J-class - Elizabeth Meyer recalls how the revival began

by CNN Mainsail on 4 Sep 2017 Elizabeth Meyer is the founder of the contemporary J-class fleet, which has just completed its inaugural world championship in Newport RI, following a similar event ahead of the 35th America's Cup Regatta.

Seven J-class raced in Bermuda and six in Newport RI.

Meyer took the initiative to undertake the restoration of one of three remaining J-class remaining from the Golden Era of the America's Cup (1930-1937), when three America's Cups were contested in the 120-135ft sloops.

Just 10 were built, between 1930 and 1937, and most have been scrapped.

Her story was recounted on CNN's Mainsail program in July 2014, and is an interesting read against the two J-Class regattas which have just been staged.

Sailing on Velsheda, the only J-Class survivor at the time, she spotted the 130-foot Endeavour for the first time -- berthed on a mud flat -- and visited her the next day.

'Endeavour was the most beautiful J ever designed and built,' Meyer says. 'There was something super exceptional about that boat.

'So I thought of her already and when I went to see her, she was out of the water. The shape is so sculptural and beautiful.

'It had not crossed my mind to restore one of these things. I had not got money at all to do something like that and I wasn't planning to do it.'

Endeavour had repeatedly changed hands. Sold to a scrap merchant, she was saved by a buyer at the 11th hour in 1947. After sinking in the 1970s, two new owners stepped in to pay £10 and refloated the boat. The owner before Meyer did not have the funds to fully restore her.

'I thought, 'Someone really ought to restore this. I will.' And then I immediately went 'Oh no' because I knew I would do it and I said, 'Would you consider selling her to me?' And he said 'yes' and then I was stuck, I had to do it.'

She initially borrowed money against real estate investments at Martha's Vineyard, which she eventually had to sell, as well as her share of her business restoring houses. Everyone and anyone advised her against it -- but she didn't listen.

At the time, the British shipbuilding industry was in serious decline and Meyers says she ran the project 'out of two rented Portacabins located on the spit next to the hull of Endeavour' and ended up completing the project in the Netherlands.

'I could not afford Endeavour for one single instant from the day I bought her,' Meyers says.

'I had to sell everything I had, I had to charter the boat every second I owned her, and I did not sleep once in all those 18 years, I had to sell her.

'It crushed me, she was the apple of my eye and I'd be sailing her today as a classic still in all those regattas.'

Endeavour, which Meyer had chartered for $60,000 a week, or $12,000 a day, in order to cover the upkeep, sold for $15 million in 2000.

Despite the adversity, the financial worry, the lack of sleep, there were no regrets.

'It always felt worth it every minute of the way,' she says. 'I never questioned for one second that I should do this and that it was going to be wonderful. I had complete confidence.'

Endeavour was the brainchild of Thomas Sopwith, who made his name with the Sopwith Camel plane with which the English Royal Air Force fought World War I and who used his own aviation know-how to create what was the finest vessel of her day.

But in half a century it went from coming close to winning the America's Cup to be found with no keel, rudder, ballast or interior.

Meyer dismisses one oft-mentioned theory about what happened to the yachts.

'People talk about the Js and say, 'Oh, they were broken up for war materials,' but that's absolute nonsense. They were broken up for scrap value and we're not that sentimental in the U.S. The British are more sentimental, so you built four Js altogether and three of them still exist. The Americans built six and they're all cut up.'

For the full story click here

For a further story click here