COMEBACK : Dennis Conner Was the First Skipper in 132 Years to Let the America’s Cup Slip Into Foreign Hands. To Win It Back, He Battled Australian Technology, Skeptical Financiers--and the East Coast Yachting Establishment.

WHEN THE telephone rang, Johan Valentijn answered it. It was June 16, 1983, and he was in the middle of an America’s Cup summer in Newport, R.I. As the designer of our syndicate’s boat, Liberty, Valentijn had little time to take calls. But this one would change his life, every idea he’d ever had about 12-meter yacht design and, eventually, the future of the America’s Cup.

“Johan, I’ve just seen something incredible.” The voice was excited, perhaps even desperate. Valentijn recognized the caller as Paul Doppke, who earlier that day had been responsible for blocking the boat Australia II when she was hauled out of the water under heavy guard for her final measurement. He was most probably the first American to see the unusual configuration on the bottom of the yacht’s hull. “Australia II has wings on her keel and they’re made of lead. It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” Doppke said. “Do you know anything about this?”

Doppke’s anxious question would haunt us all for a long time. Valentijn’s answer was anything but satisfactory. “What do you mean, wings?” he said. “What do you mean, made of lead?”

I had heard something about a peculiar keel back in January. In those days, we didn’t have the resources to go to Australia to investigate. And when I didn’t hear anything more, I forgot about it. But as reports began to drift into our camp during the summer that the Australia II was very fast in a breeze and was pulverizing the competition in the foreign trials, alarm bells started.

Armed with sketches from Doppke, I went to meet with Bob McCullough, past commodore of the New York Yacht Club and chairman of the America’s Cup Committee. He was the man to make our case, if indeed we had one. “Commodore, we have a problem here, and you had better do something about it,” I said. “Australia II has a peculiarity on the bottom of her keel, and we don’t think it’s legal.”

The America’s Cup rules state that the 12-meter boats competing in the race “shall draw no more than nine feet.” We knew that when Australia II tilted in a breeze, its revolutionary new keel would extend beyond nine feet. “Heeled over with those wings,” I told McCullough as we looked at the drawings, “she would run aground.”

McCullough just stood there and scratched his head, as I had done the first day. He didn’t see the practicality of pressing the issue immediately. Instead, he told me to go back to Valentijn and find out more. Disappointed, I did what he asked.

When we had our case together, we took it to the International Yacht Racing Union measurers. Tony Watts, the British chief of the crew, told us that our argument didn’t mean a thing. The boat had to be measured vertically, he maintained. Mark Vinbury, the one American on the team, recommended that they refer the question to the IYRU Technical Keel Boat Committee. But Watts’ team had already judged the keel in Australia and found it legal. His position was: If my team has ruled, it shall not be overruled.

The more Australia II won in the foreign trials, the more the New York Yacht Club’s attention to our keel complaints grew. But the club never formulated a clear-cut plan. When word drifted into our camp that the Dutch had helped in the design of the Australian yacht, we finally had something to go on. If the yacht really had been designed outside Australia, it would be a definite infringement on the rules.

But instead of mounting an effective counterattack, McCullough helped dream up the idea of asking the Dutch to design a new boat for our use. Valentijn wrote a telegram that our syndicate manager, Ed du Moulin, agreed to send. Unfortunately, I never saw it. The whole idea was ridiculous and backfired on us. Here we were trying to prove that the keel was illegal, even while we were asking to build the same thing. Later it would be said that the cable was merely a ploy to trap the Dutch into acknowledging that they had helped the Australians. But the Aussies used it to make the club look like a cheat and a fool.

It’s important to understand that the New York Yacht Club pulled all the strings back then. The sailors were puppets. As the home of the America’s Cup for 132 consecutive years, the club had total control over how the trophy was defended against foreign challenges. Our syndicate was just one of three teams fighting to represent the club--and the United States--in the 1983 races. So there was a question of just how far we could push the keel issue on our own.

