We all know what happened in 1851, when the yacht America won the 100 guineas Cup and the race still continues to this day, as the Americas Cup.

Then happened 1852’s follow up race. Have you heard of it? This is the event the Russians remember. The Tsar - who’d failed to turn up to the Cowes event - initiated a 100 mile race in St Petersburg and invited the British yachts to join in, including those who had taken part in the America’s Cup.

A handful of British yachts obliged in that year, including yachts owned by members of the Royal Yacht Squadron and the Royal London Yacht Club, but not since. The Russians commemorate the race each year, on the same 100 mile course, (to be preceded as in 1852 by a short 15 mile sprint), and their wish to-day is to invite British clubs once more, for these two races in 2009, before they throw open the event to the International community. They have started by asking ‘us’ on the Isle of Wight and at Cowes, to organise a British presence this coming year.

So who is ‘us’. On the Isle of Wight ten years ago began the British Russian Sailing Trust, formed by John Caulcutt of Yarmouth and myself, with a plan to encourage yachting links with Russia.

Our first event involved Botik, meaning ‘little boat’ in Russian. This 14 foot yacht built in about 1500 is still around, in the St Petersburg Maritime Museum. She was - it is said - a gift from Queen Elizabeth to Tsar Ivan the Terrible, he who chopped off heads at whim. Ivan, on the lookout for ladies (though he was married at the time) trolled around the courts of Europe and espied one unmarried Queen - our own beloved Elizabeth 1st. She, a consumate diplomat, didn’t want him rushing around beheading any British Merchant who got in his way - and the British Muscovite merchants had top priority there - so she was diplomatic in her refusal and instead sent him the splendid Botik. So it is said.

She hadn’t twigged, Ivan didn’t like the sea, and he abandoned Botik to rot on a lake just north of Moscow.

A Tsar or ten later, a youngster Peter found this boat, got his feet wet, restored her and sailed her in circles around the lake. Once Tsar, Peter came to Britain, visited London and Portsmouth - where he pinched a skilled boat artisan or two from the Solent - and went back to found the city which then bore his name, St Petersburg, which he wished to become a maritime ‘window on the west’. Peter (by then called “The Great”) loved Botik still and called her ‘the great grandfather of the Russian Navy’. Thus she is known even to-day. So the British, and Queen Elizabeth, take a bow.

The exact sailing replica of the original Botik (the original is still there in the Maritime Museum) I brought to Cowes a decade ago on the deck of the three masted sail training ship Mir. Andrey Berezkin, a Russian I’d met during Tall Ship events, and who’d been a major in the Russian Navy, was in charge of Botik, and was thrilled to bits when he sailed the Solent, and when she was visited in Cowes on three separate occasions around Cowes Week, by three different Royals - Prince Philip, the ever helpful Princess Anne, and A.N.Other.

How to keep Botik alive and sailing around the Solent? Who better than to approach John Caulcutt of Yarmouth. He, member of the Royal London, Royal Solent, and a flurry of other clubs, is one of the few who can troll easily between rag and powered boats. He entered the first Round Britain Powerboat Race in the first RIB participant named Psychadelic Surfer - and in 2008’s reprise of that event, John entered another RIB, with the title of Carbon Neutral, strange when you’d think that a course around the limits of out island on a fuel guzzler, could be anything but carbon neutral. In sailing, John has been first for years in Yarmouth One Designs,.he’s sailed across the Atlantic, dabbled with 12 metres, and with a myriad of other yachts under his belt …..but you’ll know him and his feats anyway.

To John, enthusiasm is a driving force, and the suggestion that he should help the Botik (financially and morally), was key to forming the Russian Sailing Trust.. Without his lead, the Trust would not have happened.

We then backed four Cowes Sea Scouts to take part in a Tall Ships Race in the Baltic and they sailed between St Petersburg, Helsinki, Mariehamn, Stockholm, and Germany’s Flensburg, on the Russian Navy’s yacht Bylina - under Andrey Berezkin as skipper. This was during a Cutty Sark Tall Ships race, with which I was somewhat involved.

And so, it was natural for Andrey and me to seek John out to see if he would further help our plans for commemorating 1852 with a British presence, and again his seal of approval was critical.

To delve into history deeper, the importance of the event will become clear.

