Author: ws lirakis

a sailor who carries a camera

If a little is good, more is better America’s cup 1970

1970 brought more changes to the America’s cup. The story merits to be broken into segments, chapters if you like. The Americans have three boats: “Intrepid”, “Valiant” and “Heritage”. Ted Turner brings “American Eagle”, however she is not a real contender. Turner has raced her hard across the Atlantic, SORC, Annapolis-Newport; she was an ocean racing boat with milage.
     As alluded to previously, Olin Stephens and others noted that displacement seemed to be good, while also recognizing that wetted surface was not. The eternal battle in displacement boats.  “Valiant” represented the latest thinking by S&S, heavy, lots of bustle, short ends. This proved to be wrong, and S&S subsequently backed away from this direction.
     Britton Chance, probably best known for his 5.5 meter successes at this point, re-designed “Intrepid” again, increasing the bustle, shortening the keel, and reducing the size of the rudder.
    Charlie Morgan designed, built, skippered, and made the sails for “Heritage” Too much for one man to handle in an America’s Cup season.
      As we all know “Intrepid” went on to become the second two time defender in 1970. The story of how she arrived there is an interesting one. Bill Ficker the skipper and helmsman it took all of his concentration to sail “Intrepid” with such a small rudder. The top half of her mast was titanium (the top two-thirds of “Valiant’s mast was titanium) with no jumpers. Low windage and low weight. The need for more control of both the mast and steering the boat would be re-visited later.
   I must have photos of “Heritage”, as I worked on the shore crew under Paul Coble.  1970 was my final year in college, where we were ranked number 2 in the country, we certainly won our share. I arrived the morning of the Bermuda race from Wisconsin, site of the Intercollegiate national championships. Won the Bermuda Race aboard “Carina”; returning to Newport to work on Heritage.
   I have not talked about the Challengers and will do  in the next installment.

THE CAT IS BACK

“Il Monstro” arrived back in Newport yesterday evening, with Ken’s brother Brad having completed his first transatlantic race; on a boat we would all love to have sailed. Docked at  Charlie Dana’s Newport Shipyard, next to “Leopard of London” and “Speedboat”. A sort of trinity of sailboat racing, formula ones of the water.
     “Il Monstro” will set up training here in Newport in preparation for the next Volvo Ocean Race.
   The bottom photo is a panorama of Shields racing last night on Narragansett Bay, comprised of 10 photos stitched together. Spring is coming to the Northeast.

WHAT IS BIG?

I had trouble fitting “Mirabella V” in the frame. That is” Leopard of London” which is 100 feet long on the outside of “Mirabella” The dark mast through the rigging of “Mirabella” is “Speedboat” also 100 feet long. Both of the 100 foot boat have power assisted winches and canting keels, which means that the engine must be running pretty much all the time in order to sail the boat. They sail with 18-25 people as they are all needed to make sail changes or any other big changes, like a jibe.
   Both “Speedboat” and “Leopard” are in Newport waiting for a weather window to make an attempt on the monohull transatlantic record. Because they have power assisted winches they can never own the outright record held by “Maria Cha” set in 2003
   “Speedboat” is also entered in the Bermuda Race starting June 18th, where I am certain they would like to set a course record as well.
    “Mirabella V” is, I believe ,still the largest sloop in the world. Despite to fact that everything is done by a computer and power, I have trouble conceiving of managing anything aboard her. Just the sheer size of the gear and the loads generated are mind boggling. The photo of people standing next to the headstay turnbuckle should be proof enough. This photo is courtesy of Bill Coleman.
   I am thrilled to see these boats and glad of their existence I am anxious to get back to the thread of the 12 meters and the America’s Cup.

TUNING

Many of the Bermuda Race crew drove from New York for our first day of sailing on saturday. The boat hit the water on Friday, we did some speed runs to adjust the instruments, and look at a new North 3Di mainsail delivered by Jack Orr.
     It was even more fun as “Flash Glove” and “Aera” were also out sailing. Flat water and wind from 5 to 17 knots made it a perfect day. Even the rain held off.
   Mission accomplished and everyone is back home for Mother’s Day.

May 6th was quite a day

http://www.livestream.com/34thac 


http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/05/how_liebermans_citizen-strippi.html



High-Speed Trading Glitch Costs Investors Billions

Thursday started out like many other days; here in the northeast, passing showers gave way to bright sun and scudding clouds. A month ago we had flooding that dramatically changed many peoples lives, but the sun did come out again and spring came early this year.
    Then a burning oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, spewing oil uncontrollably. Then a failed bombing attempt in Times Square.
    A much awaited announcement concerning the future of the America’s Cup, somehow seemed much less important and in the end was a good beginning but much ado about nothing.
   While we were all going about our daily lives, suddenly without warning the Stock Market had a catastrophic failure. This would not have happened in a gambling casino.
  As if should have been enough excitement for one day, Joe Lieberman and Scott Brown propose means to strip people of their citizenship; ignoring the Constitution. As if this would be a solution to the problem. A statement that might better be an offhand remark in a bar ; having resulted because of anger and frustration, spoken without having given it any reflection. In fact really giving the failed attempt, success. The bomb did not explode, but instead reacting with a statement like this is a victory, showing how easily we can abandon our values.
What a day in the sun.

