Happy face for Dennis Conner after his brutal experience in Newport four years earlier when he was publicly humiliated by his club. Stunned and speechless from Peter Gilmour and Iain Murray after three years of apparent technical advances came to nought. And a distraught Brad Butterworth and Chris Dickson, who had allowed themselves to dream after a brilliant early performance. The final looked a whitewash… but Conner went on record that on average Stars & Stripes was no more than 0.35kt faster than Liberty in 1983. Kookaburra would also have thrashed Johan Valentijn’s unloved red 12 Metre. This was a bravura sailing performance in about the toughest conditions in which a 12 Metre will stay afloat (Liberty’s hatches were welded shut after she was twice nearly lost in Hawaii)
race over. As the race progressed the beats and downwind runs were one-sided and so it was easy to cover. They were faster in that stuff, but the
race kept favouring the team ahead so we held them off, meaning we won a light-air race by, I think, a minute forty. And that was a big relief for us because the next day was windier… and that was good for us! SH:How tough were the 1987 Cup matches? TW: I think our plan not to engage them in the starting area was a great idea – that was Dennis’s idea. He was a good match racer but he didn’t do the Match Race Tour like Peter Gilmour did, nor did I. We knew what we were doing match racing but we certainly didn’t feel we had an edge there, so we felt that our starting idea was a good one and we got better at it every race. We would time it and then come back a
little early, so if they started behind us they were worried about being late, and if they started to windward we were happy. If they gybed below us to leeward usually they would be too early, so we would start chasing them and so it was a pretty brilliant idea all round. Compared to them we were also suspect
tacking and so we didn’t engage them there – and I am sure that really drove them crazy too, because they built their boats to be better match racing boats. Then in the last race there was a bomb
scare, a hoax, but when the race committee approached Iain Murray and told him there had been a report of a bomb on the boat, and they might have to stop the race, he said ‘And what’s the bad news?’ Which is a pretty good line when you are 3-0 down! SH:How aware were the public at home in the US of what was happening in Fremantle? TW: I was on TV every morning with the Today Show and Dennis was doing a lot of interviews, we got letters all the time from the US, but we didn’t realise what was happening at home until we got there. I guess by the second and third race of the Cup itself we realised there was a lot going on, as we heard from friends and family that we were eclipsing the Super Bowl… One day we had Iain Murray on the Today show, and I have to tell you it was
really sad. During the interview I was asked what I thought of our competition in the Cup, and I said, ‘I have amazing respect for them and I think they have done an incred- ible job to get here,’ and Iain said, ‘Don’t patronise me, Tom…’ I really felt bad because I wasn’t patronising him at all, I was trying to show him respect. Maybe the way I said it sounded like
that, but I wasn’t, and I really, really, genuinely felt bad for him, I do even now 30-odd years later. I had all this respect for him as I think he was under so much pres- sure as he wasn’t doing well and he had the nation’s expectations on his shoulders. I mean I had been there, right! I think
they did a great job, but they just picked the wrong size and they picked a boat to match race and we didn’t match race… so I felt bad for him, and I can tell you that was a low point for me. But each race that we won we felt better
and better. And, to be fair, remember that we felt a joy that nobody else could possibly feel, because we had lost in 1983 and then been rejected by our yacht club. We were the team that had probably been talked about in every sailing family, yacht club and bar as the team that screwed up. We didn’t screw up, we missed a shift in the boat and with our technology. And in that seventh race in Newport, even though we sailed it brilliantly, suddenly we were the bad boys of sailing to a lot of people. And neither Dennis nor I wanted to leave it there. SH: Then taking the Cup back home… TW: We flew back in a chartered DC10, first landing in Hawaii at 5am, and all these people were waiting to greet us at the air- port! Then we land in San Diego and every- one is there to meet us with a big parade. Then we take off again in our DC10
heading to Washington, and we get up over Point Loma and usually you keep on climbing, but suddenly we level off. So I am thinking, ‘Hmmmm, big problem here…’ The pilot does a hard turn at barely 1,000ft like we are heading back to the airport fast. Then he came on the inter- com and said, ‘We are doing a fly-over for your friends.’ He flew low over the airport and waggled his wings… having cleared all the airspace around San Diego to do that! I am getting emotional thinking about it
now, Blue… Once I realised I wasn’t going to die from engine failure, once I knew that it was a really cool thing to do! Then we land in the middle of night in
Washington to another marching band, spend a night in a wonderful hotel and then go to the White House the next day and then to New York for a ticker tape parade. Unheard of. What was great about 1987 was that
before then we went as a team and Dennis was the figurehead, with me working with the crew and often steering the boat when Dennis was not onboard. But in ’87 Dennis was very good and delegated the responsibility to key guys in the team as he really concentrated on running the cam- paign, raising the money and being the best helmsman he could be. SH: So how good was Dennis Conner as a skipper, a helmsman and a leader? TW: Phenomenal. Phenomenal. Phenome- nal. He got so good at steering, if I told him the speed we needed was 8.3 he would go 8.3 – and he was so good about just concentrating on the sailing, because the whole team had become so good he didn’t have to worry about trim or tactics. He was a good tactician and ultimately
in charge; nor did he do everything I said, no he didn’t, but if we were in close-quar- ters stuff, he did everything I said without blinking because he trusted me. And you cannot get to the level that he
was at without 100 per cent trust in every- one around you. And in Fremantle our team had that.
q
At least one of the Kookaburra team was still happy. Funded by Kevin Parry (right), Iain Murray had mounted an enormous defence programme that many expected on home waters would prove unbeatable
SEAHORSE 59
GILLES-MARTIN RAGET
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