Seventy-nine years ago an unlovely $500 flagon with no particular name was to be competed for by 14 vessels of the Royal Yacht Squadron in a free-for-all race off Cowes. America, a rakish Yankee upstart which had crossed the Atlantic with the idea of bullying Englishmen into match races and making its owners some money, was grudgingly permitted to compete. When America came leaning down toward the finish line Queen Victoria asked her signalman who was second. "Your Majesty," he said, "there aren't no second."
Nineteen years...
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