Collection: AMERICA'S CUP GALLERY - Great images of Defenders and Challengers

In 1851 the British Royal Yacht Squadron challenged the New York Yacht Club to race for a 'One Hundred Guinea Cup', in the All Nations Race at Cowes on the Isle of Wight. The New York Yacht Club's schooner America defeated fourteen British yachts and the trophy was renamed America's Cup in honour of the winner.

The drama and intense competitiveness of an America's Cup challenge is unique in sport. The images in this Gallery, by many of the world's finest marine artists, bring to life the near-mythic wooden yachts of the mid-nineteenth century and their contemporary fibreglass and aluminium successors.

There is drama in each of their stories, all told in this Gallery.