Lot 414: The New York Yacht Club's Annual Cruise, 1898, Constellation to the fore

David Brackman (b.1932) The New York Yacht Club's Annual Cruise, 1898, Constellation to the fore signed 'David Brackman' (lower left) oil on canvas 30 x 44 in. (76.2 x 111.8 cm.)

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Constellation was designed as a centreboard racing schooner by Edward Burgess of Boston and built by H. Piepgras at City Island, New York, in 1889. Registered at 157 tons gross (149 net & 328 Thames), she measured 131 feet in length with a 24 foot beam and was constructed with an all-steel hull. Originally owned by Mr. E.D. Morgan of Exchange Place, New York, who kept her at Newport, Rhode Island, she was subsequently owned by George W. Weld of Boston and then, after 1900, by Francis Skinner, Jnr., also of Boston, who kept her at least until 1914.

The New York Yacht Club's Annual Cruise, sometimes known as the 'Great August Cruise', had been in existence for some fifty-four years in 1898 and, on the eastern seaboard of the United States, was undoubtedly "the chief aquatic event of the year." After making their stately progress down to Newport, the yachts would usually be "dressed overall" with flags and bunting whilst lying at their moorings, their grace and elegance belying the fiercely competitive spirit of their celebrated owners as each prepared for the series of annual matches up and down the coast which characterised the event as the most prestigious in the American yachting year. The races for either the Goelet Cups or the Newport Town Cups often produced the best sport but this regatta on the American Atlantic shore was anticipated each year with just the same level of excitement as its English counterpart at Cowes, Isle of Wight.