Lot 837: Richard M. Firth (b.1971)

Richard M. Firth (b.1971)
Shamrock V and Candida racing off the Royal Yacht Squadron's home at Cowes
signed 'Richard M Firth' (lower right)
oil on canvas
30 x 50 in. (76.2 x 127 cm.)

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Artist's Resale Right ("droit de Suite"). If the Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer also agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.
Shamrock V was the last in a series of splendid racing yachts, each an improvement upon her predecessor, built for the immensely wealthy tea magnate Sir Thomas Lipton. Between 1899 and 1930, Lipton mounted no less than five challenges for the elusive America's Cup - or the "Auld Mug" as he invariably called it - and, even though all were unsuccessful, his efforts and tenacity rewarded him with an almost heroic status among the British public. The last of the celebrated Shamrocks was designed by Charles Nicholson and built by Camper & Nicholson in their yards at Gosport in 1930. A centreboarded Bermudian-rigged cutter, she was registered at 103.86 tons gross (93.98 net & 163 Thames) and measured 120 feet in length with a 20 foot beam. Despite her failure to capture the America's Cup in 1930, she was still a magnificent boat and, when Lipton died late in 1931, she was bought by Mr. T.O.M. (later Sir "Tommy") Sopwith, another of yachting's most colourful characters. He too would soon become an America's Cup challenger, with his two successive Endeavours (in 1934 and 1937), but for several years he was content to 'cut his teeth' on Shamrock V; she was, after all, the very first of the immortal 'J' boats and a force to be reckoned with in any race worthy of its name.

Candida, rated at '23 metres', was designed by Charles Nicholson and built by Camper & Nicholson at Gosport for Mr. H.A. Andreae, the wealthy merchant banker, in 1929. A magnificent Bermudian-rigged cutter of 95 tons gross (174 Thames), she measured 117 feet in length overall with a 20 foot beam and was completed principally as a response to a slight change in the International Rules in 1928. A highly successful boat, she was a frequent sight at Cowes during the early 1930s although towards the middle of that decade, she was re-rigged as a ketch, fitted with an oil engine and converted for cruising. By 1939 she had been re-rigged again, this time as a yawl, and renamed Norlanda, the name she still sported after the Second World War.