The Best Cup Challenge Ever

By Michael Demarest

Australia II puts on a fan-bloody-tastic show

The America's Cup was still there on Monday morning, bolted to a table at the New York Yacht Club, which has been its home for 132 years. Its tenure had become frighteningly fragile, however. For the past fortnight a superboat and a bunch of hungry sailors from Down Under have shown that the U.S. can no longer successfully defend the knobbly silver ewer merely by putting a boat in the water. At week's end the best-of-seven series was tied 3-3 between the red-hulled American defender Liberty and Australia II. In the process, the Aussies had proved themselves every fighting inch the equals of the Americans. It has been the greatest America's Cup challenge in history.

No challenger had ever won more than two races, but that is merely a statistic. What was on display in Newport was nobility. The Australians showed technological brilliance, consummate sailing skill, luck, intuition, nerve, courage, stamina and fanatic determination to win. It also took millions of dollars on both sides, since that is the price of admission in 12-meter yacht racing. But no amount of money could have bought what Aussie guts and gall have won to date.

The Australian campaign has had an unlikely Nelson: Allan Bond, 45, a chunky, feisty Perth entrepreneur and onetime sign painter, who has spent $16 million in ten years pursuing what many of his countrymen dismissed as a manic obsession. This is his fourth bid, Australia II his third boat. In Ben Lexcen, 47, Bond found a naval architect who could radically change the design of a 12-meter boat, a field that has seen little technological innovation in years. In secret tank tests in The Netherlands, Lexcen developed a keel like nothing ever used before: with two delta-type wings weighing more than a ton each, it gives the boat added stability, more agility in tacking and greater speed overall. While his boat clearly had the advantage over all comers in light winds, many experts questioned whether it could perform as well in heavier conditions. Australia II, it turned out, is glorious in any kind of weather.

John Bertrand, 36, Bond's skipper, proved in the trials that he is among the world's best at handling a 12-meter yacht. Relaxed and modest, he was quick to admit error. He also had the fervent loyalty of his crew. By contrast with previous years, when the Aussie sailors downed Foster's Lager in Newport's pubs till the wee hours, Bertrand's men trained like commandos for the marine assault. Off Newport, long considered mare nostrum by the American defenders, Bertrand developed a feel for wind and water conditions unmatched by many Americans who have sailed these waters since adolescence.

Even before Australia II arrived at Newport, its white hull swathed in a modest blue-green canvas skirt, word had spread of the challenger's hidden, revolutionary keel design. The New York Yacht Club tried mightily, ignobly, and in vain to have the foreign boat disqualified. Meanwhile, the wonder from Down Under and its gritty crew blitzed the largest foreign field ever assembled in Newport--six other boats, from France, Italy, Britain, Canada and Australia. In two months the Australians won 48 of the 54 times they set sail. And yet, pitted against the New York Yacht Club's haughty ways and the American defenders' $9 million outlay to keep the Cup, the Aussies cannily managed all the same to come across as the Down Underdog.

Underdog is what they remained in the first two races, both captured handily by Liberty. While two of the Aussies' losses could be ascribed mainly to equipment failures, their nemesis loomed as Dennis Conner, Liberty's fearsome skip per. Conner defended the Cup against the Aussies in 1980, winning four out of five races. He is not an endearing man: he is anxious, abrasive and overweight, hard and unforgiving on the water. Co-author of a book called No Excuse to Lose, he has spent 6,000 hours at the helm of 12-meter boats over the past five years, and he was determined to win again. "There's more to it than boat speed," he said in a remark worthy of Leo Durocher. "You have to be first at the finish line."

On opening day, in 20-knot winds that were considered slightly favorable to Liberty, Skipper Bertrand got Australia II off to a lead of a few seconds and held it into the third leg as the boats headed off into Rhode Island Sound. But then Bertrand let the U.S.'s Conner sneak up on his tail. Liberty slipped in front and never let up. Before rounding the last mark to sail home against the wind, Conner surprised his opponent by jibing suddenly to change course. As Bertrand wheeled his boat to follow, part of Australia II's steering gear snapped. Conner won the race by 1 min. 10 sec.

