With the events of this year’s America’s Cup well underway, and just ahead of the final races taking place in October, longtime Cup journalist Magnus Wheatley has released a “forensically researched” book about the first race around the Isle of Wight in 1851.
There Is No Second aims to be the definitive account of that race, which went on to become the America’s Cup after the yacht America beat the best of the British fleet and took the prize back to New York. The book covers the time period dating back to the formation of the Royal Yacht Club and the New York Yacht Club, which challenged for the Cup with America.
Wheatley spent about two years researching and writing the book from original archive documents and naval records. He located the name—never before associated with the America’s Cup—of the signal master who uttered the famous phrase “Ma’am, there is no second” to Queen Victoria.
“This phrase has haunted the America’s Cup ever since but has never before been attributed,” Wheatley says. “However, via a piece of investigative journalism due to the fact that no ship’s muster or records were kept, I found the name. Realizing that naval servicemen actually sent their wages home to the wives or parents to stop them from boozing it away—they called it ‘consumption’—I was able to trace the bookkeeping record for the signal master and then cross-reference it to the ship and the individual’s service record.”
The book also details how, after the first Isle of Wight race, Queen Victoria went aboard the winning yacht, a visit that helped change Britain’s public opinion about the Americans and the New World.