McCullough’s right-hand man was Vic Romagna, a smart, scrappy little guy who might have had a real impact on all this if he’d become involved a little earlier. “Listen, Dennis, you guys go sail,” he used to assure me. “Don’t worry. We’ll beat ‘em.”

“Fine, Vic,” I’d shoot back. “But we know how to sail. It’s what you guys are doing ashore that really bothers us.”

Romagna soon took a hard line on the keel and argued that Alan Bond, leader of the Australia II syndicate, should be disqualified. The club had given Bond an affidavit in which he was to swear that he hadn’t violated a number of rules. Bond wouldn’t sign it.

In retrospect, I can see exactly where the club went wrong. It was functioning more as a selection committee than as a defense committee. The club’s major concern was which U.S. boat to put on the starting line, but it neglected the other, critical areas of the defense. They should have had their own people around the world watching the foreign challengers. They should have had somebody responsible for reading the rules, understanding them thoroughly, and making sure that they were followed.

To me, the Cup stood for excellence at sea, a great American tradition, but unfortunately, for many, it had evolved into a social occasion: red trousers, straw hats, blue blazers, club ties, cocktails and canapes. It was all very elegant, but no way to win a boat race.

OF COURSE, AUSTRALIA II was finally allowed to sail. The America’s Cup Committee was convinced that Bond’s group had violated the rules, but they could not bring themselves to say, “We won’t race.”

Liberty had won the right to defend the Cup, and my attitude at the time was that the club had lost the battle on land and that I’d have to win on the water. “Forget everything that’s happened, except what we’ve achieved on the water,” I told my guys as we were towed out to meet the Australians. “We’re here because we’re the best in America. Now let’s prove we’re the best in the world.”

I remember very clearly how astonished we all were during that initial encounter with Australia II. During the very first circle of the pre-start maneuvers, we tacked (changed directions while sailing windward) and John Bertrand, the Australian helmsman, tacked and then bore off right inside us. We all looked at each other in silent amazement. She turned faster than any boat we had ever seen.

Bertrand got the start of that first race by three seconds. But by lulling the Australians into overconfidence, I was able to gain the lead by the third mark. On the fifth leg, a downwind run, Australia II started gaining fast. In less than one leg, she ate away our 29-second lead and had drawn even. According to the rules, we had controlling position. But then the unbelievable happened: Bertrand bore off, opened up three boat lengths between us and reconverged, taking the controlling position. I was dumbfounded; it was like he’d turned on an engine.

I had to do something and do it fast. We were heading for the fifth mark, and I was pretty sure that he would round first unless we pulled a rabbit out of the hat. Without any notice to my crew I said, “We’re jibing.” Australia II was only about two boat lengths to leeward, and I decided to jibe (change course while sailing downwind) right at them. Bertrand could either jibe with us, giving us the inside position around the mark, or cross our stern in an attempt to get inside us. He chose the latter and threw the wheel hard to port. The tremendous stress placed on the steering gear caused the rudder quadrant to break, and Australia II went into a wild, out-of-control broach. The first race was ours by 1:10.

We all felt damn relieved to have won. I kept thinking about a scene in one of my favorite movies, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” In it, Butch and Sundance are relentlessly pursued by a posse. Our heroes keep riding like hell, but every time they turn around, there’s the posse. Butch and Sundance kept asking, “Who are those guys?” That’s just the way we felt with that little white shark coming after our fanny.

The next four races were a desperate battle of our sailing skill against a faster boat. We blew a 3-1 lead and lost both Race 5 and Race 6--the latter by 3:25, the largest victory margin ever recorded by a challenging yacht. So we went into the seventh race, the first time in history that the America’s Cup had gone the distance. After the sixth race, Bertrand said something about how not even Hollywood screenwriters could have cooked up a better scenario. He saw this as some big drama; I saw it as just another boat race.

