Britannia winning the Royal Clyde Yacht Club’s Queen’s Cup, Firth of Clyde, July 1894.
(Martin Black collection)
Probably G.L. Watson’s most famous and successful design, the cutter yacht Britannia was launched 20 April 1893 at D.&W. Henderson’s Meadowside Shipyard, Partick, Glasgow.
It’s where the River Kelvin meets the River Clyde, opposite the present day Riverside Museum. She was designed by Watson for the Prince of Wales, and was to become one of the all time most famous and successful racing yachts.
We chose this photograph by Adamson of Rothesay for the dust jacket of Martin Black’s biography, G.L. WATSON – THE ART AND SCIENCE OF YACHT DESIGN. It’s an image that seems to sum up the grace and efficiency of this rather special yacht as she glides over the waters of her birth with the minimum of fuss – along the way beating an American visitor to the Clyde Fortnight, the previous autumn’s America’s Cup defender, Vigilant, designed Nathanael Herreshoff.
~ Iain McAllister ~
