Magnificent Seven seek America’s Cup

Press, 29 June 1983, Page 12

Magnificent Seven seek America’s Cup

From “The Economist,” London

The competition for the America’s Cup, for which trials began on June 18 off Newport, Rhode Island, has an air of growing excitement. For the first time this century, one of the seven challengers may come close to, or even succeed in, wresting the trophy from the United States. The United States has held the cup since 1851, when John Cox Steven’s yacht America defeated a fleet of British vessels in a race round the Isle of Wight. It is the longest unbeaten winning streak in the history of sport. Seven teams from five countries (France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Australia), each formally representing a yacht club, have poured more than $4O million into building and manning their sleek 12-metre yachts. The crew for each boat numbers 11, but behind the crews are numberless managers, tacticians and suppliers. The challengers are generally financed by corporate syndicates, whose members make use of the events to advertise their products. The American defenders are backed by non-profit-making foundations. The victor receives no money. Millions of dollars are spent for nothing more than the right to compete and the hope of winning an ornate silver ewer that sits in a glass case bolted to a table in the New York Yacht Club. Three teams of Americans, representing two syndicates, are competing to defend the cup. The Maritime College at Fort Schuyler in New York has two

boats unaer Mr Dennis Conner, the current winner. He is a drapery manufacturer from San Diego. His crew is made up partly of cadets from the merchant marine college. Mr Tom Blackaller, from Alameda in California, will skipper a third boat. The challengers come to Newport less as sportsmen and more as actors in a Hollywood script. Britain’s disdainful, brilliant Mr Peter deSavary brings a spectacular headquarters yacht, once owned by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Rolls-Royces, Dobermann pinschers and James Bond manners. All last summer Mr deSavary’s rubber launch, said to be crammed with mini-computers, cameras and tracking gear, dogged the Americans as they practised off Newport, so unnerving the defenders that they threw fruit at it to make it go away. Then there is the daring Italian crew aboard the stunning'Azzurra, portrayed as a romantic, devil-may-care lot whose sponsors include the Aga Khan and Mr Gianni Agnelli of Fiat. The Italians cheerfully appalled yachtsmen by calling in a helicopter to swoop down and make wind when the beautiful Azzurra lay becalmed. The Canadians, who are making their first challenge for 102 years, are an unknown quantity, storming down into Newport from their Secret Cover Yacht Club on the Pacific coast, north of Vancouver, and backed by a mob of Calgary oil men.

The French boat has not won a race, but this year France 3 has a new, determined owner in Mr Yves Rousset-Rouard, a maker of soft-porn movies. Most determined and feared of all are three teams from Australia. This year Australia 11, the challenger from Perth, organised by Mr Alan Bond, a property developer, is thought to be the most likely boat to draw blood from the American defender. The different syndicates have opened boutiques in Newport to sell memorabilia from the boats, and bistros, to entertain the crowds which, because the actual race is so far out off the coast, cannot actually see much of anything. The Australians have opened a virtual trade fair, as have the Italians. For Rhode Island the event, which lasts three months from mid-June to mid-September, means more than $6OO million in revenue and more than three million people trekking through the picturesque town of Newport itself. The cost of a yacht to watch the race is about $28,000 a week. Preliminary skirmishing among the challengers for the right to contest the cup has ended. In a series of races in which each contender met the other prospective challengers on two occasions over a shortened course, Australia II dominated the fleet. Another Australian entry, Challenge 12, from Victoria, has two losses, and the English entry, Victory 83 lost three races. The yacht that wins the right to challenge will have sailed a further 43 races over the full course in the next two months.