[Beauchamp Tower, inventor and railway engineer.] Autograph Letter Signed to ‘Dick’ [Sir Richard Harington], describing the contest for North Sea Trophy, and the presentation by the German emperor, written from the winning yacht ‘Dianthus’.

In this letter Tower describes his personal experience of the winning of the North Sea trophy by C. L. Salaman’s 35-ton yacht Dianthus. 4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, on aged paper chipped at head. Folded for postage. Addressed to ‘My dear Dick’ and signed ‘Beauchamp Tower’. A long letter with 105 lines of text. He begins by congratulating Harington ‘on getting an Indian judge ship which will enable you to marry, though I and all your other friends will be very sorry to lose you’. Writing from on board the winning yacht ‘Dianthus’, he describes how the contest for the North Sea Trophy began at Dover, with the ‘Dianthus’ racing ‘the Inyone and Wave Queen’. In the nighttime fog the ‘Dianthus’ encounters ‘[a] steamer which we supposed to be the Ostend boat’, which ‘only just stopped her engines in time to avoid running us down. The next day the fog cleared and we were abreast of the North Hinder at noon distant about 5 miles. (We had to leave all the light ships on the Dutch and German coasts on the starboard hand)’. He continues his account of the contest, with reference to ‘the Haaks light ship’ and those of ‘Terschelling’ and ‘Borthum’. Eventually ‘we sighted Heligoland right ahead. Inyone crossed the line at 9.32 pm and we crossed it at 9.51 but as Inyone had to allow us 4 hours we were the winner by 3 hours 21 minutes. The winning line was a search light ray thrown from a man of war and when our sails were illuminated by the ray they fired a gun and we knew it was over. The Emperor’s yacht “Haarzollern” was there as well as the man of war “Mars”. They told us if we waited 2 hours a tug would tow us to the Elbe but we remained hove to in a heavy sea, till 4 am and no tug coming we sailed to the Elbe, a torpedo boat towed us up the last reach to the canal entrance and nearly pulled us under water.’ Eventually they are ‘presented to the Emperor who gave us the cup and talked to us about our voyage’. After ‘a big dinner’ with ‘sweet Champagne’ they sail from Kiel, arriving at Copenhagen, from where they will shortly sail to Gothenburg.