Most of that last race was fairly uneventful, except that on the second windward leg we got quite a long way ahead, and right at the end we got out of phase with the wind. It was my fault that they closed up on us. Early in the race, a left-hand shift in the wind allowed us to pass them. That same shift now let them pass us.

The Aussies came down on us with a real bone in their teeth. I could see them out of the corner of my eye, gaining bearing, gaining bearing, gaining bearing. Tactician Tom Whidden was calling out the number of diminishing boat lengths that once were our lead. That’s when I said, “Anyone got any ideas?” When they converged on opposite jibes, they were very close to being able to pass before us. So we jibed onto a course parallel to theirs, and they still just sailed right through us.

I don’t think I had any emotions one way or another. I certainly didn’t say to myself, “Oh boy, here goes the Cup.” Going across the line 41 seconds behind them was no big deal either. The guys shook hands and said: “Nice going. Good race. We gave it our best shot.” Of course, there was a lot of emotion later, especially when I went aboard Australia II’s tender. I tried to put a brave face on, but the truth is that I was ready to go home.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment was the reaction of the members of the America’s Cup Committee from the New York Yacht Club. They simply abandoned us. No one showed up, not even to say, “Nice try.” We’d done the best we could in a situation that their inaction and ineptness helped to create, but not one of them had the guts to face us.

The night of the last race I went to the press conference by myself. It wasn’t easy walking onto a stage full of exuberant Aussies, but I felt it was important for someone representing the team to be there. I said: Well done, the better boat won, we have no excuses.

PEOPLE ASSUME THAT somehow I was mesmerized by the aura of the Cup. Certainly it is the pinnacle of yachting and the Holy Grail of our sport. But looking back, my greatest thrill in yachting was winning the Star Boat World Championships in San Diego for the first time in 1971. Sure, there were a few tears when we got back to dock the night we lost the Cup, and that seemed natural enough. But two days after the last race, I was back in San Diego, and the next day I went to work. Life goes on.

It wasn’t until Christmas, 1983, that I seriously began thinking about trying again. I was in Hawaii visiting Fritz and Lucy Jewett, who had a long history of backing America’s Cup contenders. They first invited me to their house in Woods Hole, Mass., in 1978. It is a magnificent home situated right on the water, and it was more than a little intimidating for this carpet and drapery salesman.

I was doing my best to stay cool and act socially adept, but when Lucy served iced tea, I mistook the saltcellar for a sugar bowl and started spooning salt into my tea. Lucy immediately put me at ease by making it seem to be her mistake.

By 1983 we had forsaken iced tea for rum and tonic, and after a couple I started thinking that another campaign might not be so bad. The Jewetts were disappointed in the way the New York Yacht Club conducted itself that summer, and in the way it treated me. We knew that the club had already begun to approach individual and corporate sponsors for a campaign that included John Kolius as the helmsman.

The Jewetts offered financial backing if I wanted to go out on my own. It was a tremendous offer that took me somewhat by surprise. The Jewetts were certainly no newcomers to the America’s Cup, but they had always invested their dollars with a bona fide organization.

By the time I met with Malin Burnham several weeks later, I was adamant about having nothing to do with the New York Yacht Club. Burnham has been a legend in San Diego sailing circles since he won the Star Boat World Championships at age 17. He helped teach me to sail on the waters around San Diego when I was a kid, and I’ve always respected his opinion. When he insisted that our first loyalties, as far as the Cup was concerned, lay with the New York Yacht Club, I eventually agreed. He pointed out that we were both longtime members in good standing and that I had successfully defended the Cup for the club in 1980. We owed it to New York to first offer our services there.

So I flew east for a meeting with the club’s inner circle on Jan. 6, 1984. I told the group that I wanted a multiboat program and that we would use Liberty as our basic yardstick. I was confident that our key guys would return and that we could harness the best American technology.

