America’s Cup Trials : Steak’n Kidney Bows Out With Upset Win Over Kookaburra III

The hand-to-mouth Sydney entry gave this America’s Cup a built-in joke from the beginning.

A crewman from the rival powerhouse Alan Bond syndicate said: “I’d rather be brown bread than sail on a boat with a name like that.”

On its first day out for a test sail in Sydney harbor, in full view of the famous bridge and opera house, the 12-meter rammed its tender.

But Steak’n Kidney, the boat from Sydney, kept plugging away, largely on the will and limited funds of Syd Fischer, its 59-year-old chairman and part-time navigator who guided the effort through the shark-infested waters of 12-meter sailing, thrashing at predators and creditors alike.

Steak’n Kidney put on a new keel, scrounged up some new sails and eventually became respectable, until Saturday, when it hit its zenith by upsetting Kookaburra III by 39 seconds, leading all the way.

Too bad that was its last race. Earlier in the day, the Royal Perth Yacht Club officially announced that, according to the rules, Steak’n Kidney was being dismissed from the defender trials because mathematically it could no longer reach the finals.

Fischer had railed against the scoring system repeatedly, arguing that all earlier points should be erased for the Series D semifinals. Instead, the Royal Perth threw him a bone, agreeing to boost the value of each win from 5 to 6 points.

Finding dead ends in the usual avenues of appeal, Fischer sought an injunction from the Supreme Court of Western Australia. The action was due to be heard next Tuesday.

Saturday, a more mellow Fischer threw in the towel.

“That deal’s flat on its face,” he said. “We didn’t win enough races, so that kills it.”

Although competitive, until Saturday Steak’n Kidney still hadn’t beaten either of the top two boats: Kookaburra III or Australia IV. But Fischer still believes that reducing the competition will hurt Australia’s chances of keeping the cup.

“They had their rules,” he said of the Royal Perth leaders. “Their way of doing it is a little wrong. What they should have done is brought some international experience into the club and hired a real pro to do the job for them and advise ‘em. They tried to do it on their own and made a grave error. It may be the undoing of them.”

Nevertheless, the Royal Perth staged a formal little ceremony for Fischer and his crew at the club dock after Saturday’s races. The vice commodore was there in his whites, champagne flowed freely and Fischer was as gracious as Fischer can be.

“I’m surprised the club would ask me to say a few words on their hallowed ground,” he said, smiling. “I don’t always agree with ‘em, but that’s part of life.”

Fischer would have liked to have let it lie at that point, but the protest-crazy Kookaburra syndicate, sorely wounded by two defeats Saturday, isn’t quite finished with him.

The Kooks requested redress from the race committee on a contention that Steak’n Kidney was so far out of the running that it shouldn’t have even been allowed to sail in Series D and therefore “has prejudiced Kookaburra III’s finishing position.”

And how. Fischer’s blood rose again.

“Oh, there’s always bloody Kookaburra protests every race,” he said. “As soon as you get in front of ‘em, they protest you. It’s a pain. They’re idiots, in my book. That bloody clown they brought in from England to do ‘em, he’s worse.”

Fischer referred to Brian Willis, a rules specialist hired to handle the Kookaburras’ litigation.

“He’s hopeless in a protest room,” Fischer said. “He knows the rules but he can’t put the story over properly. He antagonizes the bloody jury. He tries to antagonize the witnesses. And then he goes to pieces.”

Willis had his hands full Saturday. In addition to the redress request, he filed two protests to have Australia IV disqualified from its 41-second win over Kookaburra II that would have pushed the Bond boat into first place with 71 points. The jury threw out Australia IV’s victory, leaving Australia IV and Kookaburra III tied for first place with 65 points, one point ahead of Kookaburra II with three days of racing remaining.

Kookaburra II has filed 15 other protests since the trials began 2 1/2 months ago but hadn’t won one until overturning another victory by Australia IV earlier this week.

The reversal was a blow to Australia IV, which hasn’t been outsailed in six races in Series D. After losing the previous protest, its mainsail fell down within sight of the finish line Friday, allowing Kookaburra III to come from behind and win.

In Saturday’s first incident, Kookaburra II luffed Australia IV as the rival came alongside downwind, snagging and shredding Australia IV’s spinnaker with the end of its spinnaker pole. The basic rule is that the windward boat must keep clear, placing the onus squarely on Australia IV, although both released protest flags.

Australia IV raised another spinnaker and, surprisingly, sailed into the lead, but then cut across Kookaburra II’s bow at the leeward mark, raising another question of whether she failed to allow room to a boat with an inside overlap. She lost that one, too.

The Kookaburras have been more successful in the protest room than on the race course lately. On Friday chief skipper Iain Murray hit a mark and had to re-round it, then on Saturday he misjudged the time, jumped the line and had to go back and re-start 19 seconds behind Steak’n Kidney skipper Phil Thompson, who kept his boat in front all the way.

“It was a good way to go out,” Fischer said, “better than the alternative.”

Mastman Peter McCallum, 26, who had been with the crew from the start, said on the way out to the race course that the crew was determined to “go out with a bang, not with a whimper.”

Fischer didn’t whimper about losing his shirt.

“I’ve got a shirt,” he said, tugging at the blue jersey with red stripes the crew wore. “They gave me a shirt. I was one of the last ones to get one.

“We were a little underfunded. We probably didn’t pay enough attention to the design early in the game. We had a budget but we don’t talk about it. I might be vulgar in a lot of ways, but I think it’s vulgar to talk about money.”

It was ironic that Fischer’s Eastern Australia Defence Syndicate was the most impoverished despite representing the concentrated population of the country. An Australian reporter asked if Fischer had any words for the folks back home.

“Yeah,” Fischer responded, typically, “get off your tail and help next time.”

America’s Cup Notes

Dennis Conner, who finished off his semifinal series against USA Friday, teamed with ’83 adversary John Bertrand of Australia to do TV commentary on Saturday’s races from a helicopter for Perth’s Channel 9. . . . Saturday’s winds were from 17 to 20 knots, still well below the fierce conditions most syndicates anticipated.