The Postcard
A postcard bearing no publisher's name that was posted in Great Yarmouth using a ½d. stamp on Saturday the 29th. August 1908. It was sent to:
Mrs. Bird,
4, Esmeralda Road,
Bermondsey,
London.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"(Postal Address)
Mrs. Littlewood,
66, St. Nicholas Road,
Great Yarmouth.
Dear Mrs. B.,
We arrived safely. The
weather last night was
rotten, but grand this
morning.
Fine apartments.
Wish you were here.
Yours truly,
N. G."
Water Motorsports at the 1908 Summer Olympics
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, the 29th. August 1908 was the second day of the Olympic water motorsport event at the summer Olympics.
The event was held at Southampton Water with 17 competitors (4 from France and 13 from Great Britain). Three motorboat races were contested.
Class A (open)
Class B (<60 ft)
Class C (6.5–8 m)
Various sources refer to the sport as "water motorsports", "motor boats", and "power boating".
The 1900 and 1908 Summer Games were the only ones to feature motorised sports (motor racing was featured in 1900). The IOC has never decided which events were "Olympic" and which were not.
All three events used the same distance: five laps around an 8-nautical-mile course for a total of 40 nautical miles (74 km).
In each of the events, multiple boats started; however, only one finished, due primarily to the gale that was blowing during the course of the competition.
The water motorsports event was quickly abolished, because after these games the IOC decided that the Olympics were not intended for motorized competition.
Class A — Open Class
The open class was scheduled to take place on the first day of the competition, the 28th. August. Two boats, Wolseley-Siddely and Dylan, began the race. Dylan abandoned the race partway through the first lap, with Wolseley-Siddely finishing first before the weather became too severe to continue the race.
A second attempt to run the event took place the next day after the other two races had been completed. Wolseley-Siddely again started, this time against Camille (the only French boat to take part in the competition). Wolseley-Siddely ran aground on a mud spit, leaving Camille to finish alone for the gold medal.
Class B — Under 60 feet
The B class was held on the 28th. August after the abortive first running of the open class. Again, only two boats appeared at the starting line: Quicksilver and Gyrinus.
Quicksilver became threatened by water coming in over the sides, abandoning the race. Gyrinus, a small boat with an extra crewman to bail water, was able to finish to make its crew the first Olympic champions in motorsports.
Gyrinus was designed by Sir John Isaac Thornycroft FRS, the great Victorian engineer, previously the designer and builder of the world's first torpedo boats and torpedo boat 'Destroyers'. Development of the technical features of Gyrinus (combining speed with good seaworthiness, as demonstrated in the 1908 Olympics) was described in 'Engineering', the Proceedings of the Society of Civil Engineers, on the 12th. March 1909. The Gyrinus was a Semi-Planing Mono-Hull (SPMH).
Sir John's son, Isaac Thomas Thornycroft, the Gyrinus helmsman, became a yacht designer and helmsman of J-Class racing yachts. Thomas's son, Commander Peter Thornycroft (1914–1987), carried on the family tradition, developing the SPMH as the standard Nelson Class of Pilot Boat for Trinity House (1964 to 1987) and, later, up to much larger sizes of offshore patrol vessels.
The US Navy's 350 ft./114-metre/3,200-ton/45-knot USS Freedom is the largest SPMH launched to date (2006). It combines a higher speed-for-length than would be possible with a conventional destroyer hull, good seakeeping at speed, and a high payload—characteristics that enabled the little Gyrinus to win her famous Olympic victories.
Class C — 6.5–8 metres
The first race of the 29th. August 1908 was the small class of boats. Gyrinus, which had won the B class the day before, appeared again. This time her competition was Sea Dog. Again, however, Gyrinus was the only boat to finish, as Sea Dog experienced engine problems and had to be towed off the course.
