THE AMERICA’S CUP : The Making of What Experts Believe Will be a Mismatch
It reads like a script, but this America’s Cup scene didn’t need any writer’s embellishment:
BACKGROUND
It is late July, 1987. Two men, considered geniuses by their peers in the sailing world, board an old boat in England.
A few days previously, New Zealand banker Michael Fay had submitted an unusual challenge for the America’s Cup. His boat has a 90-foot waterline, longer than that of any Cup boat in the last 50 years.
Ironically, the men are standing on Velshida, an early 20th Century boat with a waterline of about 90 feet. Before each Cup match from Velshida’s time until now, people agreed on what class of boat to race for the Cup.
THE CHARACTERS
Bruce Nelson, a designer of Stars & Stripes.
Tom Schnackenberg, sail coordinator of the New Zealand and a former resident of San Diego.
THE CONVERSATION
Nelson: Hey, Tom, it’s really good to see you.
Schnackenberg: Good to see you, too.
Nelson: Tom, how about that challenge for the Cup? Why? Are you guys really serious?
Schnackenberg: I think it’s a quite interesting challenge, a bit mischievous, and Michael likes that.
Nelson: But Tom, we could design a 60-foot catamaran and blow you out of the water.
Schnackenberg: Well, Bruce, we don’t think world opinion would let you do that.
That is the conversation as recalled by Nelson, whose wife, Anne, still kids him about it.
Funny thing. The Americans did respond with a catamaran. Make that two. And the catamaran, the experts say, will blow the Kiwis out of the water today and Friday.
After that, the Kiwis likely will file a protest with the same New York court that, two months ago, had told both sides to race now, protest later.
About that world opinion . . .
Finding an expert who expected this to be a close match was a fruitless task--though Gary Jobson, who, as ESPN’s race analyst has a stake in such a scenario, indicated the match could be a good one.
Cup observers mostly agreed, however, that this Cup has done little to serve the sport of sailing.
A slice of opinions from the sailing world:
Bruno Trouble, the skipper of a French challenger at the 1980 Cup challenger trials:
“They are both wrong. I feel sad there are only two here. I thought (Fay’s challenge) was a joke, in the beginning.
“After a while, we all discovered Michael Fay was not joking at all. The Americans have the right to respond with a catamaran. But we will end with an event that is not a sporting event. As far as the sport is concerned, we don’t need the America’s Cup to prove the catamaran is faster than the monohull.
“We will end up with a stupid race. But with it being two out of three, anything can happen. The New Zealand could still win the Cup because of that. But we end up with quite a stupid sporting event.”
Bruce Nelson, design team member of Stars & Stripes:
“You have to remember that when the challenge was ruled valid (by the court), that was a surprise--we were not expecting that decision. There are insufficient guidelines to have a fair match in the modern sailing world. That’s my opinion, still is.
“So all of sudden, here we are on Thanksgiving Day, we didn’t know what we were up against. We knew nothing about Michael Fay’s boat. We had to assume the worst. We developed a model of their boat. It is far, far faster than the speed they claim their boat is capable of. We simply did the best we could to come up with a boat in time for the match. I don’t see what’s unfair about it. We carefully read all of the rules in the Deed of Gift.
“Even in the judge’s decision, she said the catamaran’s waterline length should not exceed 90 feet or be less than 44 feet.
“The fact is, when Michael Fay challenged on the open or unrestricted side, rather than selecting a class by mutual consent, it was practically inevitable to be an open design class. The Deed does not have any strict provision for similar designs. I’ve read it 100 times.”
Bill Bannasch, a San Diego Yacht Club member and an attorney. He has raced sailboats for 35 years, against Dennis Conner, among other opponents:
“I am embarrassed over the response with the catamaran. Everybody was counting how much money they were going to make, but everybody forgot to read the Deed of Gift.
“The (American contingent) let the recent tradition get in the way of the long-term tradition of the Deed and got tricked. Before the judge’s decision (which deferred protests until after the race) I had heard rumors from people in the yacht club that this was a nonsense lawsuit and no way we could lose it, and I have the same fear about the next one (if Fay protests, as he has said he would).
“Technically, Fay was within the Deed, and then everybody realized if he’s going to play technical, so will we. It’s kind of like a fight-fire-with-fire mentality.
“I think the (justification for responding with a catamaran) is just a technical (one). I think it is totally unfair. The race is a farce. But I can’t tell you any more (laugh). It could get me kicked out of the yacht club.”
John Rousmaniere, co-author of Dennis Conner’s “No Excuse To Lose,” has also written a book on Cup history. He was paid plane fare by Fay for a chance to ride on the New Zealand:
“My convictions tend to fall with Michael Fay. I remember, it was Jan. 19, and I read a story in The New York Times when the Americans responded with a catamaran. I took my kids bowling, and I remember I kept thinking, ‘That’s not right. Something’s wrong.’ Maybe I am applying a standard of reason and rationality too much, but I remember looking at the Deed of Gift again. The word jumped out: match.
“If George Schulyer (the Deed’s author) were still alive, I think he would be upset that people can’t come to an agreement. I guess he would say this isn’t a match.
“Would a reasonable person consider betting on this match? I would not.
Gary Mull, designer of USA, which lost to Stars & Stripes in the challenger trials in 1986:
“There’s not a thing wrong with the challenge. If you want to, you can challenge with a boat up to 90 feet waterline. I think everybody was disappointed that San Diego didn’t tell people what the hell they wanted to do before the (Fay) challenge. I think all the crying about a hostile challenge is a bunch of bunk. I’m sort of enjoying all this.
“There is nothing in the Deed that says you can’t use a cat. However, in the history of the Cup, in common usage, in marine technology, a catamaran is totally uncontemplated. In business, you try to gain every advantage you can within the law. But in a sailboat race, like in football and baseball, it’s not much of a game if there is a huge disparity.
“This is like a high school football team playing the 49ers. Between a catamaran and a monohull, there is such an extraordinary difference in potential, it isn’t a race. If there is, someone is screwing it up or dogging it. I think the (Americans) are putting a brave face on it. They dug themselves into a big hole. This is the only ladder they can use to get out, but not a ladder you can fall in love with.”
Gary Jobson, ESPN race analyst who was Ted Turner’s tactician on the Cup-winning Courageous in 1977:
“You know what the most important thing in this America’s Cup is? The next America’s Cup match. We have to do a couple of things as a sport. We have to get a multi-national regatta for challengers, and more defenders. (There have been no elimination races before this Cup).
“The event will go down the tubes if there are not several defenders from around the United States. It should not be one syndicate. That’s a mistake. There’s no substitute for good competition. The world wants to play--Japan, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, France, Italy, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australian, Canada, maybe South Korea. I think it would be a tremendous thing for sailing and sailors to get that many syndicates going.
“The other thing, next time, the boats have got to look like each other. We want the Raiders playing the Chargers. We don’t want the Dodgers playing the Bears.”
The dispute is not unique to the Cup, nor is the tenor of some of the remarks--Fay has been publicly called, among other things, a pathetic wimp by the folks at Stars & Stripes.
With the exception of one match, though, disputes have dealt with tactics, race-related interpretations, boat measurements and out-and-out cheating.
One has to go back to 1881 to find such a dispute over the fair match aspect of dissimilar boats, Rousmaniere said. That year, the Americans responded with four different boats to one by the British. Thing is, though, the British won one of the five races.