Above: Brad Butterworth and Kiwi Magic skipper Chris Dickson take in the fact that Conner’s gamble has paid off, after the US crew beat them 4-1 in the Louis Vuitton final. The New Zealand challenge had a better all-round design and reached the LV semi-finals with a win-loss record of 33-1, but Conner and Whidden (right) had built a big heavy 12 Metre for the conditions expected for the Match and by the LV final the breeze was up and the Kiwis had nothing left to give. Dickson then broke protocol to test with the Defender… and unintentionally reassured Conner that Kiwi Magic was as fast or faster than the boat he would shortly race for the America’s Cup
were too big. Yet come the 12 Metre Worlds one year before the Cup and it was obvi- ous that we were still an outlier on size. ‘We had a lot on in Fremantle to make it
to the 1987 Match. S&S 87 took a lot of sailing until it got breezy. I remember going to the Louis Vuitton final when we had to sail against the Kiwis… I would remind Dennis, as we drove down to the boatyard, “Hey, Dennis, the Kiwi Magic guys, they’re pretty strong and I think their boat is a little better all around… If we get light or medium air we’re going to have our hands full and the only edge that we’ve got is a fair amount more experience.” ‘So I wondered what we could do to get
under their skin a little bit and have them get a little more nervous going into the racing. We’re just starting this winner- takes-all series of four out of seven races. So I say, “Dennis, do you have any ideas how to get under their skin a bit?” But Dennis never really answered me… ‘The next day was the press conference
before the series. I’m driving down with him from our house and I said, “Dennis, I know I discussed this with you yesterday, but did you hear me?” He kind of nodded his head yes but didn’t really say anything. ‘So we get to the press conference and
there’s the normal banter and the normal questions. Then one of the media, I can’t remember who, asked Chris Dickson why he was the only one with a fibreglass boat… Now I see Dennis kind of fidgeting in his chair and Chris Dickson started to answer, and then Dennis blurts out, “Why would you build a fibreglass boat unless you wanted to cheat?” And Tom Black- aller looks at him and says, “Oops, I wouldn’t have said that,” and Dennis goes, “You didn’t say it, I did.” Meanwhile, Chris Dickson is turning bright red. ‘Sure enough, I don’t know if my con-
versation in the car led to that, I’m not sure I ever will know. But Dennis was very proud of himself that day for saying that and sure enough when we went out to race them the next day they did look nervous at the starting line. They wouldn’t really look at us; and I know that they were always kind of ****** about Dennis saying that
52 SEAHORSE
they wanted to cheat. ‘Come the IACC boats in 1992 and we
always imagined we’d have two boats. So we built one to be a test boat. We built it in such a way and heavy enough and strong enough so we could try various keels and rig plans and so on. We were also going to try a canard, we were going to try all these ideas so the boat was overbuilt. But then we didn’t raise enough money, so we actually had to race that boat. It was never imagined as a boat to be able to win the trials, let alone defend the Cup. ‘We did everything we could to try to
make it fast. In the Pacific Ocean you go left on the first beat and eight days out of 10 it’s the best way to go. So we set our America’s Cup boat up so it performed better on starboard tack than port tack! ‘We twisted the keel, we twisted the
fins, we put more weight on the boat on the starboard side. We didn’t move it, we just loaded up the boat with weight on the starboard side. That boat was OK down- wind, but just not very fast going upwind. ‘But the way we set it up we were
suddenly very competitive on starboard tack upwind! So if you could get in front on the first upwind leg and go to the lay- line the other boat would have to tack to leeward or sail above layline on your hip. You could hold them off; quite often we beat Bill Koch’s America3
to the top mark. ‘I think we were tied 4-4 and then the
wind picked up and the modifications that we made to the boat which were good in the light air were not nearly so effective in the breeze. We had got America3
but if we had won the trials we would never have won the Cup with that boat. ‘Then in Auckland in 2000 Bill Trenkle
put a rudder on Stars & Stripes that he had built in Australia – when we were in New Zealand. The rules said you have to have the boat built either in the country you come from or build something locally while you are there. All these little things that throw people off or cost a race or two, that’s a big part of the game. ‘So the story on Auckland is that I had
retired after 1995 but Dennis kept going with Kenny Read, Peter Isler and Peter
nervous,
Holmberg as afterguard. They’d had a sub-standard first series and Dennis called me up and said, I’ll do anything for you to come for one series, give us some advice and tell us where we should be going. ‘So I said OK, I’ll come for one series. I
got on the boat and they made me the tactician and we won the first race against Peter Gilmour. But we get protested for that illegal rudder. On the way in we had won the first race and I’m feeling all great about myself. Then Bill Trenkle says, “Hey, Tom, I think we have a problem”, and I’m going “Hey, Billy, I just got here so we don’t have a problem, you do.” ‘And he goes, yeah well we have a prob-
lem and you have to handle the protest. ‘So I go OK, what’s the problem? He
explains to me about the rudder and I’m going you stupid ****. Of course I didn’t say that but I was certainly thinking it. The next day they want to throw us out of the whole series because we used an illegal rudder. So I go to the protest and all I can do is obfuscate, we just did it wrong. Just because you can have something built in New Zealand, that doesn’t mean you can have it built in Australia. ‘I go into the protest and there was this
really smart bunch of guys, including Bryan Willis from the UK… who is not easy to fool. I gave them a 30-minute litany on what the Deed of Gift meant, what has been the practice in past Cups, the fact that this is really a grey area… I went through the whole history of the America’s Cup. I had them wowed for maybe half an hour! ‘Finally they go “enough!” They called
me back in the next day – it took them a day to decide – and they said, “You know, you did such a good job and you enthralled us with your knowledge of the America’s Cup, but the fact is that you did something wrong.” ‘Now I’m really worried… “But
because you did such a wonderful job in the protest hearing we’re not going to throw you out of this series, we’re just going to throw you out for the one race.” ‘There’s more to the America’s Cup q
than sailing.’
GILLES MARTIN-RAGET
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112