I also spoke about improving the club’s image. Everyone in the room knew that the rancor of 1983 had taken its toll. Irritation with the club was so great that many Americans had rooted for the Australians. It was time to make some changes.

The feedback was very good. We thought we’d get the order any day. But then no decision was made. Two weeks later I called Commodore Bus Mosbacher’s office in New York and was informed that he was out of town. I explained that I needed to know what decision had been reached. The next day I received a call from the club secretary, who said the commodore would meet with me at the club on Jan. 29 at 4 p.m.

I explained that I had a scheduling conflict that day. As commodore of the San Diego Yacht Club, I would be hosting an affair in conjunction with our biennial Manzanillo Race in Mexico. Two hundred people were expected at my house.

Hours later I got another call. “The commodore says that in order to accommodate your schedule he has changed the meeting from 4 p.m. to 11 a.m.”

“Thank you,” I said, not really believing what I was hearing. “On what day?”

“The same day, Mr. Conner.”

I blew my top and called Fritz Jewett and Malin Burnham. “If they can’t even schedule a meeting, how the hell are we ever going to put together an entire syndicate?” Jewett again suggested I go out on my own; Burnham agreed. I organized a board meeting at the San Diego Yacht Club. My plan was quickly approved.

THE EARLY MONTHS of our unorganized organization were literally run out of a shoe box kept in the back of Vera’s Drapes in San Diego. I used to put all our unpaid bills in it, and since we were spending a lot more than we were bringing in, the box filled up in a hurry.

I made dozens of phone calls to my old backers, people who had been with me since 1974. Since most of them were either members of or supporters of the New York Yacht Club, I was, in effect, declaring war on it.

For more than a century, the America’s Cup had been very much an exclusive game played by the East Coast yachting Establishment, and here we were bucking the New York Yacht Club. A lot of the boys in blazers and straw hats didn’t like it. Word got out fast to secure wallets when Dennis Conner came to town.

I traveled throughout corporate America banging on doors, trying to get the big guys to sit up and take notice. I had to come up with some really wild schemes to grab their attention. One of my best ideas was to go to George Steinbrenner, the principal owner of the New York Yankees. My offer was to paint the transom of the boat in Yankee pinstripes and call her Yankee. I had a drawing showing the boat and I was ready to give my pitch. But Steinbrenner never saw me.

Then I thought to go to Donald Trump; if he gave us $2 million we’d call the boat Trump Card. I could see the name and Atlantic City (home port of the Trump casinos) in five aces on the stern. I would have gone on to the other Atlantic City casino operators and have them kick in another $9 million.

Trump wouldn’t see me either, but determined not to be put off, I simply sat down in his outer office and played the old waiting game. He had his secretaries try to shoo me away, but I told them: “Look, girls, I know he’s in there. I’m not leaving until I see him.” Finally they gave up and let me in. Trump seemed genuinely interested, but it just never worked out. (Much later, he became a major backer.)

At last Terry Brown of the Atlas Hotels in San Diego came in with a $500,000 donation. That was the first substantial contribution, and it got us going. Chasing the dollars has never been my favorite aspect of the America’s Cup. But in this new era of very high-ticket campaigns, financing is as crucial to winning the Cup as design or sails or seamanship.

Politics also plays an enormous role. I lobbied hard for the role of challenger of record--meaning that we would officially administer all aspects of the challenger side of the race. We commissioned a $20,000 videotape presentation illustrating the strengths and accomplishments of the San Diego Yacht Club, and I flew to Perth to present it. We had the credentials: a solid history, two decades of 12-meter experience, a number of Olympic medalists, and expertise in all types of sailboat races. We had the whole proposal packaged in a beautiful red-velvet teak box.

The officers of the Royal Perth were clearly impressed, but the offer went to the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda on the Italian island of Sardinia. Royal Perth never explained its decision. My guess is they figured they could steamroll Costa Smeralda while they’d have difficulties dealing with a hard case like Dennis Conner.

