, from the time of Watts’s kettle to Stephenson’s locomotive, and the struggles and triumphs have been handed […]

The history of yachting in Scotland is covered in a large chapter. We have therefore divided it into three parts which roughly correspond to themes: The […]

It is now impossible to discover who was the first Scottish yachtsman, or what manner of craft he employed. To employ a popular paradox, there was […]

Leaving for a moment the history of the Fifes of Fairlie, let us look at another type of the old Scottish yachtsmen whose patronage assured the […]

The cutter Fiona was launched in the early summer of 1865, from the Fairlie Yard of William Fife. With her dawned the nationalization of the sport. Hitherto Clyde […]

1901 The death of Her Majesty Queen Victoria early in the year cast a deep gloom over every branch of sport, and by none was it […]

1896 By degrees the measurement of water-line length and sail area alone had evolved a very undesirable type of yacht, and the Yacht Racing Association therefore […]

1887 It had been increasingly apparent that the existing tonnage rule would not produce a useful or popular type of yacht, and therefore, after much discussion, […]

1882 During the year 1881 the Yacht Racing Association altered the measurement rule, which was held to be unsatisfactory as producing vessels of small beam. The […]

1875 The Yacht Racing Association was organized in November of this year by Count Edmund Batthyany, Captain Hughes, and Mr. Dixon Kemp. Its object was to […]

The aftershocks of defeat by the America pervade the description of the Growth of the Sport during the middle years of the century. The account for 1852 starts […]

1852 The America still figures largely in the racing annals of the time, though her owner was Lord de Blaquière, and on occasions she was handsomely beaten. The […]