{"id":335,"date":"2010-08-15T16:51:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-15T16:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=335"},"modified":"2010-10-20T19:47:47","modified_gmt":"2010-10-20T23:47:47","slug":"americas-cup-1978-1979","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=335","title":{"rendered":"AMERICA&#8217;S CUP 1978-1979"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; The 1977 America&#8217;s Cup was done and dusted. Already plans for the 1980 cup were underway. &nbsp;Baron Bic built &#8220;France III&#8221;, designed by Johan Valentin. (who would co-design &#8220;Australia&#8221; with Ben Lexan for 1980)<br \/>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; Bic also owned &#8220;Intrepid&#8221;, which was being used as a trial horse against &#8220;France III.&#8221; In the summer of 1978 &#8220;Intrepid&#8221; had a host of skippers: Bill Ficker, Lowell North, Gerry Driscoll. &#8220;France III&#8221;also had a series of tryouts for skipper, including Bruno Trouble.<br \/>&nbsp;&nbsp;Gerry Driscoll arrived at an agreement with Baron Bic, who agreed to lease &#8220;Intrepid&#8221; to Gerry for the 1980 America&#8217;s Cup if he could find financing for the program.<br \/>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;1979, I was crew boss, downwind helmsman, and tactician. I was also responsible for maintenance of the boat; the actual work being carried out by the French shore crew.<br \/>&nbsp;&nbsp; In over 100 starts, we lost one. Gerry owned the starting line, and was the most consistent helmsman I ever sailed with, every tack was the same, which meant the crew could always have the same timing.<br \/>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; Many good stories came from this season, but no money was found for Intrepid&#8217;s comeback.<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_jTb_cRUMExg\/TGgNYSAekHI\/AAAAAAAACh8\/EeiDJag7nLY\/s1600\/intrepid+mello.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"308\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_jTb_cRUMExg\/TGgNYSAekHI\/AAAAAAAACh8\/EeiDJag7nLY\/s320\/intrepid+mello.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_jTb_cRUMExg\/TGgNa7Q0qbI\/AAAAAAAACiA\/kc2pNUmasbg\/s1600\/intrepid3646.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"211\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_jTb_cRUMExg\/TGgNa7Q0qbI\/AAAAAAAACiA\/kc2pNUmasbg\/s320\/intrepid3646.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_jTb_cRUMExg\/TGgNeNTZkGI\/AAAAAAAACiE\/08VRN7z0p8U\/s1600\/mello+intrepid.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"261\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_jTb_cRUMExg\/TGgNeNTZkGI\/AAAAAAAACiE\/08VRN7z0p8U\/s320\/mello+intrepid.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_jTb_cRUMExg\/TGgNgj2UleI\/AAAAAAAACiI\/M2hk7wYiBrQ\/s1600\/12+meter2174.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_jTb_cRUMExg\/TGgNgj2UleI\/AAAAAAAACiI\/M2hk7wYiBrQ\/s320\/12+meter2174.jpg\" width=\"209\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_jTb_cRUMExg\/TGgNV1Kk92I\/AAAAAAAACh4\/3KsRDRf5yv8\/s1600\/intrepid010.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"211\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_jTb_cRUMExg\/TGgNV1Kk92I\/AAAAAAAACh4\/3KsRDRf5yv8\/s320\/intrepid010.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; The 1977 America&#8217;s Cup was done and dusted. Already plans for the 1980 cup were underway. &nbsp;Baron Bic built &#8220;France III&#8221;, designed by Johan Valentin. (who would co-design &#8220;Australia&#8221; with Ben Lexan for 1980)&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; Bic also owned &#8220;Intrepid&#8221;, which was being used as a trial horse against &#8220;France III.&#8221; In the summer of &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=335\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">AMERICA&#8217;S CUP 1978-1979<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gerry-driscoll","category-intrepid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":673,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions\/673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}