On the trip home, I stopped in Hawaii. It was a perfect training area for our Sail America syndicate. The wind and water there are very similar year-round to the wind and water of the competition. For the design of the boat and the making of sails, nothing was more important.

And as warm and wonderful as our welcome in Australia was, we were still the enemy. If we had trained there, we would have had a thousand eyes watching our every move. The Hawaiians always watched out for us. Whenever spies came to see what we were doing, we’d know before they were out of customs.

I RECEIVED HUNDREDS of messages each week urging me to go after the Cup again. Some even suggested we name our new boat Revenge or Vengeance. While those names had a certain appeal, we settled on Stars & Stripes as being more marketable. (We chose the color, a sort of gunsmoke blue, because it matched the trim on Malin and Roberta Burnham’s house.)

Among the calls, letters and telegrams were a lot of far-out ideas concerning keel shapes. It was apparent that Australia II’s design had caught the imagination of a lot of people.

One call that Malin Burnham answered was from Barry Shillito, a retired senior naval officer and a member of the San Diego Yacht Club. He worked with Science Applications International Corp., which did a great deal of work for the Defense Department. He said SAIC had something very interesting for us to see.

After Australia II’s victory, the U.S. Navy had become so intrigued with the possible defense and commercial applications of the wing keel that it had commissioned SAIC to study the design. From the time Burnham and I entered the front gate of the company’s facility in La Jolla until we walked into the conference room, we were escorted by armed guards. We were sniffed by German shepherds, led through 42 locked doors and passed through a dozen lead-lined, soundproofed corridors.

Inside the conference room, about 15 guys sat at a large mahogany table. The room got dark, and up on the screen appeared a very professional show I’ve always thought of as “The Wing Keel as Brought to You by the Department of Defense.” Burnham and I sat transfixed.

The night Australia II won the Cup, its owners had allowed the keel to be exposed. Instantly, thousands of photographs and miles of videotape recorded the size and shape of it. Three years of proprietary design became public domain with the flip of a lens shutter.

Some of the photos and footage were acquired by SAIC, which fed the shapes and images into computers. The analysis showed that the wing keel provided the boat with added stability and maneuverability, as well as increased lifting qualities. While the scientists had everything neatly defined in terms of formulas and percentages and quotients, sailor Dennis Conner translated it all to mean that the little white boat from Australia turned on a dime, headed higher into the wind and footed lower off the wind.

Although I knew all of this from experience, it was eye-opening to see it on paper. I suppose it was somewhat comforting to have all these scientists spend several million dollars to tell me that I had been doomed from the start.

The SAIC people wanted to help us. Their sense of the 1983 races was that the Australians had taken a chapter out of the book of American ingenuity. Where Australia saw potential for a quantum advance in technology, we had remained convinced of only marginal refinements. SAIC was embarrassed because my loss was proof that America was not the technology leader it always thought it was.

SAIC felt it could develop computer codes that would enable our designers to compare and contrast hundreds of alternatives. The hope was that this would lead to the single best design. SAIC wanted to put naval architecture into the computer, to convert design from an art to a science.

On the way back, Burnham and I discussed the concept on merging design and computers. It was one thing to copy the wing keel--as we suspected everyone would do--but it was something else to truly understand what every change meant to overall performance. The days of designers flying by the seat of their pants were over.

PEOPLE OFTEN ask me whether I see a certain personality in a boat. The answer is no. To me, they are not living creatures. I don’t go down to the dock and pet the boat before I take it out. When I do go out, I thrash the boat around the course. I punish it. I’m likely to crash it into other boats. To me, boats are simply a means to an end. A boat’s performance has a lot to do with my happiness.

There is an old saying in sailing that you can’t turn a turkey into an eagle. But at the same time, no matter what you do to a good boat, she almost always stays a good boat. These theories were proved in our experience with Stars & Stripes ‘85, our first new test boat for the 1986-87 races. She was fast no matter what we did to her.