The winds were again around 20 knots for the second race. Just before the start, as Australia II jibed to block Liberty, a 24.6-knot gust smacked the challenger, snapping a pin that holds the mainsail to the halyard and dropping the sail 18 in. Despite this handicap, Bertrand beat the U.S. yacht on the first upwind leg by 50 sec., a remarkable margin that displayed his boat's inherent speed. Unable to match his opponent in tacking duels, Bertrand decided to go off in search of a breeze. Left alone, it was Conner who found the wind--and won, by 1 min. 33 sec. "God smiled on us," said the American skipper, "and we managed things a little better." More to the point, one yachting expert observed (prematurely as it turned out), "Conner does not have accidents." Bertrand filed an official protest when the race ended, claiming the American boat had forced him off course, but after a day of deliberation, an international committee disagreed.

The next race was symbolically one of the most crucial of the series, even though it left the score unchanged at U.S. 2, Australia 0. In very light winds Australia II simply wiped out Liberty. As the yachts rounded the last mark for the beat to the finish, Australia led by more than 5 min., a colossal margin in a race of 24.3 miles. Bertrand was sitting half a mile ahead of Conner when the wind died. There is a time limit of 5 hr. 15 min. on the race, which ran out, and the result did not count. That was bad luck for the Aussies, but their mooted victory came as a needed adrenaline shot at the ebb of their fortunes.

For the replay of the third race the winds were feather light once more, and ultralight Australia II, weighing 5,000 lbs. less than Liberty, took to them like a seagull riding the thermals. She beat the American boat by 3 min. 14 sec., the largest margin rung up by a foreign challenger since 1871. John Marshall, the mainsheet trimmer on Liberty, said after the race, "There is a speed difference in these two yachts like I have never seen. Australia II is something new, very thoughtful and very exciting." Asked how he spent the day off after his first loss, Conner replied, "I worried." After that race Conner even said that he was "aware of the possibility" that the U.S. could lose the Cup.

Assessing performance up to this point, the experts reckoned that Liberty performed best in winds of 15 to 20 knots, while Australia II was the faster boat either below or above that range. For the fourth race the breeze was made to order for Liberty. And Dennis Conner, who is probably the world's finest 12-meter skipper, handled his boat masterfully. He won the start from Bertrand by 6 sec. and never let up, skillfully covering the Australian, repeatedly pouncing on the wind shifts he needed to carry him ahead. After two shifts on the first leg, Conner declared, "God works on Tuesdays." Bertrand admitted his error in losing the start: "It was a mistake on my part. One mistake is all it takes." Owner Bond, crushed by the defeat and with his back to a 3-1 wall, reminded a press conference of the valiant way Australian troops fought at Gallipoli in World War I (and lost 8,587 men).

Having smiled on Conner on Tuesday, God was in a different mood for the fifth race, the next day. Just 45 min. before it was time to summon the yachts to the start, Liberty suffered a broken jumper strut, a hydraulically powered device that angles the mast to increase sail power. As a fast motorboat rushed a new part from dockside, New Yorkers Tom Rich and Scott Vogel struggled 60 ft. above the deck to cut away the faulty strut. The damage was repaired 12 min. before the start, but Liberty still had to raise a jib, and its crew, according to Conner, was "close to exhaustion." Then Bertrand once again muffed the start; by the time he recovered he trailed Conner by 37 sec. Well behind, he shifted to starboard and ran for the far left side of the course.

At that point Conner chose to ignore one of the cardinal rules of match racing, failing to keep Liberty between his opponent and the next mark. "We decided to look for wind," said Conner. It was Bertrand who found it. As they rounded the first mark, the Aussies led by 23 sec., having made up a whole minute. Liberty's strut broke again, and Conner was unable to trim his main properly; by the end Australia II had a 1 min. 47 sec. lead.

