The Canada’s Cup is a silver trophy, deeded in perpetuity in 1896, to be awarded to the winner of a series of match races between a yacht representing a Canadian yacht club and one representing an American yacht club, both to be located on the Great Lakes.[1]
The Cup matches were intended to be a test of the challenger’s and the defender’s abilities to design and build a yacht to the prevailing measurement rule, and to sail that yacht to victory. In a substantial departure from the original goal of the Cup to encourage racing yacht design, the 2001-2011 Cup challenge races were sailed in the Farr 40, and subsequently in the 2021 and 2022 Cup challenges in the Melges IC37: both one-design class yachts.[2][3]
The Cup is approximately 30 cm (12 inches) high excluding base, specifically crafted for a cross-border sailing competition in 1896, and is an engraved bowl, gilt inside, whose richly embellished supporting pedestal depicts a lion (symbolising the British Empire of which Canada was a part at that time) and an eagle (symbolising the American Republic).
- ^ Annals of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, Vol. III, 1955-2000, ISBN 1-895244-01-3 (v.3) pp 379-416
- ^ "RCYC launches new Canada’s Cup program", http://www.canadianyachting.ca/news-and-events/current/4296-rcyc-launches-new-canada-s-cup-program
- ^ "New Era for Canada’s Cup", https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2017/11/30/new-era-canadas-cup/