The surviving members of the syndicate which owned the yacht
America, the first winner of what would become the
America's Cup (originally the "Royal Yacht Squadron Cup" or the "RYS Cup for One Hundred Sovereigns"), donated the America's Cup through a
deed of gift to the New York Yacht Club on July 8, 1857. The cup would be held in trust as a "challenge trophy" to promote friendly competition among nations, with the deed of gift being the primary instrument governing the rules to make a valid challenge for the cup and the rules of conduct of the races. After the 1881 Cup match, the
New York Yacht Club officially returned the Cup to
George L. Schuyler, the sole surviving member of the syndicate that owned
America to rewrite the deed to discourage Canadian yacht clubs based on the Great Lakes from challenging for the Cup. This revised Deed incorporated, among other things, the following rules: the challenger's yacht club's annual regatta must take place on the sea or on an arm of the sea, and the challenging boat must sail to the site of the contest on her own bottom, as the yacht
America did when first winning the cup in England. In 1887, the challenging yacht's hull was much longer than originally stated by the challenger, a potential advantage. The difference alarmed the N.Y.Y.C., but they rectified the situation by handicapping the challenger. Although the N.Y.Y.C. successfully defended the Cup that year, the problem spurred them to rewrite the Deed. Once again the club officially returned the Cup to Schuyler. The third Deed is much longer and couched in legal terminology. The third Deed tightened the rules for challenging; for example, it stated explicitly that the challenger must not exceed the dimensions provided to the holder of the Cup. The new version of the rules created an uproar among many British yachtsmen, who claimed that the new rules made it impossible to challenge as sailboats with a longer
length have a higher
speed than boats with a shorter length. No one challenged until six years later, when British railroad tycoon
James Lloyd Ashbury set forth his first of two challenges. After the
Second World War, the N.Y.Y.C. amended the Deed by changing the requirement regarding waterline length: the minimum waterline length was reduced from to to allow the use of the
12-metre class. In addition, the rule that the challenging boat had to sail on her own bottom to the site of the match was eliminated, permitting boats to be shipped to the venue without requiring them to be able to sail across oceans (or contain living accommodations). In 1985 a second amendment was made to allow for matches to take place during the summer in the
Southern Hemisphere. ==Interpretation==