The reason was in the new boat’s design. For this campaign, I decided to use a design team instead of just one or two guys. I also selected John Marshall, who had vast experience aboard 12-meter yachts and was leaving North Sails after a corporate buyout, to coordinate the whole project. Marshall could talk the same language as the eggheads and the jocks.

“The major error of 1983,” he reminded me, “was the pervasive American thinking that 12-meter design had essentially peaked out, and there wasn’t a lot more that could be achieved. (Australian designer) Ben Lexcen certainly proved us wrong on that score.”

One key change was in our methodology. The Australians relied implicitly on tank testing to test their concepts, but designer Britton Chance’s tank experiments that led to the Mariner, a boat that performed disastrously in 1974, soured most U.S. designers on tanks. Therefore, any concept of a really radical boat was dealt with strictly in the abstract. “What we all had to get over,” as Marshall said, “was the fact that tank testing does not simulate sailboat racing. It is just one factor, a tool.”

Our original plan was to build only two new boats. The second, Stars & Stripes ‘86, was built with what is best described as a double bow. There was a flat section and a rather ugly bump right at the forward waterline. The idea was to have the volume forward, and attempt to trick the water into behaving as if the boat were longer than she was. This seemed to work when it was windy. She really hauled the mail.

As a boat moves through the water, there are a number of forces that slow her, such as the water itself. When it is windy and the boat is going fast, it kicks up a large wave, which it drags behind. We knew Fremantle would be by and large windy. SAIC pioneered a computer code that accurately predicted the wave-drag of various hulls. I think this was a first in naval architecture.

Stars & Stripes ’86 represented a radical step to the new type of hull forms suggested by SAIC’s work. Tank testing of the “stepped bow” concept proved so promising that it became the essential new feature in this boat. When ’86 was delivered and we sailed her, she proved fast, but the design team insisted they could still find more speed. Continuing the design program was costly, and I was concerned about time. But in the end they were persuasive.

When Stars & Stripes ’87 was launched, my first thought was, “Well, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.” I was a bit taken aback by the pug nose, the gondola look. But fast boats have their own way of looking good. And the more she won, the more beautiful she became.

But of all the innovative ideas we came up with, one stands out as an example of our guys rising above adversity. By the time we had set up camp in Fremantle, we realized that the beautiful little city smack on the edge of the Indian Ocean was a long way from Connecticut, where our sails were built. The sheer logistical problems were frustrating.

Sails right out of the box never fit perfectly on a 12-meter. Adjustments always have to be made, and the relationship between a boat owner and his sail maker is like that of a man to his tailor. Pretty much on a lark, we asked our maintenance crew if they’d take a shot a building some sails in Fremantle. That was the birth of our own in-house sail-making empire. We called it “We-Be” and designed a logo. It stood for “We Be Guessing.”

WITHIN A YEAR of the 1983 loss, it became apparent that the biggest hurdle for all American syndicates was money. We all had the same idea: Hit the corporations. We tended to bump into one another.

It was the New York Yacht Club and its America II syndicate that kept getting in my way. They continued to tie up my former backers, they launched a massive effort to raise corporate dollars, and they were the first guys with a new boat on the water in Australia. But in June, 1985, some of their highly touted syndicate organization began to unravel. Chuck Kirsch was replaced as syndicate chairman by Arthur Santry, and John Kolius resigned as skipper and helmsman.

Even before that, we were holding secret meetings with some of the powers at the club. The technical program was really snapping into focus, and we believed that we would produce a very fast boat. But the money was drying up and we were almost broke. We had heard that some of the guys in the America II program weren’t very happy, so we sounded them out about the possibility of a joint venture.

After Kolius resigned, a top-secret meeting was called at La Guardia Airport in New York. It was on that day that I first recognized the demise of power in the New York Yacht Club.

