{
 "schema": "nephos.method.v1",
 "slug": "lane-nyyc-regatta-1856",
 "title": "Fitz Henry Lane, First New York Yacht Club Regatta off New Bedford",
 "urls": [
  "/studies/lane-nyyc-regatta-1856"
 ],
 "written": {
  "summary": "Newport Art Museum dates its canvas 1856; Cape Ann Museum’s Lane catalogue dates it After 1856. It was likely finished in the studio afterwards, an inference rather than a documented session. The window is the regatta of 8 August 1856, never a painted day.",
  "items": [
   {
    "quote": "came off on the 8th of August",
    "source": "U.S. Nautical Magazine and Naval Journal, vol. V (1856), p. 16; scan linked by Fitz Henry Lane Online",
    "url": "https://www.fitzhenrylaneonline.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=396"
   },
   {
    "quote": "the wind and waves about all they can manage.",
    "source": "Erik Ronnberg, Fitz Henry Lane Online, commentary on inv. 396",
    "url": "https://www.fitzhenrylaneonline.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=396"
   }
  ]
 },
 "records": [
  {
   "name": "Sailing Committee report",
   "detail": "Contemporary race date, class starting times and a qualitative report of a very fresh south-westerly wind throughout the race.",
   "url": "https://cdn.panopticoncr.com/fitzhen001/supplemental_files/docs/us%20nauticalny%20regatta001.pdf#page=3"
  },
  {
   "name": "R. B. F. aboard Julia, attributed to Robert Bennet Forbes",
   "detail": "Wind near the start and increasing wind and sea out in the bay; read in the 1950 reprint, not the original newspaper.",
   "url": "https://cdn.panopticoncr.com/fitzhen001/supplemental_files/docs/RBForbesArticleRegattaFINAL.pdf#page=1"
  },
  {
   "name": "New Bedford daily register, NOAA/CDMP and MRCC",
   "detail": "A rain entry on the event date. The gauge’s observation time and accumulation boundary are not specified; temperature fields are blank.",
   "url": "https://mrcc.purdue.edu/files/FORTS/Data/DAILYBYSTATE/MA_New_Bedford.data.csv"
  },
  {
   "name": "Henry Smith’s Westport journal",
   "detail": "A pleasant south-westerly morning and a thunder shower later in the same entry; a separate land account in the 2025 volunteer transcription.",
   "url": "https://wpthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Henry-Smith-Journal-FINAL-with-extra-info.pdf#page=192"
  }
 ],
 "gaps": [
  "No original Lane letter or securely dated regatta sketch was inspected to establish his exact observation session.",
  "No measured wind speed, wave height or cloud record at the painted viewpoint was established.",
  "The nearby Fort Adams row has no observations; its dated row is not weather coverage."
 ],
 "tests": [
  {
   "claim": "Does the depicted rough sailing have documentary support?",
   "result": "The two race accounts support a fresh wind, with increasing wind and sea farther out. They do not measure the waves at Lane’s selected starting-line viewpoint."
  },
  {
   "claim": "Does the rain entry date the painted sky?",
   "result": "No. The gauge assigns rain to the date without an observation hour. Smith’s later shower is at Westport and cannot be moved to the regatta start."
  },
  {
   "claim": "What did Lane change?",
   "result": "He selected the starting scene from a longer event. Later studio completion is likely under the catalogue’s alternative dating. No verified sketch-to-canvas comparison establishes a change to the weather."
  }
 ],
 "finding": "The event records support vigorous sailing. Rain belongs to the date in the town register, but the exact painted sky and any alteration to the weather remain unverified.",
 "verdicts": [
  {
   "claim": "Wind and rough sailing",
   "verdict": "Partially agrees",
   "reason": "Qualitative accounts support the broad conditions, without measuring the painted waves."
  },
  {
   "claim": "Rain at the depicted start",
   "verdict": "Unknown",
   "reason": "A daily gauge amount and a shower elsewhere cannot establish rain in the pictured moment."
  },
  {
   "claim": "Exact sky or altered weather",
   "verdict": "Unknown",
   "reason": "The event is dated; the observation and execution sessions are not."
  }
 ],
 "limits": [
  "The committee’s S. W. and the observer’s about S.S.W. remain separate descriptions; neither is converted to a wind speed.",
  "Westport is a separate location, and the rain gauge was on land in New Bedford.",
  "Likely studio completion is an inference from the later catalogue date. A possible regatta drawing is not secure evidence for the sky.",
  "No openly licensed reproduction of this painting was established; links lead to the museum and catalogue."
 ]
}