It was the first time since 1934 that a challenger had won two races. Even with a 3-2 disadvantage, the Aussies were back in the game for keeps. And in Newport the insidious notion began to grow that they might actually win it. "We have got the momentum now," said Australia's Bertrand.

For the sixth race, sailed in crystalline weather, there were moderate twelve-knot winds from the northwest. Bertrand lost the start again, this time by 7 sec., but soon into the first tack spotted something his opponent had not: dark patches of water, indicating a wind buildup on the left side of the course. He sailed for it, again uncovered by Conner, who said later, "We missed it." As Liberty rounded the first mark 2 min. 29 sec. behind Australia II, Gary Jobson, a winning crew member in Ted Turner's 1977 defense, exclaimed, "This is a disaster!" The flying bridge of the New York Yacht Club boat emptied as its nine straw-hatted, red-trousered committee members went below for a stiff belt.

In a last-ditch effort, as Bertrand made his final rounding of the windward mark more than 3 min. ahead, Conner tried to sail over his opponent, get to leeward of Australia II and force it to head back up to windward. He was about a minute too late. By the end of the race, in constantly shifting winds of up to 19 knots from the southwest, Bertrand led by a whopping 3 min. 25 sec. The series was tied 3-3. From London to Perth, the betting was on Australia II.

The Australians exercised their privilege of requesting the next day, Friday, off, so that they could check out the boat and give bone-weary crewmen a rest. Saturday's race was canceled because of shifting winds, after which the Americans called another day off, and both crews rested on Sunday. Meanwhile, in anticipation of light air, which has generally favored his opponent, Conner sent Liberty to a Narragansett Bay dockyard for adjustments of the ballast in its bottom. The Australians would just as soon have heavy weather. Skipper Bertrand, who took a master's degree in ocean engineering at M.I.T., recalls that he once took his boat out in a "cyclone just to see what she'd do." Says he: "It was blowing 45 or 50 knots. We couldn't even get the deck wet."

Though yacht racing, and the America's Cup in particular, is usually as exciting to the average layman as a tennis match without a net, millions of ordinary citizens were caught up in the drama being played off Newport. The Boston Globe reported receiving more telephone calls about the series during each of the first two racing days than it had for baseball scores any day this season. Where nine television crews appeared for the 1980 races, there were 22 this time. More than 1,300 media credentials were issued, 200 of them to Australians.

The 1 million inhabitants of Perth, Australia II's home port, probably had less sleep than any other people in the world. On race days, radio coverage began around midnight and did not end until 6 a.m. "I've managed three hours sleep every night this week, and my colleagues say I'm doing well," said Perth Lord Mayor Michael Michael. In Britain, where the press had lost interest in the series after its own entry was beaten by Australia II, the series was again a Page One story. In France, savoring the spectacle of Americans having to take what they had been dishing out for 132 years, radio, TV and the press gave the story unprecedented coverage. Gloated the sports newspaper L 'Equipe: "The Americans are about to lose one of the most beautiful jewels of their historical patrimony."

If the Aussies win this week, the Auld Mug will be ensconced in the Observation Room of the Royal Perth Yacht Club in the state capital of Western Australia. Racing conditions in the Indian Ocean will undoubtedly be far different from those on Rhode Island Sound. Nor is it likely that the hearty and hail fellow atmosphere of Perth will lure the well-heeled international crowds that Newport has attracted. This year's epic contest has already irrevocably changed America's Cup racing. Clearly, future challengers will concentrate on technology as they have not done in the past. While the 12-meter class has always encouraged innovation, the Australian inventions will likely set off new and more intense experimentation in yacht design.

And, no matter the outcome, the world is in Australia's debt for transforming what had become a boring parody of competition into a tingling cliffhanger of sport. The brilliant designer Ben Lexcen was wrong in one respect. Before the first race of the finals, he declared, "If we can't win this time, no one can win the bloody thing." His boat has proved, once and for all, that the bloody thing is bloody winnable. -- By Michael Demarest. Reported by Richard Hornik and John F. Stacks/Newport

With reporting by Richard Hornik, John F. Stacks This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.