40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LOSS OF THE AMERICA’S CUP

BEN AND HIS KEEL
BEN AND HIS KEEL

SEPTEMBER 26, 1983 AUSTRALIA II DEFEATED LIBERTY 4-3 IN A BEST OF 7 SERIES TO WIN THE AMERICA’S CUP.  THE RIGHT THING HAPPENED FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS. IT WAS TIME TO RE-SHAPE THE AMERICA’S CUP;  I DO NOT BELIEVE ANYONE COULD HAVE PREDICTED WHERE WE ARE NOW.

WISHING LUCK TO LIBERTY
ADMIRING THE BOLT
ALAN BOND DRINKING FROM THE BOTTOMLESS GOBLET

THERE IS NO SECOND
UNBOLTING THE CUP
THE SHOT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD

UNBOLTING THE CUP

MY LIFE IN BOATS

I assembled this a few years ago because even I forget some of the boats and events I sailed. Still fond memories; and still making more.

PURE GENIUS, AMERICA’S CUP 36

I lot of speculation has been circulating about the future design for the 36th america’s cup. Now we know. It is brilliant. For some it will not be what they had hoped it would be; however this design incorporates the design progress made over the last events with a monohull.

ANOTHER NOTE: Francois Gabart is holding a lead over the record around the world singlehanded. Setting a 24 hour record of 851 miles in the process.

MACIF

NEW ZEALAND WINS THE AMERICA’S CUP

The edge every sailor wants is boat speed. It can disguise errors, it helps with execution of maneuvers. in short it can bail you out of suituations.

The New Zealand team had all the tools; a faster boat. and from a distance a team that had no egos. Everyone quietly did their jobs.

If you look at the New Zealand crew’s resume, it was brilliant.

By the way, Luna Rossa will be the Challenger of record.

I am pleased that New Zealand won. The one problem for most of the world is the fact that they are in a distant time zone.

FORTY YEARS AGO/ FIFTY YEARS AGO

Forty years ago about this date we towed to Newport for the start of the selection trials to defend the America’s Cup.

We had had a small regatta in Marblehead over the Memorial day weekend in which “Courageous” was faster on every point of sail. Reggie Pierce looked up from the grinder handles and quipped: “It’s going to be a long summer”. Those words proved to be prophetic.

“Independence” was supposed to be the anointed defender. The rest is history.

“Intrepid” will celebrate 50 years.

INDEPENDENCE CREW 1977

COURAGEOUS CREW 1977

LOOKING BACK AT COURAGEOUS

COURAGEOUS ON OUR WEATHER HIP

TRIMMED IN HARD

BERNADETTE WINS THE AMERICA’S CUP AT THE DOG TRACK

AMERICA’S DEMITASSE 1977

MEASURING THE 12’S

THE AMERICA’S CUP JUBILEE

I had the great privilege to sail “Columbia” the first twelve meter to defend the America’s Cup in 1958. at the America’s Cup Jubilee. There were 38 twelve meters there. This was a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the America’s Cup.

The idea of the Royal Yacht Squadron, from my prospective it exceeded all expectations. It was an endless parade of yachts each more beautiful and graceful the the next.

AMERICA’S CUP HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES 2016

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America’s Cup Hall of Fame Inductees Announced

Published on July 20th, 2016

The 2016 inductees to the America’s Cup Hall of Fame will be Mr. Ernesto Bertarelli, two-time winner of the Cup in 2003 and 2007 and runner up in 2010, and the late 4th Earl of Dunraven, Cup challenger in 1893 and 1895.

The America’s Cup Hall of Fame was founded in 1992 as an arm of the Herreshoff Marine Museum (Bristol, RI) by Halsey Herreshoff, a four-time America’s Cup defender and grandson of legendary yacht designer Nathanael G. Herreshoff. Over eighty legends of the Cup have been inducted into the Hall.

Candidates eligible for consideration include members of the crew, designers, builders, syndicate leaders, supporters, chroniclers, and other individuals of merit. Each nominee is judged on the basis of outstanding ability, international recognition, character, performance, and contributions to the sport. The members of the Selection Committee are persons intimate with the history and traditions of America’s Cup and committed to the integrity of the Hall of Fame.

