TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/87/87capaid.4

Text File | 1990-10-19 | 5KB | 86 lines

Fremantle Says Good on Yer, Mates

February 16, 1987

America's Cup comes home, brimming with Aussie generosity

America retrieved its old Cup last week in four one-sided yacht races
that showed U.S. sailors and Australian sportsmen at their best.  The
man who unthinkable lost the trophy three summers ago, San Diego's
Dennis Conner, won it back with guile at the beginning and grace at
the end, not to mention the fastest sailboat on the Indian Ocean.  "I
didn't see a foot put wrong in any one of the races by any one of
their team," losing Skipper Iain Murray said admiringly.  "We made a
few mistakes and were a little bit of the pace."  Beaten to every
buoy, they finished each race more than a minute late.  But Perth
cheered Yank and Aussie alike, and no one seemed the loser.

Over the past two episodes in the 135-year saga of the Cup, Americans
had to learn from Australians the infinite possibilities not only of
12-meter boats but of ingenuity itself.  Somewhere along the U.S.
line, as Enterprise begat Courageous begat Freedom begat Liberty,
revolutionary breakthroughs had been luffing.  Then, in 1983,
influenced by Dutch technology, a child of the Outback named Ben
Lexcen devised a winged keel for Australia II that altered
everything.  Ultimately developing wings of his own, Conner agrees,
"It basically was an art before.  We're just starting to scratch it
into a science."

Still, his art was not lost on the relatively inexperienced sailors
of Kookaburra III.  "They thrashed us with a better boat," said Rick
Goodrich, a Queensland cowboy grinding his first winch.  And with
more than just the boat.  Starting Helmsman Peter Gilmour, who
jockeyed for Murray in the pre-race maneuvers, imagined on the last
day that he had succeeded in cajoling Conner over the line
prematurely.  "Then I remembered something," he said.  "It's Dennis."

The Aussies had consoled themselves that the first two losses in the
best-of-seven series might have been inconclusive.  Shifting winds
made the first something of a lottery, and the second was waged in
the heavier breezes that Stars & Stripes candidly preferred.  But in
the third race, just one up-wind leg in moderate Kookaburra weather
told Murray his fate.  Near the dismal end of that afternoon, a
rubber speedboat pulled up alongside the Kook captain.  "You've got a
bomb on board,' they said.  'What do you want to do?'  Our immediate
response was, 'What's the bad news?'  Then we thought, 'Here's our
chance to find out if there's life after 12-meter racing.'"  The bomb
was a hoax, but questions of the future hang in the air.

"The Cup's got a new, happy life," Conner said.  "She seems to be
enjoying it."  Still, the site of the next regatta, in 1990, is
undetermined.  Political winds figure to blow for San Diego, whose
yacht club is entitled to designate the next pond.  Hawaii's dramatic
seas, for example, may be considered splashier for TV.  Under the
Deed of Gift, only a foreign power can dislodge the Cup from wherever
the S.D.Y.C. decides to display it.  Just as Southerner Ted Turner
once defended for New York City, any U.S. suitors must now pledge
fealty to San Diego.  This may affect the enthusiasm of San Francisco
or New York for anteing up again.

Conner's own legendary enthusiasm is unchanging at 44.  "Don't be
surprised if you see most of us back here in the defense," he said.
In that case, Lexcen predicted, "it'll take a thousand years--well,
maybe a hundred--to get the Cup back."  Although 16 year Conner's
junior, Murray declared, "I'm unlikely to sail again in the America's
Cup."  He is ready to shift into design, where Cups increasingly will
be won.  By Conner's calculations, Stars & Stripes was "at least
three-tenths of a knot faster" than his previous entry, Liberty.  All
summer he has been charged with lying in the weeds, and he finally
owned up.  "We didn't show all of our cards at the beginning--that's
art of the game.  We had a little tiger left in the tank."  At the
same time, Conner praised the Kooks:  "While I'd like to think
American technology proved its superiority, it wasn't by much."

Australians do great impressions of Americans, and there was even a
locker-room telephone call from Prime Minister Bob Hawke.  But the
generous spirit of the hometown reception in Challenger Harbor would
have been hard to match in the States.  Jon Wright, a mainsheet
trimmer who has now sailed four Cup finals, murmured, "It's these two
hours that make us come back every three years."  Among the dunked
victors bobbing in the sea was Syndicate Chief Malin Burnham,
originator of the extravagant title the Sail America Foundation for
International Understanding.  Amazingly, some was promoted.  When
Conner was asked his preference for the next venue, his sentimental
reply was, "Fremantle, Western Australia."

--By Tom Callahan