more 1958 america’s cup

Since the 12 meter era reunion was announced. I have been asking anyone who has photos and stories if they might be willing to share them. Here are some photographs taken by Beken of Cowes in 1958 of “Sceptre”; courtesy of my good friend Anna Templeton-Cotill.
My particular favorite is the crew photo which includes the syndicate and if you look carefully, the mascot, Archibald Baldwin Warren (the dog)
Another subject of note for me is the sails.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT, the way we were

It is important to keep a perspective. This is the Newport during the 1960’s.Newport was still as sleepy navy town. We do not often take the time to reflect on how things were. If you are like me; you are racing to finish what you started during the day. Never mind the simple interruptions.
    The Newport Bridge did not open until 1969. The photograph of the ferry with the bridge in the background I took from the transom of “Carina” on the way out to the start of the transatlantic race to Ireland.
    These are the men who worked on the 12 meters and every other ship that was hauled at Newport Shipyard.
     Newport still had a working waterfront, filled with fishing boats. As you look at the photos many more small insights will appear.

GENE AMBO

Gene Ambo was one of the early regulars sailing on “Charisma”. The Charisma Crew held a reunion in Chicago two years ago. Gene was surely the life of the party.

Eugene Ambo,
A Remembrance of His Life, Age 82. He was known variously as Gene, Geno or Ambo and sometimes as “The Super Jap” and thirty years ago on May 29, 1980 he was one of the eleven persons who met at the offices of Kaufman and Ladd for the purpose, “To discuss the steps to establish a social Club to be named the Eastport Yacht Club.”
Gene Ambo was not from Eastport but then none of the founders of the EYC were from here.  He was born in California of Japanese parents and although they were industrious farmers, the family was interned by the Federal Government shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.   This did not deter the United States Government from drafting him into the army after the end of World War II.  Gene served in the Army Air Corp which brought him to Chicago.  After his discharge from the Army, he stayed around Chicago and got involved in photography and eventually had a successful graphics and advertising business.  There he got to racing sailboats on the Great Lakes and then on occasion on the East Coast and to Florida for the then popular SORC.  He developed into a respected navigator and all around racing hand mostly on boats from the Great Lakes.  When in his mid-40’s, Gene dropped out of the business world and got to managing ocean racing boats full time and this brought him often toAnnapolis and Eastport.  In the late 1970’s he settled here and among other things he established Presto Photo, the first one-hour film processing shop in this area.
Gene was very active in the formative years of the EYC and was the first Entertainment Committee Chairman.  The parties that he organized were large and consistent money makers in the early years of the club.  He had an unusually good, if reckless, command of the English language.  He came up with the name Spring Cotillion in place of the name BN Ball.  When we asked him why Cotillion, he suggested that we look it up and we did and found it to be “An elaborate dance marked by the giving of favors and the frequent changing of partners.” He continued to be active in ocean racing and was often the navigator for Jack King in MERRYTHOUGHT and she was a consistent winner.
But then other interests call and he dropped out of the EYC and then he moved back to Chicago where he lived with his wife Milenka.  Many of us were in contact with him by e-mail where he rather constantly entertained us.  Gene Ambo and his wife Milenka did visit Eastport of the 20th and the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the Eastport Yacht Club.  He was very pleased to have been a part of the creation of the YYC.
It is our understanding that Gene is to make one more trip to Eastport but in a somewhat more compact form and more quite manner then usual and there is to be a Celebration of his Life and a spreading of ashes.  We will keep those persons who are interested aware of the developments.
These observations were organized by Fred Hecklinger, Rob Ladd, Jeff Goldring and others of the original founders of the Eastport Yacht Club   

TRIM TABS AND BUSTLES 1967

Remember that 1958 saw the first 12 meters built since before world war II. Now the America’s Cup is into it’s fourth event since 1937.
    Tank testing has shown that the concept of a trim tab with a rudder much further aft would be a breakthrough. Other boats would add bustle, ie. additional displacement aft but S&S who carried out design modifications on ” Columbia” could not reveal what they had done in the design for “Intrepid”.
“Columbia” was capably steered by Bill Ficker, who kept her in the game until the end.
   “Intrepid” would loose only once during the entire summer. She could outmanoeuvre the competition with ease. As far as I could tell most of the starts I saw, she would “sandbag” and still get to the weather mark first.  It should be noted the Bus Mosbacher was helmsman and probably the finest of his generation.
       “Dame Pattie” designed by Warrick Hood, might have been a worthy challenger had the defender been more like “Constellation”

      With each defense came new ideas.  As new information was developed, the problem was how to interpret properly that new information.