The meeting produced what I call the La Guardia Ultimatum. O. L. Pitts and Lee Smith, two very wealthy Texans, walked into the meeting room. Among those present was Arthur Santry, soon-to-be commodore of the New York Yacht Club. The Texans told Santry to leave the room, that he would be called when he was needed. They got away with it because they had loaned $3 million to the club to get the syndicate started. A new executive committee was formed with only two club officers on the 11-member board. Syndicate chairman Santry stepped down and was replaced by Richard DeVos, founder and president of Amway Corp. John Kolius, originally from Houston and very close to the Texans, was brought back. That was when the club realized it no longer had control of its own syndicate.

The La Guardia Ultimatum cooled things off for a while between our syndicate, Sail America, and America II. But as we sank deeper and deeper into financial quicksand, John Marshall made an eloquent case for joining forces with the New Yorkers. His view was that while we had the better skipper and the superior technical program, New York had the money and the functioning facility in Fremantle. What the two groups would gain most from a merger was a coherent marketing strategy to sell to corporate America. Our people could pitch a truly national, all-American campaign by the guys who won the Cup, lost the Cup and now--with your help, Mr. Executive--will bring it back.

The New Yorkers were apparently very concerned about my personal style, which they considered autocratic, and about my ability to make a comeback. Santry stated that the club would not have anything to do with a program that would win the Cup for any club but his. Marshall proposed that in the event that the Cup was won by Stars & Stripes, it would be won under the New York Yacht Club burgee, but then would be held by a new national club established to help American yachtsmen in international competitions. This should have had wide appeal at the New York club because they had suffered for years by attempting to be both the trustee of the Cup and to run impartial races.

I think the officers in New York recognized deep down that America II had problems. I think they also were aware that if I was successful, the New York Yacht Club would be out of the America’s Cup for years to come. If I won, the next defense would be managed by the San Diego Yacht Club. No matter which syndicate won any future defense, New York would have to wait until we lost it again, then they’d have to win it back.

America II was run by a large board of directors that included virtually all their major contributors. The board was pretty much split down the middle, with Richard DeVos apparently the pivotal vote. Marshall flew his own four-seat airplane from Maine to Amway headquarters in Ada, Mich. DeVos listened carefully but said he couldn’t imagine how the syndicates could ever be melded into a single effective unit. And he predicted that my insistence on remaining as skipper would lead to the mass resignation of the New York club’s team. Eventually we were able to arrange the financing that kept us going, but DeVos’ thumbs-down ended all thoughts of a merger.

SO IT HAD ALL come down to this. America’s Cup 1987. Forty months earlier, Australia II had beaten us on Rhode Island Sound and brought the Cup to Australia. Ever since the day I decided to make a comeback, I had looked forward to Jan. 31 in Fremantle.

In my mind’s eye, I kept envisioning the America’s Cup just out on the horizon, basking in the vivid green-and-blue light reflecting off the Indian Ocean. There it was, almost within our grasp, but between us and it stood 16 boats, all with the same vision. I wondered if the damn Cup remembered me as well as I remembered it.

Our fifth race in the early round robins, in October, was against Tom Blackaller of the San Francisco Yacht Club and his crew on the USA. I consider that race one of the greatest I’ve ever been in and a turning point for our crew, even though only one challenger series point was at stake. We had trailed around the entire course, but we never gave up. The lesson of giving 100% until the finish line is crossed was brought home once again.

The win was particularly gratifying because Blackaller and his boys were downright nasty and rude on the water. Any time the two boats got close, they would open up with a stream of invective and epithets, all in an effort to rattle us. Blackaller is tough and has been through this before, but I knew that a race like that could eat away at his young crew’s confidence. In January, we defeated them 4-0 to enter the defender finals against New Zealand.

The third round of the challenger trials was the undoing of America II. They suffered five critical losses and ended up just one point short of making the final four. Their biggest upset was at the hands of Heart of America in the first race of the round. That race effectively knocked America II out and, with her, 135 years of the New York Yacht Club’s always having had a boat in the America’s Cup finals.

