"In the early years of the twentieth century, America's Cup races were front-page stories that drew thousands of fans to the shores around New York Harbor. The sleek grace of the racing yachts, and the competitive passions of their owners, also inspired Edwin Levick, an enterprising British-born photographer determined to make a name for himself in America. For the next thirty years Levick, his sons and his students - including future photographic star Morris Rosenfeld - would document the hotly contested America's Cup races, capturing the elegant boats and often turbulent battles in black-and-white photographs that even today are both gorgeous and deeply evocative of a time and a sensibility that can never return. As readers of this volume will discover, Levick applied his gift for the artfully composed photograph not only to the public moments of the America's Cup but also to quieter times behind the scenes - young women on their knees cutting sails, and white-suited crews and visitors loitering on deck, exuding the heady perfume of skills, privilege, and anticipation of the challenge to come. There are also poignant scenes such as a demasted Resolute after her first trail race in 1920, the hollow wooden spar reduced to twisted splinters. Though not all these pictures made the papers, they have captured central truths in the lives of the first America's Cup sailors. Levick's photographs are interpreted and elaborated here by the author and television commentator Gary Jobson, member of a winning America's Cup crew."-- Provided by the publisher.