Eagle Eyed in Ryde

America's Cup history, facts and myths are everywhere...

I had time to kill whilst waiting for the ‘Hurricane’ to finish school and decided to try and crack something that has been bothering me for years, namely: the story of the famous transom eagle of the yacht ‘America’ that somehow managed to find its way to, what some call, the Eagle Inn in Ryde on the Isle of Wight. Others have called it the Eagle Public House, the Eagle Brewery and the Eagle Hotel and it’s the latter that has thrown so many off the trail. In fact all descriptions are correct after consulting historical records but historian’s assumptions and subsequent writings, vary wildly.