Rainbow Named as Defender.
Rainbow has been chosen as the defender of the America's Cup against Endeavour. They will meet in the first race of the series two weeks from today, the winner to be the yacht that first takes four races. Selection of the defender was announced with dramatic suddenness yesterday after Rainbow had beaten Yankee by one second, with less than a yard separating them at the end of a thirty-mile contest. This was Rainbow's fourth straight victory over the Boston yacht, against one defeat. Weetamoe, the third entry for the defense, was put out of the reckoning some days ago.
Considerable feeling has been groused on the score of the selection of the defender yacht. In terms of racing yachts, Yankee Is an old boat. She was discarded in 1930, but was remodeled and fitted out this year by a virtually public subscription in New England and won race after race under the capable handling of Charles Francis Adams, veteran yachtsman, who sailed Resolute in the successful defense of the cup in 1920.
Rainbow is a new yacht, built for this occasion, designed by Burgess, who also designed Enterprise, the defender of 1930. She has been sailed by Reginald Vanderbilt, who will be her skipper in the cup races. Unquestionably the defense committee has named the yacht that it believes to be the speediest and most dependable—the craft, in short, that is best qualified to meet the new challenger, Endeavour. All personal and sectional feeling that may have been aroused in the course of the qualifying rounds is certain to be allayed if the cup is once more retained, but if Rainbow fails, through lack of structural qualities and design, or through handling, it is quite as certain that that feeling will be revived.
Of Endeavour. Sopwith's challenger, nothing is known save that she was brought across the Atlantic under her own sail, as the terms of the competition require, in record time. That may have been due to her superiority of form or to the advantage of favor ing winds. Not until the two yachts line up on Saturday the fifteenth and the starting gun is fired can there be any real showing of respective merits. The hope is that the weather will favor a real test and that the competition will not be merely a series of drifting matches.