He took the trophy back to the New York Yacht Club where it stayed for exactly 132-years before Australia, then New Zealand (twice) and surprisingly landlocked Switzerland did something Great Britain has never done.

But it was not for want of trying, and Scotland was at the heart of British efforts to wrest the ‘Auld Mug’ from America’s iron grip.

Sir Thomas Lipton, the Scots-born grocery and tea magnate may have flown the flag of the Royal Ulster Yacht Club, his yachts all named Shamrock, but his five unsuccessful attempts to win the coveted trophy were Scottish all right. His 120ft J-class yachts were mostly Clyde-built at Denny’s, his £100,000 steam yacht Erin was built at Clydebank, and his crews were drawn from the fishing fleets of Scotland, Ireland and even Cornwall.

Five times between 1899 and 1930, Tommy Lipton challenged for the America’s Cup and five times he lost. As an octogenarian he was, at the age of 81, planning his sixth assault on sailing’s Nirvana blue when he died unmarried and with no children, having failed to fulfil what many consider to have been his wildest dream.

Thomas Johnstone Lipton was born on 10th May 1850 at 10 Crown Street in the heart of Glasgow’s infamous

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