ONKAYE (1840) THE PRECURSOR TO THE AC 75 BOATS OF THE AMERICA'S CUP 2021, 2025, AND 2027

 Onkahye, double hull yacht, 1840

The America’s Cup has always amazed spectators with its extravagant craft. The 36th and 37th editions, held in Auckland (2021) and Barcelona (2024), followed suit. The flying monohulls used in these contests all had a second, ultra-slim hull beneath their main one. 

However, the concept of a double underwater hull section was not itself innovative. Eleven years before the famous August 21, 1851, regatta around the Isle of Wight, in which America won, an amazing schooner was launched: Onkahye. Her hull already featured this innovative design! Robert Livingston Stevens designed and commissioned her, along with his two brothers, Edwin and John Cox Stevens, in the autumn of 1839 at William Capes’s shipyard in Williamsburg, New York, facing the Brooklyn Navy Yard. 

Robert Livingston Stevens, 1787-1856, T-Rail inventor, designer of the first fastest American yachts, Onkahye (1840) and Maria (1844).

John Cox Stevens, one of Onkahye’s owners and an instigator of the very first American yacht club, the New York Yacht Club (NYYC), later became the catalyst for the America schooner syndicate… 

 

Onkahye is a stunning creation that left her builder awestruck with her intricate complexity. 

Charles J. Lundgren (1911–1988), oil on hardboard: Onkahye. Courtesy of Kent and Audrey Lewis. Audrey Lewis owns this painting. Her family ancestor, Lieutenant Benjamin F. B. Hunter, served as Master Sailmaker on the USS Onkahyefrom October 1843 to April 1844.

This complexity comes from the alternation of concave and convex lines, the incredibly slender bow, the long, narrow double underwater hull section, the hollow keel to house lead weights, and a centerboard. This unusual hull design captured the attention of many observers.   

 

Commodore Charles Stewart, a veteran of the 1812 War and longtime friend of the Stevens family, knew a lot about shipbuilding. During his visit to the future Onkahye at the shipyard, he immediately expressed his concerns. “It will dismast,” he declared, pointing his cane at a part of the mast above the deck. He continued, “The wood will split right about there,” predicting a potential danger. His prediction came true when the yacht sailed off the New Jersey coast in an east wind, and the crew had to drop the anchors ashore. Both spars broke at the spot the commodore specified. The three brothers, who were aboard that day, were more than stunned.

©François Chevalier 2025. Onkahye lines (1840)

William Capes and his team of carpenters worked hard from the fall onwards. They managed to deliver the boat quickly. When it was launched in January 1840, the imposing yacht sparked glowing articles in local newspapers, as well as some poetry. Its original Indian name, Onkahye (“Dancing Feather”), gave rise to numerous puns. 

Unfortunately, scant details were available regarding the ship itself; no one wrote comprehensive descriptions of it. Despite its innovative hull design and groundbreaking features like the mast throat for reefing the main sail, a first in America. The same feature later appeared on the large sloop Maria, which Robert L. Stevens designed in 1844.

©François Chevalier 2025. Sail plan: Onkahye (1840)

 However, some newspapers reported that the schooner challenged the Exit brigantine, which she easily defeated. The fast pilot craft Jacob Bell, renowned for its speed in New York Bay, suffered a setback in the same period. The Stevens brothers’ yacht then sailed on several cruises from 1842 onwards. Onkahye outperformed all those she met in every way.

 

Since the launch of Onkahye in 1840, no one has revived the astonishing double hull of Robert Livingston Stevens’s schooner for nearly 180 years. 

©François Chevalier 2025 Tahihoro (2024) Emirate Team New Zealand

The flying monohulls that competed in the 36th and 37th America’s Cup (Auckland 2021 and Barcelona 2024) mark a renaissance of this design. 

©François Chevalier 2025 - Sections: Te Aihe (2019), Te Rehutai (2021), Taihoro (2024)

A closer examination of the profiles of New Zealand’s competitors—Te Aihe, Te Rehutai, and—reveals that they all possess a very thin second hull below their primary one, just like their challengers.

 

Onkahye (1840)

 

Gaff-rigged schooner

Designer: Robert L. Stevens

Builder: William Capes, Williamsburg, N. Y.

Launched: 1840

LOA: 48,15 m

Hull length: 29,26 m

LWL: 27,43 m

Beam: 6,70 m 

Draft 3,30/ 5,35 m

Air draft: 31,70 m

Foresail: 200 m²

Mizzen sail: 213 m²

Staysail: 78 m²

Jib: 68 m²

Downwind sail area: 553 m²

Displacement: 191 t