Many people were hoping that Australia IV would be the defender so the 1987 America’s Cup would be a rematch of Dennis Conner against Alan Bond and the others of that syndicate. But all summer I knew that Bond was going to lose. We had trialed with Australia IV before the races, and the boat was so slow we couldn’t imagine it beating Kookaburra III.

Although we never let the Aussies know, we sandbagged them a little during those trials. We used to over-trim the main sail, and have the trim tab down a few degrees and the rudder up to induce a little drag. We didn’t want to show them how fast we really were. They might have helped the Kookas, just as the New Zealanders initially did (until we applied pressure through a U.S. official and the Bank of New Zealand) after we beat them 4-1 in the challenger finals.

In 1983, the lack of espionage did us in. This time we were much better prepared. We sent our spies to the World Championships in Fremantle in early 1986, and our coach, Robert Hopkins, went there to talk with people and gather intelligence. I used to spend time at a waterfront bar. I think the Aussies liked the idea of hanging out with Big Bad Dennis. If loose lips sink ships, those guys were going down fast.

I went into the first match against Kookaburra III believing that we would win. We were faster, better prepared and more experienced. Deep down I know I can beat anyone. That’s not a boast; that’s the record. Over the last 15 years I have won more major regattas than anyone else. No one has a record like mine.

I think now that our victory in the first race was by far the most significant of the series. Light wind was supposed to favor Kookaburra skipper Iain Murray, but our sheer sailing ability took that race.

They were vulnerable to the knockout punch, and we delivered it in the third race. Up to the fourth cross of that race, they had controlled the lead, though we were chipping away at it. After the third convergence, we tacked back at Kookaburra. When they tacked to cover us, they didn’t have enough time to build speed for a proper “slam-dunk,” a maneuver that would have dramatically cut our wind and slowed us. Right then, we decided to turn and go behind their stern. We managed an incredibly sharp turn and surged right through their lee. It was one of the most powerful moves of the entire Cup campaign. About a minute after we had busted loose, they were getting our back wind. From that moment on, we had control.

I think it was right then that Murray knew he wasn’t going to beat us. After the first race, he could rightfully claim that we caught all the shifts. After the second, he could say there was too much wind. But now he saw that we could take them in any situation. His feelings of frustration and disappointment were almost palpable.

The fourth and last race, on Feb. 4, was virtually over at the start when Murray tried to push me over the line early, but I was able to carefully luff and stall, gaining a six-second lead at the gun. Our margin in the end was 1:59. We took the Cup 4-0.

As the gun sounded, I allowed myself a big smile. “Goddamn it, we did it!” I couldn’t help yelling, “We did it, guys!”

ESPN commentator Gary Jobson came aboard with a camera crew. Having them there somehow spoiled one of the finest moments of my life. I wanted to savor the victory with my crew, just as I had imagined for the last three years. I wanted to cry, but didn’t dare. I wanted to wave to the crowd, but the camera intervened.

At the press conference later, my heart went out to Iain Murray. He was up on the podium next to the Royal Perth Yacht Club commodore and his syndicate chairman. Their faces were like Easter Island statues. Seeing them made me flash back to the worst night of my own life, when I was the one up there facing the press alone and very close to tears. No one was there to say, “Well sailed, D.C.” At least young Mr. Murray had a show of support.

More than 60,000 San Diegans turned out to welcome us home. They were 10 deep on the sidewalk, yelling and cheering as we came by the waterfront drive, past the old clipper Star of India, and into the reception area. The dream that had begun in a shoe box had at last become a reality. I was very proud to have brought the Cup home.

Adapted from “Comeback: My Race for the America’s Cup,” by Dennis Conner with Bruce Stannard, to be published in May by St. Martin’s Press. Copyright 1987 by Dennis Conner Sports Inc.