 (Photo date: June 15, 1895) |
Houri was a 20' 5" fin keel sloop built by the Herreshoff Company for owner Butler Duncan in 1894. Herreshoff's hull design #442, Houri was the progenitor design to Celia. According to the Mystic Seaport museum, William Butler Duncan (1853-1933) became Vice Commodore of the New York Yacht Club in 1893. According to Mystic:
"Butler Duncan's connections with America's Cup defense began in 1893 when he was one of the after guard on VIGILANTE in her race against VALKYRIE, on DEFENDER in 1895 and on COLUMBIA in 1899. He had charge of CONSTITUTION which lost to COLUMBIA in the trials of 1901. He was the club's representative on SHAMROCK II that year. In 1903 he sailed on RELIANCE as after guard, and in 1915 sailed on the cup defender, VANITIE with Cornelius Vanderbilt. He was a member of the America's Cup Committee in 1914 and again in 1920. In 1930 he was Chairman of that committee. Since its inception until his death, he served as a member of the Committee on Racing Appeals.
"Some of the yachts he owned were the cutter HURON, the New York "Thirty" DAHINDA, and the sound schooner VADALIA. His power cruiser, JAVELIN, was the boat from which he handled the cup races in his later years. He sailed with many prominent yachtsmen of the day, and was known as a skillful helmsman, winning both the Astor and the King's Cup in Vanderbilt's AURORA in 1910. His "Yachting Reminiscences from1879 to 1925" is an interesting account of an era of yacht racing in which the larger sailing yachts owned by Oliver Iselin, W.K. Vanderbilt, August Belmont, and J. Pierpont Morgan, among others, were supreme. But much of his racing was done in boats no larger than a 'Thirty.'"
See http://www.mysticseaport.org/Library/Manuscripts/coll/coll215/coll215.html for more information about William Butler Duncan.
According to the August 1896 issue of Outing magazine, Houri was owned by E. Barton Hart, Jr.