Opposite: Ken Read with a star-studded entourage onboard Dennis Conner’s AC72 Stars&Stripes during the 2003 Louis Vuitton Cup in New Zealand –(left to right) Mike Toppa, Read, Vince Brun and Tom Whidden. Would have been a lousy day at North Sails had things gone south that time… Hmm, come again? The same yacht flooded and sank off Long Beach a few months before during testing when the rudder assembly ripped out of the hull (left)
quickly. Bigger boats need bigger sails, and every time boats changed hands they usu- ally bought new sails too. So it worked out OK…’ This smile includes a not-quite wink, indicating modest understatement. Yet what might seem like a major career
But all the big-boat sailing Mike was
doing made it ‘really hard to do a one- design campaign. So I would jump in and out of the Snipe as best I could. We were fast, and we had a lot of fun.’ I decide not to tease him; a spinnaker designer, so enthusiastic about a non-spinnaker boat! Libby and Mike got married in 1990,
just before the next America’s Cup call. ‘Gary Jobson was in charge of bringing the America3
crew together. And I said
absolutely. I never said no to the America’s Cup! Because that was always the goal. I still wanted to win as a sailor. Even though I’d been on the winning team it wasn’t the same as crossing the finish line.’ America3
You got to cross the finish line, I say. ‘Yeah. And I got to sail every race in
that Cup with Jerry Kirby! So go back to being a little kid, learning how to sail and saying that’s what we’re gonna do. And we did it, together.’ After winning the 1992 America’s Cup,
was a really interesting cam-
paign, he says, ‘because it was no stone unturned; a huge budget!! And the people involved were just phenomenal. What I’d learned from my dad about being a foot- ball coach was that the team aspect of any sport is so important. And at America3
really was all about team. ‘There were a lot of really good all-star
sailors who didn’t last, because they weren’t the team players that Bill [Koch] was looking for. As a result the crew was a group of just phenomenal individuals, and a lot of them are still close friends. We had a lot of fun – and a lot of success. ‘Bill’s idea was to have good talent,’
Mike continues. ‘But he said the boat should have the personality, not the team. So everybody had to fit in. It was a very well-oiled team. Long programme,’ he adds; ‘I was there for 14 months.’ Fortunately Libby was able to join the
team too. ‘I remember talking to Gary and Bill: “Yeah, I want to come… but my wife is a physical therapist, and she’s really good.” So they hired her! Kind of the first Cup team to focus on the physical needs of the sport… a great experience.’
That dream comes true It was also the first Cup in which Mike was ‘just’ a trimmer. ‘We had sails from three or four different suppliers, and there were a lot of smart people on the sail pro- gramme. We developed Cuben Fiber, which at the time was very groundbreak- ing. Sails were lighter, in higher modulus materials; a big edge downwind. Anyway, we won. That was nice…’
I suggest to Mike that returning to work at North Sails must have been a bit of a let- down. But he shakes his head, because it was after that Cup when sailboat racing really stepped up to a new level. ‘Suddenly owners were paying crews a lot of money to help sail their boats at regattas all over the world,’ he explains. ‘If you’re a profes- sional sailor that was kind of the heyday: from 1992, up until 2000, even 2003. Those 10 years, there was a lot going on. ‘I had the sail loft in Florida, and I was
it
doing well. But I was always looking over my shoulder at my contemporaries who I did the America’s Cup with; they were pro sailors, doing well and having fun – and I love to race sailboats, so the more I could race the better.’ It looked so attractive that Mike was tempted to go pro himself. ‘But I never did… and I’m glad. Because nothing lasts for ever, and I always had the business to go back to after a Cup.’
Sails to Sales Mike claims he’s only had one job for 44 years, but that really means he’s only worked for one company. After the 1992 Cup his skills led him to another new challenge and location. ‘We had some really close friends who lived in Fort Lauderdale, and when Libby and I went over to visit my eyes kind of opened. There were a lot of yacht brokers selling big sailboats… what we today call Superyachts. And the 100-footers all changed hands through the brokerages in Fort Lauderdale – a deepwater port.’ Clearwater was shallow, the SORC had
relocated to Florida’s east coast and most boatbuilders had found cheaper real estate. ‘There was a potential in Laud- erdale that I wanted to take advantage of,’ Mike says. So he started a sales office called North
Sails Lauderdale (that soon added a sail loft) and sold the Clearwater operation. ‘By November 1992 I had also got
involved with Swan and the Swan Cup, and we doubled our business really
pivot didn’t require a new approach, he insists. ‘Whether it’s designing sails or selling sails my point of view is still as a competitor; I’m just trying to make the boat go faster.’ Mike was recruited for the 1995 Cup,
but Koch’s new team ‘didn’t seem like a good fit. And I was pretty busy, sailing big boats.’ That included the 1997-1998 Whitbread in the Whitbread 60s, the first quasi-one-design race around the world; he managed Chessie Racing’s sail programme and sailed three legs. ‘I couldn’t do any more due to other regatta commitments.’ Also some at-home commitments! His
daughter Holley was two, and ‘Libby was due to give birth in the middle of the Brazil to Lauderdale leg. We had a fast transit through the Doldrums and finished early – three days before the twins were born… just as well.’ For the 2000 Cup Mike sailed again
with Dennis Conner and Stars & Stripes, ‘which was a lot of fun. We definitely over- achieved with one boat; I think we got to the semi-finals.’ Then it was back to the Whitbread, to help manage the Team Tyco sail programme.
Stars & Stripes By 2003 Stars & Stripes was a much better funded two-boat campaign. But ‘that didn’t end well. We had a laminar flow keel that was thicker at the back than the front. And we sank the boat in Long Beach! ‘That was interesting… We had a new
really high-aspect rudder that we went out to test – inside the breakwater, luckily. It was a good breeze and we were doing these really hard 90° turns, trying to see if we could get the rudder to stall. And on one of those turns the rudder bearing failed. That was like a manhole-sized circular bearing that went into the hull, so all of a sudden we had a 3ft-diameter hole in the boat. ‘Water’s pouring in… We didn’t quite
know what happened at first; we knew we’d lost the rudder, so we started to steer with the sails. That was successful for about a minute-and-a-half, until the boat started to get lower in the water… and then someone popped up and said, “We’re sinking.” ‘We had no control of the boat, so we
dropped the jib and the main. The bow started to go down, and people were
SEAHORSE 45
ROB GALBRAITH
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