In 1851 the Squadron had hoped not only to attract American yachts to come and play ball around the Isle of Wight, in a gentlemanly fashion and with the 100 guineas carrot, but why not spread the net to ask the Russian too? After all the Tsar - Nicholas at the time - and member of the RYS 1847 to 1854 went to Osborne House to see if Queen Victoria would be amused if he called his Royal Yacht “Queen Victoria”. She was. And so the Tsar’s son the Grand Duke Constantine (also a Squadron man), masterminded her build and launch in 1846 from Joseph White’s East Cowes Gridiron Yard. White had done other work for the Tsar, including altering two battleships for which the Emperor gave him a diamond encrusted snuff box., so he took special care with ‘ Queen Victoria’. Which then sailed off to Russia. Hopes were high that she would return from St Petersburg to compete in the 1851 race. Disappointment reigned when she did not appear.

The Tsar was aware of this and he thought, why not, instead of the 100 guineas race, institute a 100 mile race, based on St Petersburg at the eastern end of the Baltic, and invite British ‘America’s Cup’ yachts to come over and compete?

And so they did. A clutch of British yachts sailed out to confront the Tsar.

The records of the race are hazy. Two years later, in 1854, war broke out in the Crimea, the Tsar resigned from the Squadron, links between the countries were severed, and nobody much wished to remember the good times of vodka and wild women, maybe, of 1852.

Andrey Berezkin and I delved into the history of the 1852 race. And with skill the Royal Yacht Squadron’s Diana Harding and the Royal London’s archivist Kim Lyal helped. So did the St Petersburg Maritime Museum.

A report of the race emerged, translated at the time by the Russians into English.

“To your Imperial Highness grand duke Konstantin Nikolaevitch. From commodore of Imperial St-Petersburg yacht club” (PS though they don’t want to push the point, the Russians could claim this was the oldest yacht club in the world, though the Irish might wish to dispute this) “Report 19 June 1852. I have to bring to your Imperial Highness attention the following details about the 18th June race. 1) Before the race the yachts were at anchors in two lines, from SW15 to NOtO. 2) in the first line to West 3) Cutter War Eagle, Varjag , Frick, schooner Beatrice, Claymore, Rusalka, Urania, Destine. 4) in the second line behind of the first one to E 5) Schooner Georgian, Queen Victoria, Zabava ”

The race proceeded, starting from near the Russian Naval fortress Kronshtadt guarding the entrance to St Petersburg (Kronshtadt was attacked in 1919 by British Motor Torpedo Boats - a section of one is still in the St Petersburg Maritime Museum). The race is for 50 miles roughly westwards and around the Island of Nerva (with a lighthouse on it), and back home again. Usually the winds are westerly so this could be a beat ‘to the Rock’ as we would say, with more wind on the northern shore, then back again with all sails set. In 1852 it was a reach both ways.

“After three signal shots all yachts started to weigh anchor. The first got on the way War Eagle at 10h 3 m, immediately after him started Claymore, next Victoria, Destine, Frick and after them all other ships, last yacht was Varjag at 10h10m. The schooner Claymore turned around island Nerva at first at 6 hr 17 m. After them cutter Frick at 6hr 120m 30s, War Eagle at 6hr 22m, schooner Queen Victoria at 6hr 23m 30s, Georgian at 6h 26m 30s, cutter Varjag at 6hr 30m. Other ships remained behind the first arriving Nerva schooner Beatrice at 7 hr 13 m, Rusalka at 7 hr 19m, Destine at 7hr 30m, Urania at 7hr 38m.”

“After Queen Victoria had turned around Nerva she started to overtake the cutters which were in front of her and caught them, the War Eagle at 6hr 51 min, and two minutes later the Frick, and then started to catch Claymore.”

“The wind was steady 5.”

“Yachts arrived at the Admiral Ship schooner Claymore at 12hrs 48 min, Queen Victoria at 12hr 52min 15s, Georgian at 12hr 57 min, cutter Frick at 1 hr 32m45s, War Eagle at 1hr 38m, Varjag at 2 hr 25m. Other ships became significantly later, because of mist and darkness the arrival of them couldn’t be seen.”

“After a meeting of Race Committee and race referee the schooner Claymore was awarded the Prize of Society.”

“Signed Commodore prince Lobanov-Rostovkij.”

The race to-day is for a replica of the original cup, as the original Cup has disappeared. Did Claymore bring it home? Is it in a British Club somewhere? The Squadron or the Royal London? Any resemblance to the Americas Cup is entirely conjectural.

