Scale: 1:48. A contemporary full hull model of the schooner-rigged yacht ‘America’ (1851) complete with stump masts and bowsprit, mounted on its original wooden baseboard. Although the model is lacking most of its fittings and rig, it includes the bow decoration and trail boards as well as the copper sheathing it was clearly made to illustrate the radical shape of the hull.

The ‘America’ was built by William Brown of New York to the designs of George Steers, and was to become famous as the first winner of the ‘America’s Cup’. Measuring 101 feet in length by 23 feet in the beam, the ‘America’ was sailed across the Atlantic in 1851 whereby her owner Commodore John Cox Stevens and the syndicate of the New York Yacht Club challenged the Royal Yacht Squadron to a race around the Isle of Wight. The challenge was duly accepted and 15 yachts completed in a 53-mile race for a prize of the 100 Sovereign Cup. The race was won by the ‘America’ by 20 minutes and watched at the time by Queen Victoria, who is famous for asking ‘who came second?’. The reply came ‘there is no second, your Majesty’.

Later in the year, ‘America’ was sold, later renamed ‘Camilla’ in 1853, and rebuilt at Northfleet in 1859. Two years later, she was sold back to America and used by the Confederates as a blockade-runner under the name ‘Memphis’. After being scuttled, captured and re-floated, she was used by the Federal Navy under her original name. After a rebuild at Boston in 1880, and several owners, the ‘America’ was used for racing and cruising until 1921; she was presented to the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland. After a number of years of neglect, the ‘America’ fell into disrepair, was damaged beyond repair when a shed collapsed on her, and was eventually scrapped and the remains burnt in 1945