The Royal Southern Yacht Club, originally known as the Royal Southampton Yacht Club, was established in 1837 in Hamble, Hampshire and was given Royal patronage by Queen Victoria. The present work depicts the finest J-Class yachts at the height of their powers during the golden decade of yacht racing. Leading the race and already rounding the mark is Velsheda (J/K7). She was built in 1933 by Camper and Nicholson at Gosport in Hampshire and designed by Charles Nicholson having been commissioned by Mr W.L. Stevenson. Her name was made up from the first letters of his three daughters names, Velma, Sheila and Daphne. She was 128 feet long, with a fifteen foot draft, twenty-one foot beam and displaced 143 tons. She enjoyed numerous successes, especially in the 1935 season where, under Captain Mountfield, she won more than forty races around the coasts of Great Britain. Close behind her comes Yankee (J/US2) whose crew can clearly be seen in readiness, responding to the command that gives the present work its title. Yankee was designed by Frank Cabot Paine for a syndicate managed by John Silsbee Lawrence; she measured eighty-four feet at the waterline and 125 feet overall. Her hull was made of tobin bronze and with her superb balance she enjoyed a hugely successful career. In 1934, the year prior to the present race, she was a contender for the defence of the America's Cup, narrowly missing out to Rainbow who went onto beat Endeavour, the yacht trailing her in the present race. Endeavour (J/K4) also designed by Charles Nicholson, was the yacht which arguably came closest in this glorious era to breaking the United States' monopoly on the America's Cup. She was 130 feet long, eighty-three feet on the waterline with a displacement of 165 tons. She raced and trialled on many occasions in her bid to win 'The Auld Mug'. In the previous years Americas Cup she won the first two races against Harry Vanderbilt's Rainbow; however her prime crew were on strike over pay and Sopwith was forced to replace them with amateurs who ultimately lost the cup. Despite the defeat she came back strongly in 1935 achieving twelve wins, ten seconds and six thirds, a total of twenty- eight top positions from thirty-five starts. In fourth place is the yacht Candida (K8), yet another Nicholson design, which was built by Camper & Nicholson at Gosport in 1929 for Mr. H.A. Andreae, the wealthy merchant banker. A magnificent Bermudian-rigged cutter, she measured 117 feet in length overall with a twenty foot beam. She was designed principally as a response to a slight change in the International Rule in 1928, where a yacht's specifications were based on her length and sail area. The famous yacht designer, Nathaniel Herreshoff proposed a system whereby the length of a yacht was measured at the waterline with an unrestricted area of sail. The new formula stipulated a waterline length of between seventy-nine and eighty-seven feet, an overall length of 120 feet with a displacement limit of 160 tonnes. Behind Candida comes Sir Thomas Lipton's Shamrock V. She was one of six yachts of the same name belonging to Sir Thomas, all of whom apart from one challenged for the America's Cup. Shamrock V, the yacht in the present work, challenged in that race for final time in 1930 but again in vain. This string of failures combined with the dignified and sporting manner in which he accepted defeat earned him a specially made cup for 'The Best of all Losers". The notoriety did, however, lead to financial gain as Lipton teas became a household name in the United States. In last place, still to tack, is Britannia (K1); she was launched in 1893 having been built at the MacGregor yard at the Meadowside works in Partick by David and William Henderson for Queen Victoria's son Edward, Prince of Wales. She was designed by George Lennox Watson, arguably the most successful designer of the age. She was built, so the story goes, as competition for the Earl of Dunraven's America's Cup yacht Valkyrie II. Made of American elm and pine pinch on steel frames, she measured 121.5 feet in length, had a twenty- three foot beam with a displacement of 154 tons and an original canvas spread of some 10,000 square feet. Between 1893 and 1935 she won 231 races from 635 starts. In 1928 she was purchased by George V who famously declared she be scuttled on his death which occured in January 1936. Thus, in respect of his wishes, she was sailed out of Cowes roads for the final time under the escort of HMS Amazon and HMS Winchester. As dusk fell, explosives in her hull were detonated and she slipped beneath the waves.