A period yacht racing scene of two classic and storied J-Class competitors, it is as desirable in its artistic merit as it is in historic content. As an artist Edmunds is one we have noticed previously, but very little public information exists about him. His technical strength and ability are unquestionably professional, yet very few of his paintings have surfaced.
What the artist has captured here is the moment of truth for these epic racers, as BRITANNIA faces down the 1893 America's Cup champion on the home course in the Solent, between Southampton and the Isle of Wight, which is the headland seen in the distance. More specifically, the racing yachts are preparing to round the East Lepe buoy. This would make the race the important summer Cowes Regatta. BRITANNIA has already beaten VIGILANT in their first two meetings, at the Muir Memorial Cup Challenge at the Mudhook Yacht Club, and at the Queen's Cup with 100,000 spectators along the banks of the Clyde.
Purchased by Howard and George Gould from the New York consortium which had run her successfully in the defense of the America's Cup, they hired a highly respected crew and set sail for Britain in June of 1894. In 17 races that season, VIGILANT won 6 in British waters, which would have been respectable if BRITANNIA had not won the other 10, and 36 of her 43 starts. VIGILANT carried 1,000 sq.ft. more sail, and had to give a slight time allowance to the British Royal Yacht, owned by the then-Prince of Wales, King Edward VII. Even with the crack Captain Hank Haff onboard and occasionally her designer Francis Herreshoff at the helm, VIGILANT's greater straightaway speed wouldn't apply in the tighter courses upon which BRITANNIA's superior maneuverability prevailed.
By all accounts, the races were spectacular, and marked the first real substantial British victories against the United States in yacht racing since the AMERICA had sailed over in 1851. The popular favorite BRITANNIA was commemorated in hundreds of period photographs, and outstanding works of art, of which our artist Edmunds painted at least two. His sea is full of the artistic influence of the Southampton painters, and he must have observed the yachts firsthand to get their distinct details of scale and working crew down so expertly. His colors are the tradition-led somber skies and green seas of generations of English marine artists.
VIGILANT returned to New York, sold in 1896 to Percy Chubb of the New York Yacht Club, and had three other club members as owners, and sold briefly in 1903 to Eastern Yacht Club member F. Lothrop Ames. She retired from racing in 1910. BRITANNIA went on to record historic seasons through her storied career, interrupted by the calamity of World War I. She was inherited by H.M. George V, who began racing her in 1913. BRITANNIA won an epic 23 out of 26 starts in 1923 as a thirty-year old yacht. When King George past away in 1935, it was decided his yacht would go with him, stripped and scuttled south of the Isle of Wight on July 10, 1936.