The 2016 America’s Cup Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will take place in New York City on October 21 at the New York Yacht Club. Previous inductees here.

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Ernesto Bertarelli

Ernesto Bertarelli (SUI) b. 1965
As founder, owner, and crewmember of the first Cup boats from Switzerland, all named Alinghi, Bertarelli won the America’s Cup in Auckland, New Zealand in 2003, and defended it successfully in Valencia, Spain in 2007. In 2010 at Valencia, in the first Cup match between two multihulls, Alinghi’s winning streak came to end.

Bertarelli sailed aboard his Cup yachts continuing the Cup tradition of owner-sailors that have included Harold Vanderbilt, T.O.M. Sopwith, and Ted Turner. Bertarelli competed in all the races in the 31st, 32nd, and 33rd America’s Cup matches in several roles, including navigator, afterguard member, backstay trimmer, and, in 2010, as helmsman.

Bertarelli’s vision for the America’s Cup clearly broke boundaries. The first Cup winner from continental Europe, he took the Cup back to Europe and produced the 32nd America’s Cup in Valencia, which was among the most successful events in the competition’s post-war history. That event hosted more challengers than any other, Fremantle excepted.

Bertarelli also organized the first Acts (now called the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series), a series of regattas for the challengers and the defender which toured venues in Europe.

The 33rd Match in 2010, beset by legal challenges, was eventually decided on the water by gigantic multihulls, the fastest Cup yachts ever built up to that time, with the Alinghi team losing the Cup to BMW Oracle Racing.

Alongside his achievements in other highly competitive circuits, Ernesto Bertarelli shows a depth of ability to build talented teams and a remarkable determination to win. He has created a new winning tradition in Swiss sailing and has both inspired and invested in the next generation of his nation’s sailors.

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Lord Dunraven

Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, 4th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl (GBR) (1841-1926)
Lord Dunraven was an Oxford graduate, cavalry officer, war correspondent, adventurer, big game hunter, politician, racehorse owner and yachtsman. He was also a great lover of the United States and her people, investing in land in Colorado and hunting elk with Buffalo Bill Cody in Nebraska.

A fully qualified yacht captain and helmsman in his own right, he did much to encourage yacht racing and the advance of yacht design. He was also a prolific yacht owner with myriad small racing yachts, Big Class racers, cruisers, and power yachts.

In 1893, Lord Dunraven challenged the Cup’s holder, the New York Yacht Club. During the negotiations over the conditions of the match, Dunraven achieved the concession to drop the Inside Course (a notorious course, riddled with shoals and strong currents, that favored the defender) from the menu of courses used up to that time for the Cup races. From that point on, only the Ocean Course, free from headlands, and largely free of shoals, was used for the races, benefitting all future challengers.

For the match, Dunraven hired the brilliant George L. Watson to design his contender, Valkyrie II. While she was out-sailed by the defending Vigilant, the first Herreshoff Cup defender, the races attracted vast crowds and increased the popularity of the Cup as a sporting spectacle. The last race in the series was one of the most exciting in America’s Cup history, with Vigilant trailing for many miles until finally overtaking Valkyrie II near the finish, winning by just 40 seconds on corrected time—the closest Cup race up to that time.

Having caught “America’s Cup fever”, Dunraven returned in 1895 with the Watson-designed Valkyrie III, a pioneer of the modern challenger, which was better adapted to local racing conditions and more professionally managed than any previous challenger. But the race series descended into acrimony by misunderstandings and disagreements between the competitors.

The spectator fleet had grown to unmanageable proportions and was perceived as a major problem by the challenger. A minor collision in the second race for which Valkyrie III was found to be at fault led Dunraven to withdraw from the series. Thereafter he made increasingly intemperate accusations, and yacht racing made headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Dunraven was one of the leading yachtsmen of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His two campaigns for the Cup raised the level of Cup racing and were directly responsible for ushering in the Cup’s classic golden age from Sir Thomas Lipton’s challenges to those of T.O.M. Sopwith.

Source: Herreshoff Marine Museum

WORKING WATERFRONT, NEWPORT, RI

The Newport of my youth was a working waterfront. fishing boats, commercial boats and yachts co-existing side by side in the same water and the same docks.

Today, the is not a shred of evidence of this life.