We need to know more about which of the entries was really British, as the records do not show nationalities. Claymore, War Eagle, Frisk, Beatrice, are the main candidates. Diana Harding and Kim, Lyal, helpful more than the call of Duty, dug up some possible leads. Is Beatrice the ‘Beatrice of Portsmouth’ registered on 27 May 1851, of 117 tons, built by William Camper of Gosport, of 88.8 feet length, with as a figurehead a woman’s bust, which started the America’s Cup race ‘nearest to Cowes Castle, second away and passed by America at 1016 between Norris Castle and Ryde’? Is Frick, Freak of 1849, owned by William Curling of Poole, Gent, reregisterd at Preston in 1853 (after returning, maybe, from Russia?), of 37.6 tons and 57.5 feet long, doing well in the Americas Cup till off Ventnor she fouled Volante, a 138 ton schooner, with her owner a member of the RYS, Royal Irish, Royal Victoria, Royal Western (Ireland). Claymore is probably Archie Campbell’s yacht, a 139 ton schooner registered in 1852 to 1855, and his clubs were the RYS and the Northern. War Eagle is a puzzle. Diana Harding found a report of the 1852 Kronstadt Regatta that specified it was War Hawk and not War Eagle (something in the translation perhaps) which remained in Russia and was renamed while the owner has a new one built with the old name. “Incidentally, it said the owner was the Vice Commodore of the Royal London” This fits in with a letter of June 1852 when The Russian Consulate in London confirmed that His Imperial Majesty Tsar Nicholas granted the club the same privileges that had been granted to other Royal Yacht Clubs. As Kim Lyal discovered from the Royal London’s club’s book that in 1852 Rear Commodore Thomas Bartlett took War Hawk “to the Baltic, and had the good fortune to carry off a gold cup of the Imperial Yacht Club of St Petersburg”

Today the Russians celebrate the 100 mile race, won in 1852 by the Squadron’s Claymore, and they wish for historical accuracy to add on the 15 mile sprint, won by the Royal London’s War Hawk. Over 20 yachts race, with twelve of them a One design class, the T-6, a traditional sloop of 36 feet.

What should the British Russian Sailing Trust do to help? In 2008 John Caulcutt salted the mine and found the wherewithall to get one crewman on board one of the One designs - on the Russian Navy’s Bylina under the watchful eye of skipper Andrey Berezkin. In the background and on shore was Andrey’s great friend, the Bear-like Admiral Grishanov, who has helped unstintingly on any British Russian venture, and at one time was to have sent his daughter to learn English at an Isle of Wight school.

John chose as the trailblazer crewman Thom D’Arcy, a Royal Solent member from Brighstone on the south of the Isle of Wight. Thom at 25 is a skilled yacht helmsman and skipper. He started sailing at 8 after his mother took an evening course in boat building and finished with an Optimist, which she presented to her son. From then on, there was no looking back, with XODs, and many other One Designs. After gaining a Masters in Yacht Design at Southampton University in 2006, in his gap year in 2007 he became co-skipper on 51 foot Nyad in the Pacific on the route Los Angeles, Hawaii, Tahiti, Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand, putting 8,000 miles of seafaring under his belt. In St Petersburg he sailed the 100 mile race with Andrey on Bylina. The wind this year was fickle, from the West, East, fitfull and low until squalls around the Island, and back again in little breezes. Bylina is heavy and needs a blow, and she came mid-fleet. A colourful crew of students made up the crew, and our Russian friends applauded the British presence.

Next year, we want two crews or three, with five crew on each and a Russian navigator. Maybe each yacht should be manned by the Royal Yacht Squadron, the Royal London, and the Royal Solent,? The plans for the Royal Solent to participate are advancing.

The event would involve such as a week in St Petersburg, flying out on a Wednesday, familiarisation with the chosen yacht on Thursday, a 15 mile race on Friday, the 100 mile race on Saturday and Sunday, prizegiving on Monday, sightseeing on Tuesday, and a flyback on Wednesday.

Who is for this caper? It takes place in the week before the Round the Island Race, so you could be back Thursday for the Saturday fest.

St Petersburg’s offshore fleet is not well developed. But the city has plans as a yachting centre. In 2009, the City hosts the end of the Volvo round the world race, and it is also a port of call of the International Sail Training Fleet with their 80 ships, including some of the largest three and four masters in the world. And the St Petersburg Maritime Museum celebrates its 300th Anniversary. Housed at present in the old Stock Exchange, it is worth any maritime expert’s attention.

If you have an ideas on our plans, or of visiting St Petersburg (where Andrey Berezkin is prominent in the Volvo Race, the 100-ship Tall Ships, and with the city’s Maritime Tourism) replies to me please, via churbarry@aol.com.

The Russians want us in at the start of a reborn Historical Event. Can we say no?

Copyright Anthony Churchill 16.07.08