The man who dreamed the result of a yacht race two weeks early and wrote it down in the office pool

Step 1

Sunday, October 1, 1899 · Boston · Carlos B. Clark’s account

A Boston bookkeeper reads the Sunday paper and works out some figures on a yacht race

Carlos B. Clark was a bookkeeper at Waldo Brothers, a company in Boston. On Sunday, October 1, 1899, he read a lot about a yacht race in the Boston Globe, a newspaper in the city.

The America’s Cup races were about to start that week. The America’s Cup is a famous sailing competition. Two great yachts were racing each other, the Columbia and the Shamrock. The first race was set for Tuesday, October 3.

According to George Ernst, a lawyer and a friend of Clark’s employer, Clark worked out some figures using the measurements of the two yachts and the time each one might take.

Clark says he slept very deeply. Many mornings he thought he had dreamed something, but he could never remember what.

Step 3

Monday, October 2, 1899 · Boston · The accounts of Clark and his coworker C. S. Robbins

Clark tells his dream at home and at the office, and his coworkers laugh at him

In the morning, Clark told his wife about the dream. He told her that the Columbia won the first race, and also by how much time. He told his neighbors too, Mr. and Mrs. Hatch.

At the office he told almost everyone, and they laughed at him a lot. His coworker C. S. Robbins put it in writing. His statement reached some researchers in November 1899:

“I can testify that Mr. C. B. Clark told me of his dream as above two weeks before the first race was won and that he stated the time 10 min. 14 sec.”

At the office, they decided to set up a pool on the race.

Step 4

Around October 3, 1899 · Boston · According to the office pool sheet

Clark writes down what he dreamed in the pool, and a coworker bets the same time on the other yacht

In these races, each yacht gets a small advantage or disadvantage based on its measurements. The corrected time is the time each yacht takes after that advantage is applied. It is the one that counts for the official result.

The pool sheet set out the rules. Each person had to guess by how much corrected time the winning yacht would win the first race. Each bet cost 25 cents, and whoever came closest took the pot.

Eight coworkers placed bets, and Clark was the first on the list. He wrote down what he had dreamed. He bet on the Columbia, by 10 minutes and 14 seconds. Six coworkers guessed between 3 minutes 20 seconds and 7 minutes.

Second on the list was Robbins. He bet the same as Clark, but on the other yacht. This is how he explained it to Clark:

“You may have made a mistake in the boat, so I’ll take the same time for the Shamrock.”

The heading on the sheet says “Thursday’s race, Octo. 5.” That was the second attempt to sail the first race. The first attempt was on Tuesday, October 3. That day the yachts started, but they could not finish in time for lack of wind.

George Ernst was a lawyer and a friend of Clark’s employer. In November he wrote that he believed Clark had signed the sheet on October 3. He also wrote that the first race was to have been sailed on October 5. Clark, on the other hand, said that the Sunday of the dream was two days before the races were scheduled to begin.

Step 5

October 3 to 17, 1899 · According to the Boston Globe

Because of bad weather, the first race isn’t finished until October 16, and the Columbia wins

There were seven attempts that came to nothing. On October 3, 5 and 7, the yachts started, but lack of wind kept them from finishing in time. On October 10, 12, 13 and 14, fog or calm kept them from even starting. The first race was not finished until Monday, October 16, two weeks after the dream.

The Columbia won. It sailed the course in 10 minutes and 14 seconds less than the Shamrock, and that is the actual sailing time. The Columbia crossed the finish line 10 minutes and 11 seconds ahead of the Shamrock. The gap is smaller because the Shamrock had crossed the starting line 3 seconds earlier.

The Shamrock had a 6-second advantage because of its measurements. So, in corrected time, the official result was that the Columbia won by 10 minutes and 8 seconds.

The next day, the Boston Globe carried the news in large letters. The headline said this:

“COLUMBIA’S FIRST VICTORY / BEAT SHAMROCK 10 m. 8 s.”

Below it, the newspaper gave both figures. The Columbia won by 10 minutes and 14 seconds of actual time, and by 10 minutes and 8 seconds of corrected time.

Step 6

October 1899 to December 1912 · Boston and New York · According to their letters and the journal

The pool sheet reaches some researchers, who publish the case thirteen years later

On October 24, 1899, the lawyer George Ernst wrote to the physician Henry Bowditch. He asked whether Bowditch was still interested in the Society for Psychical Research, which studied cases like this. He told him about the dream and said he had the bet that Clark wrote down two weeks before the race.

Ernst also told him about the many people who were betting on the race:

“There must of necessity be some one among the hundreds of people who amused themselves by guessing to hit the exact time by mere accident; the remarkable thing, if there is anything remarkable about it, is the fact of the dream.”

On November 8, 1899, the researcher Richard Hodgson received the original pool sheet. It came with Clark’s account and Robbins’s statement. In 1906, a person named L. Edmunds went to look at the Boston Globe of October 17, 1899, and copied the headline and the figures.

The journal of the American Society for Psychical Research published the case in December 1912, under the title “Apparent premonition.” Its editor, James Hyslop, did a calculation. If the margin were up to an hour, getting the minutes and the seconds right by pure chance would be one chance in 3,600. He himself said that assuming an hour was absurd. With a margin of 20 minutes, it would be one in 1,200. With Clark’s figures, perhaps one in fifty, although he admitted that he knew nothing about yacht racing.

Hyslop also looked closely at Robbins’s bet. Robbins bet the same time as Clark without having dreamed it. If the Shamrock had won by that time, Robbins would have been right by pure chance. That is why Hyslop urged caution before ruling out that Clark was also right by chance.

The question remains: did Clark dream the result of the race, or was it a lucky calculation?