At the 1980 America’s Cup the trophy’s guardians at the New York YC were not alone in sensing trouble ahead. By midway through the series Dennis Conner and his crew (above) were convinced that in light to medium airs Alan Bond’s Australian team had the faster boat – Australia’s new bendy mast was a psychological weapon every bit as much as a performance tool. What Conner’s crew did not fully appreciate was that the novel Aussie spar was being rebuilt every night to keep it in one piece. Meanwhile, Conner could rely on the legendary technical skills of no less than a 71-year-old Rod Stephens (right) to care for Freedom’s more conventional rig
instrumental in URI Sailing’s 1981 reloca- tion, to the place he now says is no longer their best option.)
America’s Cup, and brandy in the library Harry’s involvement in the America’s Cup stretches over six decades – and every story finishes over drinks. As a teen he watched family friend Harold ‘Mike’ Vanderbilt win the last J Class contest. After WWII he was instrumental in reinventing the Cup, even though no one had any money. ‘Before the war Harold Vanderbilt person- ally financed a J boat,’ Harry says. ‘[In 1958] It took a syndicate to finance a poor little 12 Metre!’ His laughter is infectious. 1958 was the year Harry (aged 37) was
asked by the NYYC to keep President Eisenhower entertained. ‘I spent a whole day out on the destroyer with him telling him what was going on. Well, of course I didn’t talk military with him; he was way ahead of me on that. ‘We talked trout fishing, he trout fished
all over the place! The first day was very light winds, we were postponing and post- poning… We didn’t have a good Coast Guard patrol because we didn’t have that experience then. And the yachts were all over the place. Eisenhower looks down and says, “This reminds me of a drunken cab driver in a Paris traffic jam!’” (Later I’ll read the same quote in The Strenuous Life, so it’s obviously a favourite memory.) Harry was on the America’s Cup Selec-
tion Committee from 1974 ‘until we lost it’. Another favourite memory shows how closely his life was tied to the Cup – and how clearly he saw what was happening, even while in the thick of it. The closest racing of the Twelve Metre
era was in 1980, he says, three years before the loss to Alan Bond’s Australian team. ‘In 1980 after the first day it was evident that they [Australia] had a much faster
56 SEAHORSE
boat. We kept the Cup three times with a slower boat, mostly on tactics and what- not. But we saw the Australians were catching up on us.’ Then he gets that twinkle in his eye that
precedes another story; this one took place during a mid-year IYRU (now ISAF) meet- ing, at Beppe Croce’s house in Italy. ‘After dinner the butler came into the library to serve brandy. And Berta [Beppe’s wife] asked me, “How serious are you about this Cup, Harry?” And I said, “Well, I’ll make a wager with you: if we lose the Cup I’ll get married. Can you line up some girls for me? ‘This went on for a couple of America’s
Cup matches but after 1980 I said to her, “We’re not gonna win every time with the slower boat. It’s too risky. I’m calling it off!’’ He laughs as if it’s the first time he’s ever told this story…
His own sailing Though Harry is lauded as someone who (as Bob Bavier put it in the March 1980 issue of Yachting) ‘seldom hit the front page but do[es] more for the sport than those who win the big races’, he had plenty of his own boats and quite a few victories. He won his class in the 1979 Marblehead
to Halifax Race on his New York 40 Tani- wha; a year later he won a very competitive 40ft class at Block Island Race Week, which earned him a callout in The New York Times as a ‘seasoned skipper’. (Not so sea- soned was the music blasting from Com- modore Anderson’s mothership that week, according to Jamie Hilton. Jamie also remembers Taniwha’s motto: ‘No trim is too small and no drink is too early.’) When I ask Harry how many boats he’s
owned he pauses for just a moment. ‘That’s a good question. Probably a dozen at least.’ (Great guess; 14 are listed in Appendix 2 of The Strenuous Life.) Asked to name a favourite, he chooses Witch of Atlas, an S&S-designed Hughes 38 that he owned
for most of the 1970s. ‘That was probably the best boat I ever had for racing. Terrific boat… she was so well balanced.’ Asked for a dream list of boats to own,
and the first one he mentions is the Finn – a class Harry helped bring to the US. Next he names a Twelve Metre. And he’d also need an ocean-going boat, he adds quickly, which brings us to the last boat he owned: Blue Shadow. ‘She was a 47ft sloop built of teak in Mauritius, and in the ocean she was a very fast boat. I took her a lot of places, we cruised in northern Scotland, and up to Labrador a couple of times…’
No detail too small Everyone who’s ever enjoyed a conversation with Harry will understand that an hour was not nearly enough. By the time I made it back to my desk I was worn out with keep- ing up – and I already had an email follow- ing up on the backwards-tailed seahorse. ‘Dear Carol, Enjoyed the banter. May
have gotten the tail on the RORC in reverse. Club emblem shows tail coiled behind its back so that each time it is articulated the seahorse would be going backwards. Do you know why the penguin waddles back- wards? It would rather see where it has been than where it is going. ‘We give credit to RORC for being
more fore-sighted than this! We’ve stayed at the clubhouse too, which in its original state was like a farmhouse! Boodle’s was normally my London abode!!’ From J Boats and Vanderbilts right up
until today Harry has made our sport both better and more accessible. Working mostly out of the limelight, his fingerprints are on almost every major sailing improve- ment of the 20th century – as well as sev- eral in the 21st. And thanks to a simple but elegant sailing course, his name will live on for future generations of college and frost- bite sailors, a fitting legacy for this under- appreciated giant of our sport.
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PAUL J MELLO/OUTSIDE IMAGES
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