Lecture Series at IYRS to Focus on the America’s Cup Past, Present and Future

In anticipation of the America’s Cup World Series coming to Rhode Island this summer, IYRS is hosting a series of lectures on this famed international event that called Newport home for over fifty years. The four-part series entitled “The America’s Cup: Past, Present and Future” kicks off Tuesday, March 6 at the school’s Newport campus.

The series will feature an interesting mix of experts who have been involved with the Cup in varying capacities—from organizers of this summer’s World Series, to those well-versed in the technology that fuels the event’s high-performance multihulls, to individuals who have a long and storied history with the event.

On April 3 the lecture will be “Remembrances of the 12-Meter Era of the America’s Cup in Newport.”

No one who knows more about racing 12-meters in the America’s Cup than Halsey Herreshoff. He has the rare distinction of being the first sailor over the line on a 12-meter in the America’s Cup, as well as the last. He achieved this as bowman on Columbia in 1958 and navigator in the 1983 afterguard. In his lecture, Herreshoff will regale lecture-goers with stories of the colorful era of Cup racing in Newport—a chapter in this famed event full of controversy, commotion and characters.

The final lecture will be held on April 17.

Lectures are free for members of IYRS and the Museum of Yachting and $7 for non-members. Café Zelda (528 Thames Street, Newport) coordinates their dining with the series on lecture nights.