News Around the World
One of two IACC designs built by Westerly Marine for Paul Cayard’s AmericaOne team, USA-61 came within a point of challenging for the America’s Cup in 2000. An astonishing crew, recruited by Cayard in the wake of his imperious Whitbread Race victory of 1997/98, included Terry Hutchinson, Gavin Brady, Morgan Larson and John Kostecki… and that was just in the afterguard. Cayard’s team won the Louis Vuitton semi-finals before losing out by 1pt to Luna Rossa in the final after counting two DNFs. The Italians then lost 5-0 to defenders Team New Zealand – who within a few days had lost most of their own key personnel to Alinghi. But that’s another story
complete and utter ‘nobody even talk about it! Don’t say a word, just get the job done’. SH:And those Cup races, were they tricky to call? They were light… RB: They weren’t tricky but there were a number of soft days and I am a bit nervous forecasting low numbers as you can always see a reason why the breeze can come up another 2 or 3kt, which of course then changes the foil/tip combination again. Or some other part of the configuration on the boat. SH: And so for that final day when the Cup was winnable for ETNZ, any nerves on the call? RB: Nope. Just another day in the office really… Just keep it the same, keep it simple, so we can get the job done and all go home! SH: Well, they certainly got the job done to obviously huge relief on the boat as they crossed the line. What was it like ashore? RB: After San Francisco the relief was huge, just huge, mate… San Francisco was such a shame for the guys, where it dribbled away in front of our eyes. Even Grant Dalton smiled a lot that day! Blue Robinson
USA Shifting gears In the last few decades of the 20th century southern California was a boatbuilding powerhouse at all levels. Exponential growth in population and middle-class wealth fuelled by post-war prosperity created dozens of new planned communities, along with marina development and a strong desire to adopt recreational sailing as a feature of the ‘California lifestyle’. Large production builders with names like Cal, Columbia, Erickson, Islander, Ranger and the like were not only serving the west coast but growing demand all over the continent as dealer networks grew. For a time this was the largest recreational boatbuilding culture in the entire US. Lynn Bowser and Steve Lee had their roots in this culture until
establishing their own operation in Costa Mesa called Westerly Marine. Their limited production of the Carl Schumacher-designed
32 SEAHORSE
Capo 26 (15 built) and Capo 30 (eight built) in the early 1980s got the attention of the MORC crowd, who were quickly filling a fast- growing niche of interest in affordable custom and semi-custom boatbuilding around a rule system designed for sub-30ft boats that (unlike the IOR of that era) could be competitive for longer than the next year’s rule changes. Among several other custom builders in that era Westerly’s
particular attention to detail and high quality got the attention of other designers and their clients, like Long Beach-based Alan Andrews whose IOR One Ton design Allegiancewas built there and turned heads by winning Class E and earning second overall in the 1984 SORC, then going on to be on that year’s US Sardinia Cup team alongside Secret Love and Merrythought. This was the beginning of a decades-long run of Andrews-designed
build projects at Westerly, including the 1994 Kenwood Cup-winning ILC40 Growler (built in tricksy pre-preg Kevlar and S-glass) and the first-ever TP52 design J-Bird III, built from pre-preg carbon on balsa core at Westerly’s 2,500m2 facility in Santa Ana, new to them in 2000. This was also the period during which they built the USA-49 and USA-61 IACC boats for the AmericaOne AC programme led by Paul Cayard. ‘We worked with Lynn, Steve and the team for over 36 years and
saw them grow from small boatbuilders who also built high-end stereo speaker cabinets to their position today,’ said Andrews. From high-end cabinetry to high-end composites was not a big
leap for a firm focused on quality and diversity in all their endeavours: custom performance racing and cruising yachts, marine and non- marine commercial composites work. Besides having the continuity of a highly experienced and loyal staff, Westerly’s track record of success can also be attributed to continuing investment in the facil- ities and materials needed for cutting-edge composite fabrication. Besides Andrews and Schumacher, Westerly has worked over
the decades with numerous other west coast designers to build dozens of successful racing and performance cruising yachts. Bruce
GILLES MARTIN-RAGET
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