Into the Finals

Everything that went before was supposed to be just practice as four U.S. 12-meter yachts squared off in the final America's Cup elimination trials off Newport, R.I. If so, practice makes perfect. After five days of round-robin match racing, Bus Mosbacher's Intrepid was still the prohibitive favorite to defend the Cup against Australia's Dame Pattie next month. Outfitted with a second titanium-tipped mast (to replace the spar that broke twice in earlier races this summer), a new rudder, and new spreaders to stiffen the mast, Intrepid twice beat her own trial horse, Constellation, utterly crushed American Eagle--beating her by 9 min. 44 sec. over the 24.3-mile course--and showed her stern to California's Columbia.

The real question was which boat--Connie, Eagle or Columbia--would get still another crack at Intrepid in a final-final, two-boat series of races for the defender's job. It almost certainly was not going to be Eagle, which had yet to win a race. Constellation's status was shaky, too, after she blew a 1 min. 3 sec. lead and lost to Columbia by 4 min. 16 sec. The likeliest candidate was Columbia, the rebuilt (at a cost of $125,000) 1958 Cup winner, which was refurbished all over again after losing twice to Intrepid in last month's observation trials, and her mainsheet winch was now located below decks.

She had new sails, a new mast, new rigging. She also had two skippers: Bill Picker, a Star-class world champion in 1958, piloted her at the start of each race; then Briggs Cunningham, who steered Columbia in 1958, took over.

Two heads are not necessarily better than one--when the one belongs to Bus Mosbacher. In his clash with Columbia last week, Mosbacher beat Picker to the starting line by 46 sec., increased that lead in light airs to more than three minutes before the race was called off because of approaching darkness.

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