Henrietta, Fleetwing & Vesta (Great Ocean Yacht Race)

The present work depicts the first transatlantic yacht race, known as "The Great Race" of 1866. The idea for the match race originated over dinner at a private Manhattan club between George Osgood and Pierre Lorillard. Confident in the speed of their respective schooners, Fleetwing and Vesta, each man bet $30,000 on a transatlantic race from New York to the Needles off the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom. Richard Schaeffer writes, "Later, James Gordon Bennett Jr. asked to enter his schooner Henrietta. They came to the line on Tuesday, December 11. Osgood sailed aboard his keel schooner Fleetwing, which was commanded by a transatlantic steamship captain. Lorillard's brother sailed on the centerboarder Vesta, while Bennett accompanied Captain Samuel Samuels of the clipper Dreadnought on the keel schooner Henrietta. Vesta led much of the way but made navigational errors, and Henrietta won the race--and the $90,000 purse--in the time of thirteen days, twenty-one hours, forty-five minutes. For purposes of easier identification, the yachts flew their assigned colors: Fleetwing, red; Vesta, white; and Henrietta, blue." (R.J. Schaefer, J.E. Buttersworth: 19th-Century Marine Painter, Mystic, Connecticut, 2009, p. 131).