A busy year – Part II
San Diego meets Liverpool with the first appearance on the grand prix scene of Reichel/Pugh. Dobbs Davis talks life history with Jim Pugh
1983 was a big year In global politics the Cold War was still very much on the front burner as incidents like the Soviet downing of a commercial 747 – Korean Air flight 007 – called into question the sincerity of the Soviets to practise détente with the West, just as Ronald Reagan authorised an invasion of US troops to ‘rescue’ US medical students in school on Grenada… rescued presum- ably from ‘advisors’ from Cuba who had been invited in by the island’s authorities. Similarly, throughout the USA university
physics students – and their faculties – were getting very excited about the prospects of jobs for life when Reagan promised to develop a strategic shield over the nation to protect against incoming missiles in the so-called Star War initiative. Reagan’s pal Margaret Thatcher was re-elected as UK Prime Minister and got
48 SEAHORSE
ready to start busting up the labour unions, and Duran Duran were playing on cassette players everywhere… although it would be another two years before the band’s Simon Le Bon’s maxi Drum was to lose its keel and capsize off the Cornish coast. In technology, ARPNET is changed to
become the Internet (without Al Gore’s help), Microsoft introduce Word, Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software is launched and Motorola offer the world’s first mobile phone to the public. In yachting the New York YC (at last)
lost their grip on the America’s Cup to a brash and upstart entrepreneur from western Australia. ‘The oldest trophy in sport’ travelled down under, setting the stage for a new cycle of serious efforts to recapture this prize four years later. And in San Diego there was another
milestone: the birth of a new partnership between two alumni of the highly success- ful design office of Doug Peterson. It was in 1983 that John Reichel and Jim Pugh agreed to combine their talents in design, style and salesmanship to form Reichel/ Pugh Yacht Design, one of the most prolific and successful design houses of the modern era, where hundreds of projects from sport- boats to superyachts have been trans- formed from concept to reality and eventual racing success. Only a few years out of the University of
Michigan’s naval architecture programme, John Reichel was already showing a talent for design while in the employ of Doug Peterson in the early 1980s – many of Peterson’s IOR projects of that time draw- ing heavily on Reichel’s insightful work. These included boats like the attractive
45ft Secret Love, owned by Brad and Barbara Herman from Los Angeles, and skippered (mostly) by Lowell North. Besides being fast while racing at home in
southern California, Secret Love also turned heads in the 1983 St Francis Big Boat Series. Certainly this was in part down to her out- standing performance on the water, but also for a shy, breezy kite reach across the Bay to the San Francisco city front when Lowell decided they could just about make it across the bow of an inbound freighter during a pivotal race, while trailing rivals had to hoist jibs, drop kites and head up to pass behind 75,000 tons of fast-moving metal. All would have been good except when
the ship gave five long, loud blasts of its horn, with the pilot running from the bridge to the bow to holler at the attractive deep red sloop that sped away at right angles towards the awaiting spectator gallery at St Francis. The pilot felt strongly enough to lodge a formal complaint to the Coastguard, who in a subsequent inquiry fined the Hermans $1,500 for the transgression; since then the club’s standard sailing instructions
SHARON GREEN/ULTIMATE SAILING
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