1909 Harmsworth Trophy
Motorboat Challenge Due
No challenge has yet been received for the British International motorboat cup, held by the Motorboat Club of America by virtue of Dixie II's victory last Summer, but officers of the club expressed confidence yesterday that the challenge would be received to-morrow. Feb. 1 is the date fixed in the cup conditions as the limit of time for the receipt of a challenge.
The London motorboat and yachting papers have called attention to the necessity of sending a challenge to this country by Feb. 1, provided a race is to be held, but as no intimation has yet reached either the Motorboat Club of America or the Automobile Club of America, which has been selected as the representative in this country of international events, the inference seems to be that the Englishmen, in view of the fact that their boats have been defeated for the trophy for the past two years, are quite willing to grant the motorboat speed supremacy to the United States, and will, therefore, content themselves this season with races in their own waters and at Monaco.
The opinion was expressed, however, that in case a challenge is not received by to-morrow it may not necessarily mean that there will be no race. An extension of time might be asked for by the Motor Yacht Club of Great Britain, and there is no doubt that it would readily be granted by the Motorboat Club of America. it is customary, however, when such an extension is to be requested, that it be asked for prior to the specified time of the closing of the formal challenge , but this has not yet been done. The rules governing the cup conditions state very specifically on the subject of the challenge:
"In the case of no challenge having been received by the club on or before the 1st of February in any year no race can take place for the cup during that year, and in no case shall a race take place within six months from the date of the receipt of the challenge, and the last date at which an entry may be received is July 1 in any year."
Dixie II has so far exceeded her speed average made in beating the best British boat, Wolseley-Siddeley, last August that, insofar as a motorboat certainty mat be predicted, there is little doubt that she would be perfectly able to defeat any foreign boat brought against her. As no remarkably new boat has been built in England so far as known at this time the logical conclusion, if no challenge is sent, will be that the foreigners realize that they have nothing superior to Dixie II, and, therefore, deem that a second trip across the ocean with their best boats would achieve no better success than last year.
(Transcribed from the New York Times, Jan. 31, 1909, Sect. IV, p. 2. )
[Thanks to Greg Calkins for help in preparing this page —LF]
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