This Is Not a Pleasure Cruise : It Will Take Quite a Bit of Hard Work to Make Eagle Soar

The routine seldom varies: On deck for aerobics or weightlifting at 6:30 a.m., then onto the water, under sail, until the west wind fades into the sunset behind the Palos Verdes Peninsula about 8.

The days are longer now, but time is short. The Aussies are waiting.

Rod Davis once believed that, in sailing, it was more difficult to win an Olympic gold medal than it was to win the America’s Cup.

“I’ve probably changed my mind on that,” he says now.

Two things happened to effect that change. In 1983, the United States’ grip on the America’s Cup suddenly--shockingly--stopped being an automatic proposition. And in ‘84, Davis won an Olympic gold medal, as crew with Ed Trevelyan for Robbie Haines, on a Soling.

Now he’s trying to complete the grand slam as skipper for Eagle, the Newport Harbor Yacht Club’s campaign.

“It’s different,” he said, pausing among the shore facilities at the Marina Shipyard in Long Beach, where Eagle and its trial boat, Magic, are based. “This is organizational, to fit all these pieces together. The Olympics was more sailing. In the Soling, the organization was easy, but the sailing on the water was harder.”

At least in the two or three years preceding the Olympics, rivals could evaluate one another in direct competition.

“In the America’s Cup, the preparation seems to occur more in a vacuum,” Davis said.

Also, Davis is now at the helm, where his skills are best realized, although the responsibilities are multiplied. As skipper for an America’s Cup syndicate, he must hire and fire crewmen and make the important decisions concerning the boat. Each day, Davis, not quite settled on his crew, juggles the lineups for Eagle and Magic, as would a baseball manager.

“I’m comfortable with it, but it’s a hell of a lot of work,” he said. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted to do in my life. Much harder than the Olympics. The whole organization is bigger. I’ve got two boats to get off the docks with crews every day. In the Olympics, it was just Robbie and Ed and me, jump in the boat and off we sailed.”

They won the Olympics so easily that they didn’t even have to sail the seventh race. Their little Soling was a happy boat, not only through its success but because the three sailors, who grew up together in San Diego, got along so well.

Haines, who spread the credit around at every opportunity, got the glory for steering, but that never bothered Davis, who was between his two Congressional Cup victories.

Some sailing people have said that Davis sails fast because, unlike some of his peers, he doesn’t drag an ego around, like an anchor. He thinks that once the America’s Cup campaign is finished, he might even look into crewing for somebody else in the ’88 Games.

Any skipper would love to have him. He has sailed everything from sabots to maxi-boats successfully, and has worked 12-meters from one end to the other: Bow man for Lowell North on Enterprise in 1977, mainsheet trimmer for Tom Blackaller on Defender in ‘83, and tactician for an Italian team in the last two 12-meter world competitions.

In 1980, he helped coach the Australians, instead of working for an American syndicate. “Nobody else asked me,” he said.

Not only that, but his brother-in-law, Tom Schnackenberg, designed the sails for Australia II, which won the Cup in ’83. Davis’ wife, Liz, is from New Zealand. He may be the most cosmopolitan sailor in the world.

“Rod’s probably the best person I’ve ever sailed with,” says Mike Toppa, his port tailer on Eagle who sailed other 12-meters with Blackaller in ’83 and Dennis Conner in ’80.

“Rod has an interesting perspective because he’s done just about every position on the boat. He knows all the jobs. He is clearly the skipper, but it’s not like he’s up there and everybody else is down here. As for talent, his race record is very good.”

By contrast, Toppa said, Conner is “sort of like King Tut . . . sits up there, ‘Do this, do that, and when you’re ready tell me, and I’ll come sailing with you.’

“Rod’s more of a hands-on guy, and Dennis is more, ‘I know what should be done, so we’ll get 50 guys together so it gets done.’ You won’t find Dennis sanding the keel or working on the boat like Rod does.”

America’s Cup crewmen generally run younger than the average professional athlete, about in their mid-20s. Older, more experienced hands are preferred, but few are willing to leave their jobs and families for the long-term commitment and financial sacrifice involved. Nevertheless, Davis went for an older crew.

“I got it, didn’t I?” he said, laughing.

