Courageous’ Hopes Still Alive in America’s Cup : With an Old Boat and a New Skipper, Group Is Battling Overwhelming Odds

The America’s Cup challengers are scheduled to meet in New York today to draw for pairings in the first round of eliminations at Perth, Australia, this fall and, more important, to count heads.

Thirteen challengers from six countries remain in the running, but dropouts are possible at any point if lack of money or a slow boat make the cause hopeless.

Leonard Greene’s rivals expected him to drop out long ago, for both reasons. The leader of the well-named Courageous group--it may be stretching a point to call it a syndicate--claims to have collected 85% of a $12-million budget, but skeptics say both figures are outrageously inflated. Greene says his figures include about one-third cash and two-thirds donated services.

“We’re sound,” Greene insisted over the phone from White Plains, N.Y. “We’re not fancy, but we’re exactly where we want to be. And I hope you will have room in your column for a plea for funds.”

He laughed, seemingly enjoying his role as the arch-underdog against the gargantuan America II effort of the New York Yacht Club and the isolated intensity of San Diego’s Dennis Conner.

Each of those syndicates built three new boats. Greene, an aviation and marine engineer, has an old boat, Courageous IV. The Roman numerals represent the number of major modifications the gallant old lady has endured since she successfully defended the cup in 1974 and ’77. She’s had more face-lifts than Phyllis Diller.

The boat was terribly out of balance sailing upwind in the 12-meter world championships last February, but Greene said: “The data showed we were the fastest boat off the wind in the whole fleet.”

He said more modifications corrected the balance problem, although Courageous hasn’t been sailed while waiting for its crew and the other challengers to arrive in Australia.

Courageous will have a new helmsman, David Vietor, to whom the assignment reluctantly fell after Peter Isler resigned when it became evident that there wouldn’t be a new boat. Greene, again leaning on computer data, said readouts showed Vietor to be more efficient at the helm, anyway, but Isler called the announcement “some fancy footwork” on Greene’s part.

“Vietor never really sailed the boat with the new keel,” Isler said.

Isler, a first-rate match racer, has since gone over to Sail America as navigator, a big plus for Conner’s effort.

Courageous’ chances in the trials starting Oct. 5 are rated so slim that America’s Cup expert Jeff Spranger won’t even quote a line, while listing Sail America at 3-1, America II at 5-1, Eagle at 10-1, Heart of America at 16-1 and Golden Gate at 25-1.

“With Isler’s departure goes Courageous’ last vestige of competitiveness,” Spranger wrote.

Greene isn’t dismayed, outwardly. He recalled the race in 1851 when the America’s Cup was born off Portsmouth, England.

“There was one boat against a hundred, and the one boat we sent over won,” Greene said. “It doesn’t help you in match racing to have more than one boat, as long as you have the best boat.”

Courageous is not unique. All of the American syndicates are virtually scrimping from day to day.

Eagle, the effort sponsored by the Newport Harbor Yacht Club, hopes to pay some of its bills by selling its modified trial boat, Magic. Asking price: $150,000, fully equipped, including winged keel.

“No reasonable offer refused,” said Gerry Driscoll, Eagle’s director of operations. “We’re reasonably current (with bills) but not as current as we’d like to be. We’ve been paying as we go. We get up against a hard wall and work like hell to get more money in.”

St. Francis Yacht Club members are being assessed $360 each per year to support the Golden Gate effort, but Driscoll said Eagle would resist tapping NHYC members for funds.

“You bet,” Driscoll said. “We’re not going to get into anything like that. That’s outrageous.”

Gary Thomson, Eagle’s chief fund raiser, said the syndicate has raised $6.6 million of its $8.5-million budget, but it has been difficult because “right now we’re a nonentity. Dennis (Conner) is an entity because he’s been there before.”

But Thomson said Eagle already has been pledged $500,000 toward the next campaign by an anonymous Southern Californian--not from Orange County.

“Win or lose,” Thomson said, “it ensures that Eagle will continue.”

All of the American boats are either in, en route to or about to be shipped to Australia, at a cost of between $20,000 and $30,000 each.

Eagle left last month with Canada II on a freighter that also picked up two of Conner’s boats in Hawaii and was due to arrive this weekend. The Golden Gate and Heart of America boats left San Francisco last weekend on the freighter Nedlloyd Kingston, which was to stop by Los Angeles and pick up a container of Eagle’s equipment.

America II, which prides itself on being first in a lot of things, already has its three boats sailing in Australia. Courageous, of course, has remained there.

Tom Ehman, executive director of America II, speaks as if his group is pretty sure of itself after considerable competition with other 12-meters, as well as some espionage.

“We’ve been out looking at almost everybody,” Ehman said by phone from Newport, R.I. “We think we know exactly what everybody is doing. We know a lot about them, and they don’t know a lot about us. We think they’re all strong, but we think we’re the strongest.”

America II, with two full crews headed by skipper John Kolius, has been working a year-round schedule for two years, alternating between Newport and Perth, and is the only American syndicate to test the Indian Ocean race course with a new boat. Some rivals have suggested that the crew may be approaching burnout before the competition starts.

“On the contrary,” Ehman said, “I think our guys are chomping at the bit to get going down there.

“But it’s nice to be talked about by your rivals. That’s part of being ranked No. 1.”

Ehman believes the three-boat development approach will prove best, although Eagle skipper Rod Davis has said he would prefer just getting one boat tuned to perfection. Ehman counters that Eagle simply couldn’t afford even two boats, as it originally hoped.

“It’s too bad Eagle didn’t build two boats,” Ehman said, “but don’t count ‘em out. Rod’s a fine sailor.”

America’s Cup Notes

Dave Dellenbaugh, who tied for third place in this year’s Congressional Cup, has joined Chicago’s Heart of America program. Skipper Buddy Melges will select a navigator and a tactician from among Dellenbaugh, Bill Shore and Andreas Josenhans. . . . Last weekend, Melges and Canada II’s Terry Neilson took turns sailing trial boats Clipper and Defender in a three-race series on Lake Michigan, off Racine, Wis.--the first 12-meter races to be held on the Great Lakes, where Heart hopes to defend the America’s Cup in 1991. Melges swept the series to claim a $10,000 prize for his syndicate. . . . Lynn Brown, speaking for Golden Gate, denied a rumor that the radical new R-1 boat measured out too short. “That’s incorrect,” Brown said. “It’s the right length and the right concept.” The rumor, she said, “came from the Canadian designer,” Bruce Kirby. . . . The 23rd Congressional Cup is scheduled for March 9-14, about a month after the America’s Cup concludes. General Chairman Howard Thompson is seeking a broad representation of five American sailors from different areas of the country and five foreigners, including champion Harold Cudmore of Ireland, but “not necessarily 12-meter skippers,” Thompson said.

WHERE AMERICAN SYNDICATES STAND

Syndicate Boats Skipper Budget % Raised Eagle Rod Davis $8.5 million 78% America II John Kolius $15 million 77% Sail America Dennis Conner $15 million 73% Golden Gate Tom Blackaller $10 million 75% Courageous David Vietor $12 million 85% Heart of America Buddy Melges $7 million 63%

Percentage of budget total/total raised is including donated services and goods.

Sources: respective syndicates.