From Ben Ainslie’s America’s Cup base it’s a four-kilometre walk along the Barcelona coast to an apartment overlooking the Mediterranean. In it you will find the descendant of a man who was very remarkable and has long been forgotten.
People don’t talk about Charlie Barr that much anymore. Not at all, actually. And for Alasdair Purves, his great-great-grandson, it’s been a little confusing as he steps onto his balcony in recent months.
He has watched the America’s Cup matches take place from that spot on the waterfront, so he is well aware that Ainslie and his INEOS Britannia team are about to make history. If all goes to plan over the next ten days, starting on Saturday, Ainslie will lead a British team to victory for the first time in the 173-year life of the sport’s oldest international trophy.
But he wouldn’t be the only skipper from our coast to achieve it. To this day, that’s an award bestowed solely on Barr, a five-foot-four Scot who won the Cup three times in a row in 1899, 1901 and 1903, albeit with the devilish footnote that each of them was at the helm of American yachts and achieved against boats flying the Union Flag.
While sixteen British teams have lost in the finals since 1851, while many others failed to get that far, this working-class boy from Gourock did more than any individual to cause their defeats.
Charlie Barr, pictured in 1903, captained winning America’s Cup yachts three times
Barr was Scottish, but he won the Cup three times for the United States in 1899, 1901 and 1903
His story, from arguments and bets with Kaiser Wilhelm II to acts of fearlessness in the name of romance, is quite fantastic. But it is also one that has been largely lost to the wind.
“I recently met Ben Ainslie,” says Purves, who is 42 and emigrated to Barcelona from southern England a few years ago to work in the sailing industry. ‘I told him I have an ancestor who won the America’s Cup three times and after a few pointers he smiled and said, ‘Charlie Barr.’
“He knows his history and I really liked that because Charlie has been largely forgotten, apart from a few sailing historians, a bit erased.
“I went to the America’s Cup museum here the other day and looked at a pot history of the Cup. Among them was Grant Dalton, a sailing legend who captains the New Zealand team that takes on Ainslie.
“They’ve won the last two, so he’s in the movie saying no one has ever won this thing three times in a row, and I kind of rolled my eyes. I would like more people to know exactly what preceded it.’
As Ainslie prepares to lead his team onto the water, powered by £250m of funding from Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Barr serves as a fascinating snapshot.
He was born in 1864 and did not come from a privileged family. “His mother died when he was four and his father didn’t want him to go to sea, so he put him to work in a greengrocer,” says Purves. “He eventually followed one of his brothers into fishing and there’s a great story that I discovered only recently when I was looking at a microfiche from a long-defunct newspaper in Rhode Island.
Ben Ainslie will captain Britain’s INEOS Britannia team against Emirates Team New Zealand in the 2024 cup tie, a 13-race series taking place in Barcelona this month
Britain has not won the America’s Cup in 173 years of trying – and no boat flying the British flag has competed in the final since 1964
‘It happened off the coast of Scotland when he was about fourteen. The boat encountered a terrible storm and took on water as it was blown further and further out to sea. The older boys collapsed from exhaustion and finally this skinny boy grabbed the tiller and brought the boat in through the crashing waves. He was credited with saving the entire crew and that was a pivotal moment in his early life.
‘Then the local crews wanted him on board. In 1884, his half-brother was commissioned to deliver a yacht across the Atlantic Ocean to New York for a Scottish businessman, who there made bets with other wealthy gentlemen that his boat would wipe the floor with everyone. Instead of Charlie going back, he stuck around to race for him and they won them all. The next year he was invited back and they won every race that year too.
‘Things got interesting when he raced a boat designed by Nathaneal Herreshoff – to give you an idea about Herreshoff, he was the Leonardo da Vinci of yacht design and would become one of the greatest ever. But suddenly this top skipper from Scotland beat one of his yachts in a regatta, in a boat that shouldn’t have won, before disappearing again to fish for another season.’
