1949 Harmsworth Trophy
Detroit River, Detroit MI, July 23-August 1, 1949

Skip-A-Long Takes Run-Off At Detroit

Gains Harmsworth Trophy as Such Crust is Forced out at End of First Lap

Harmsworth Bid Raises Problem Race of the Giants Such Crust I Sets Record in Harmsworth Trophy Trials on the Detroit River Dodge Threatens Harmsworth Rift Miss Canada IV "Perfect" Such Crust I, U.S. Craft, Captures First Heat in Harmsworth Trophy Race Skip-A-Long Takes Harmsworth Race Skip-A-Long Takes Run-Off At Detroit Skip-A-Long Wins Harmsworth Speed Boat Skip-A-Long Sinks

Detroit, Aug 1 [1949] (AP)—A thirty-foot California speedboat streaked around the Detroit river Harmsworth course today to capture the historic British international trophy for the Lake Tahoe, Calif., Yacht Club.

R. Stanley Dollar's Skip-A-Long, with Dollar at the wheel, won the sixteen-mile [sic] run-off race with Jack Schafer's Detroit boat, Such Crust. The loser dropped out at the end of the first of two scheduled laps with motor trouble.

Both boats had won one heat in the successful defense of the Harmsworth trophy, and the runoff was necessary to determine whether the bronze trophy would remain in the Detroit Yacht Club or go West.

Lake Tahoe Course Looms

If a foreign challenge is received, next year's race may be held on Lake Tahoe, although final decision of the Harmsworth course is left to the Yachtsman's Association of America.

Dollar's victory today was not as clean-cut as he had hoped to make it. Both boats got across the starting line at terrific speed and only about a second apart.

They still were close together at the end of the first lap of the elliptical course, but just at the start of the second lap, Such Crust's oil line gave way and Dan Arena, at her wheel, was forced to give up.

The start of the race had been delayed half an hour while mechanics had worked on the defective oil line.

Skip-A-Long did today's first eight miles at the rate of 86.821 miles an hour. Dollar slowed down after Such Crust dropped out and made only 80.673 in going through the formality of the second lap.

Such Crust's speed for the one lap she finished was 85.055 mile per hour.

In Saturday's defense of the trophy against Harold Wilson's Miss Canada IV, Such Crust hit a lap speed of 98.164 miles an hour. Skip-A-Long reached a top of 96.603.

The California craft won Saturday's heat, however, with a heat speed of 94.285 miles an hour, when Such Crust was halted temporarily by a fuel supply failure.

[The final order of finish for the Harmsworth Trophy was:

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