News Around the World
Charlie Morgan designed and built and skippered Heritage… and also built her sails. And he was first to instal a dedicated hoist for an America’s Cup hopeful driven by the need to minimise water take-up on his timber yacht. Ironic that a pioneer of fibreglass yachts built the last ever wooden 12 Metre. While Heritage was a reasonable performer, she was handicapped by her large bustle, 1970s must-have 12 Metre accessory. The biggest bustle was on the new and slow S&S Valiant, while the bustle added to 1967 Cup-winner Intrepid did nothing for her performance – brilliant sailing by Bill Ficker’s crew the only reason that Intrepid saw off Australia’s faster Alan Payne-designed Gretel II in the Match. Innovation… at Morgan Yachts’ St Petersburg facility (top) men worked from scaffolding on boats of all sizes with decks moved and positioned from overhead lifts. And the one-off Rare Aves (right) – the first fibreglass boat Morgan ever saw, inspiring him to build Paper Tiger out of the same new material. She still sails today out of the Florida Keys
of the Nacra is a pretty physical place so Anna has more to do, but luckily we have great support from our sport science team so we can balance the training on and off the water without having to think too much about that side of things. ‘When it comes to the Olympics the thinking is happening from
years out. There’s a huge amount of preparation in understanding the venue and conditions and that’s something that’s always in our minds. Every debrief or conversation references back to what we’ll be expecting at the Olympics or at the next big regatta. We always aim to have the work done before the event, so when we turn up on the startline we just have to think about doing the details well. ‘But the day after a big regatta is still total exhaustion. Throughout
the racing you’re somewhat in autopilot so when you finish it feels a bit like going into shutdown. Generally we try to take two or three days to recover, then when the energy returns we both enjoy a bit of winging and cycling to wind down. Starting to plan our wedding (sic) has been a good mental distraction too…’ The golden couple of British sailing are hard to bet against in
this Olympic cycle. John is clear on the goal: ‘Winning gold would mean the world. In Tokyo we felt like we’d won a silver, not lost a gold. It’s hard to imagine what it would feel like to win gold but I can certainly tell you nothing beats that feeling of total relief and elation and we’re both hungry to feel that again. ‘As for what’s next, we still have our eye on Los Angeles 2028
and if the opportunity arose we’d obviously both kill to be involved in the America’s Cup…’ Magnus Wheatley
USA
Charley Morgan Our sport is full of great personalities and often great ideas that were matched to those personalities. Charley Morgan was one such, and his passing earlier this year at the ripe age of 93 prompts us to note the influence and accomplishments that put him among the greats of his era. Charley was born in Chicago but was raised
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in the 1940s in West Florida where he liked to build model aeroplanes. He even got his pilot’s licence (at full scale...). During World War II he shifted focus towards boats, quickly iden-
tifying that fast sailing was a proper combination of hull form, con- struction and sails. So to start his education he briefly took a job with Johnson Sails, then graduated in 1951 with a degree from the University of Tampa in economics and pre-engineering, before moving to St Petersburg and in 1952 going out on his own, starting Morgan Yacht Sails in an airport hangar. But he had no time for a formal education in naval architecture, so with help from designer George Luzier he learned about design and boatbuilding skills to complete his understanding of the three elements needed for speed. Working with another young designer, Charlie Hunt, in 1957
28-year-old Morgan the sailmaker started his first build, Brisote, a 31ft yawl. The hard-chined hull form evolved during midnight ‘tank tests’ of small-scale models on nearby Lake Wailes, and the hull seemed to cut through the water with little effort. But with its boxy cabin top and hard chine, and construction of steel, fibreglass and wood, the boat was hardly a work of art. In the rush to make the start of the 1957 St Petersburg to Havana Race, the masts, sails and keel were scavenged from other boats, including a Star boat keel, a Thistle mainsail and a modified Penguin mizzen sail. Officials at St Petersburg Yacht Club derided the design, claiming
it would ‘rust, shatter and rot’. They tried to disallow the entry for not having an engine. The absurdity of banning a sailboat for being a sailboat prompted a few choice words from Morgan and the com- mittee promptly retreated. Not only that, Brisoteraced to first in class. Jack Powell took note of this success and commissioned Morgan
to design and build the 40ft fibreglass centreboard yawl Paper Tiger, which elevated Morgan’s status in the ocean racing world after winning the Southern Ocean Racing Conference (SORC) in 1961 and 1962. No other team before or since has achieved that feat. But just as Morgan was hitting his stride he had a major setback:
in 1962 he was hospitalised with tuberculosis. While this initially kept him from keeping up the momentum he had built, his illness
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