Tactician Doug Rastello is the oldest at 34. Roderick Hopkins Davis, himself, will be 31 in August, shortly before the serious sailing starts off Perth.

One day recently, he was feeling the effects of the early-morning aerobics session under the crew’s physical instructor, Priscilla Wright, at Golden West College.

“Priscilla busted our butts today,” he said.

Davis is salaried by the syndicate, technically as a sailmaker and consultant, which is his profession, because it’s against the rules for sailors to be paid for sailing. Most of the non-local crewmen have been given rooms in a Seal Beach apartment complex and receive only living expenses, as well as some meals at the Long Beach Yacht Club.

“We’re getting here at 9:30, and till quarter of 12 it’s work on the boats and get sails done, load the sails,” Davis said. “Then we sail till it’s either too light or too dark to do any good testing.

“Then,” Davis added, joking, “we party all night and roll in about 2 a.m. and get up for our workout again.”

Everybody gets Mondays off, but most use the time to catch up on their personal business. Or sleep. Toppa, for example, has been trying to run his Fort Lauderdale, Fla., sail loft by telephone, while also working on Eagle’s sails at night.

“The development of my loft stops, my income drops,” Toppa said with a shrug.

That’s why, Davis said, the primary criterion for selecting a crew is a desire to win the America’s Cup.

“There’s a lot of sacrifice--personal sacrifice--to take these guys and work ‘em six days a week, 12 or 13 hours a day, and you don’t pay ‘em, and they have to leave their jobs and families,” he said.

“The next most important thing is sailing ability, obviously; then, the ability to get along with everybody else. When you put 16 guys into one little group and they have to live together for seven or eight months, there will always be a little bit of friction.

“I wouldn’t get along with my brother for eight months straight, so I don’t expect these guys to get along perfectly (but) they do have to get along ultimately. Little conflicts don’t bother me, but if a personality isn’t going to work through the whole thing, then you’ve got to make a change.”

Psychological testing is part of the program. The Eagle people want to know now if anybody is likely to crack under the intense and isolated pressure of 4 1/2 months’ competition starting in October. Davis has had to let a couple of candidates go, but seven of the 10 crew positions are now firm.

To several, Davis has delegated maintenance and development responsibilities beyond their boat assignments.

“You have to do that on a 12-meter,” said Rastello, an investment banker who sorts out some of the computer information. “These are complicated boats. You have to delegate to make sure everything is taken care of.”

But it also helps to reinforce the crew’s commitment by giving them a deeper sense of involvement.

Hart Jordan, the mast man who aspires to a career in sports medicine, doubles as the on-board medical officer.

Who’s the boss? Sometimes it’s difficult for an outsider to tell.

Mainsheet trimmer Kimo Worthington also makes sure the craft is shipshape. When he walks by, Davis teases, “Go look at your keel. It’s a nice color now. Baby blue.”

Then he laughs: “Hee-hee, hoo-hoo.”

The crew is loose, but business gets taken care of.

“I rely on these guys,” Davis said. “Most of them have been through a 12-meter campaign or some other long campaign. They know what they need to do to win, and they just do it. I don’t have to jump up and down and yell at ‘em every morning to get ‘em to workouts on time. They just do it. And if they don’t do it, they know they get fired.”

It’s very likely that after all of the computer design, tank testing and high-tech wizardry that has gone into this America’s Cup defense, everybody will wind up with relatively similar boats off Perth this fall.

That will place the issue back where it belongs, in the hands of the sailors.

“When the computer breaks down, we go back to seat-of-the-pants,” Davis said.

As a helmsman, Davis has won not only the Congressional Cup--the world’s most prestigious match-racing series--twice, but Class A in the Southern Ocean Racing Conference with Boomerang in ’85 and five world championships, as well as various lesser titles.

A year ago, before Davis cut back his program and became immersed in the America’s Cup campaign, Italian skipper Lorenzo Bortolotti was virtually in awe.

“I think everybody reaches a point sometime in his life when he is at his very best, and I think Rod is there,” Bortolotti said.

But when this campaign is finished, Davis said, “Toppa will go back to his sail loft, Rastello to his bank; the others will go back to their jobs. Me? I’m going to go back to bed.”