Introduction
When Flight Lieutenant John Boothman achieved an average speed of 340.08
mph (547.305 km/h) over the triangular Schneider Trophy course in the
Supermarine S6B seaplane on 13 September 1931, to make Great Britain the
outright winner with three successive victories, the competition which had
been instituted nearly nineteen years earlier came to an end.
On 5 December 1912, at a banquet in Paris following the Gordon-Bennett
races for balloons and landplanes, an award by wealthy aviation enthusiast
Jacques Schneider for hydro-aeroplanes - to encourage the development of
seaplanes - had been announced. His trophy - depicting, in silver and bronze,
a winged figure kissing another one resting on the waves - was first competed
for at Monaco on 16 April 1913.
The winner was a Frenchman, Maurice Prevost, who achieved 45.75 mph (73.63
km/h) over a triangular course totalling 174 miles (280 km) compared with 217
miles (350 km) in later contests in a Deperdussin monoplane with a 160 hp
Gnome engine.
Over the eighteen years which spanned the twelve contests, much had
changed. Technological development, sharply spurred by the First World War,
inevitably meant enormous increases in power and speed. The spirit of the
competition also changed: from being a private-enterprise contest for aero
clubs affiliated to the FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale) it had
become a state-supported international event with the participation, from
1923, of Service teams.
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