June 23-25, 1904. Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
Columbia Yacht Club on the Hudson River, West 86th Street, New York City
Cameraman: G. W. Bitzer
1904 APBA Gold Cup [first running]
The cameras point of view is likely from the judge’s stand, possibly from a yacht club basin or yacht mooring on or near West 86th Street. The race is between small, motor-driven speed boats, which were approximately twenty feet long with the inboard engine decked over. Participants in the race were W. K. Vanderbilt, Jr. ‘S Hard Boiled Egg; The Standard, which won the championship and had never been beaten; the Vingt et Un; the FIAT; the Shooting Star; the Japansky, the Kotic, and the Nada.
”A new record for power boat racing in America was established yesterday, when in a thirty-two-mile race on the Hudson River the 100 horse-power auto boat Standard, fifty-nine feet in length, covered the course at an average of 19.67 nautical miles an hour, or 22.57 statute miles. The Standard covered the entire distance in 1:37:48. Her time is barely one-third of a mile less than was done by H. H. Rogers’s fast steam yacht Kanawha last Saturday when she won the Lysistrata Cup.”
– Excerpt transcribed from the New York Times – June 24, 1904, p. 7
”The old Columbia Yacht Club staged a race on the Hudson River in June of 1904 which they called the Gold Cup. Three boats entered the race: Water Lily, Fiat l and Standard, which was driven by her co-owner Carl C. Riotte. Standard outdistanced her two opponents and averaged 23.613 mph in the best 32-mile heat then captured the race with an average speed of 23.160 mph!”
– Taken from Roostertails Unlimited: [1973] Chapter 2 – A Little History