Such was Barr’s reputation at this stage: the dominant New York Yacht Club and Wall Street giant John Pierpont Morgan made him their skipper of choice and placed Barr in a Herreshoff boat to pilot their 1899 campaign.
By then the NYYC had achieved victory in each of the ten editions that preceded it, having clamped an iron fist around the Auld Mug since it was initially contested around the Isle of Wight in 1851 in front of Queen Victoria. Of those victories, the British achieved in seven years had been on the receiving end, with programs backed by an earl, a knight of the realm, a Royal Navy lieutenant and a railway magnate in James Lloyd Ashbury, who would later become a Tory MP become.
The next Briton to enter that 1899 race was Sir Thomas Lipton, who had risen from a Glasgow tenement to make a fortune in the tea trade. With his Shamrock chase against Barr’s Columbia, Lipton was defeated 3-0.
Ainslie, 47, is desperate to be the first captain to lead Great Britain to America’s Cup glory
Ainslie – born in Cheshire – previously worked as a tactician for Team New Zealand
In the finals of the next two editions, in 1901 and 1903, Lipton returned to face the same man and a 3–0 whitewash was repeated on both occasions.
“For the last race, Charlie raced a radical new boat called Reliance,” says Purves. ‘This was Herreshoff’s masterpiece, but it was so powerful, with so much sail area, that it really had to be kept on the edge. Herreshoff says Charlie Barr was the only man who could sail it safely and he delivered.
‘At that time he was considered the greatest skipper in the world. I love to think that this man from the west of Scotland was in the US and was celebrated by the richest men in America. The likes of JP Morgan, William Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt all paid him well to run their teams.”
While Lipton’s attempts to end Great Britain’s losing streak extended to two more losing finals, he would eventually be regarded as the only man to ever make good money from an America’s Cup campaign. his refusal to give up.
As for Barr, his focus changed course, and so an unusual rivalry blossomed with Wilhelm II, the ruler of Prussia. The Kaiser was obsessed with sailing and had suffered regular defeats against Barr, which laid the groundwork for a confrontation when Wilhelm proposed a race across the Atlantic in 1905.
“The Kaiser was a flamboyant villain, quite bombastic,” says Purves. “He brought out his best yacht, Hamburg, and crewed it with the best sailors in the German Navy. Even though he wasn’t going to race it himself, he really wanted to beat Charlie and prove that Germany controlled the waves.
‘Charlie was hired by Wilson Marshall to skipper his yacht, Atlantic, and ends up in a bet with Kaiser Bill. The Emperor said to him, “If you win, you can have anything you want from my boat,” and Charlie chose the flag on the back, the Emperor’s flag of this great eagle.
Ainslie has won five Olympic medals: one silver and four gold, including one at London 2012
Ainslie pictured with one of his Olympic gold medals in Trafalgar Square in London in 2008
‘The background to this is that Charlie’s wife was very ill with tuberculosis. I followed the steps through libraries and family histories and she was given two weeks to live. He didn’t want to race, but his sponsor didn’t accept that and offered to provide the best treatment money could buy.
“Charlie agreed to do it and there’s a great scene that happened halfway through when they were hit by a terrible storm. Atlantic’s saloon is flooded and Mr. Marshall, the owner, has lost his nerve and orders Charlie to slow down and play it safe. Charlie’s response was apparently to say, “You hired me to win this race” and then lock him in the saloon! He then won and took over the emperor’s flag.’
The record Barr set for that crossing from Sandy Hook to Cornwall – 12 days and four hours – remained unbeaten for 75 years, but Barr’s legacy seems to have faded more quickly.
Time will tell whether Ainslie can match his America’s Cup performance over the next fortnight, or whether his partnership with Ratcliffe will follow the pattern of so many other teams from these parts. Unfortunately, they have already set a high score by delivering their first British finalist since 1964.
“I hope he and INEOS win,” says Purves. “The idea of Ben drinking champagne from the same trophy as Charlie is a lot of fun.”
It can also revive a forgotten champion.
