Slow Wings of Eagles, Fast Sails of America 3

Few sailors would appreciate winning the America’s Cup as much as three of America 3’s crew.

They have known slow.

They have known hopeless.

They have known Eagle.

Bowman Jerry Kirby, sail trimmer Mike Toppa and all-round alternate Kimo Worthington were together on the gray 12-meter the Newport Harbor Yacht Club entered in the 1986-87 competition a Fremantle, Australia--a far cry from their campaign with Bill Koch and America 3 this time.

Ahead 3-1 in their best-of-seven America’s Cup series against Il Moro di Venezia, they need one more victory today, Sunday or Tuesday to keep the Cup for the United States and the San Diego Yacht Club.

One more victory and they will complete a five-year voyage from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Eagle, with a record of 10-24, was so slow that it counted its victories by the month.

“We had to prey on breakdowns,” Kirby recalled.

Eagle was so slow that rivals called it “Beagle.” The late Tom Blackaller yelled one day as he sailed past, “Get that dog off the race course!”

“The only similarity is that there are good sailors in this program, and there were good sailors in that program,” Kirby said. “That’s where the comparisons end.”

The Eagle crew knew early that they weren’t competitive. The sailors could accept that. What they couldn’t accept was being blamed for it.

Worthington said: “(With) Eagle, the designers said that was it, you guys aren’t sailing well. They blamed everything on the sailors.

“The biggest difference here is the designers never feel that the boat is as fast as it can be. Even now, if we went into another series, they’d be going to another step. Each race, win or lose, we look at why we won or lost. Was it the sails? Was the boat fast? Slow?

“It’s scary. The day we beat Dennis (Conner), we tore this boat apart. By 11 o’clock that night we had the rig out, keel off, every piece of hardware off the deck.”

The boats had one thing in common: the graphics on the side. Eagle was emblazoned from rail to keel with a magnificent, menacing painting of its namesake.

The America 3 boats have what looks like a bird punched out of a computer--which may be appropriate. This America’s Cup introduced sailors to a new technology.

Toppa said: “One of the things I had a problem with, to begin with, is that you want to (incorporate) all the things you learned in the past America’s Cups. Bill’s approach was, ‘Let’s do it a different way.’ That was difficult to accept. Obviously, it seems to be right.”

Worthington, who has sailed extensively in one-person Finns and two-person Stars, said he, too, had trouble adjusting to Koch’s way of thinking.

“In the beginning, yes,” he said. “Later, we all became believers in the design team.”

Design team? The Eagle alumni roll their eyes.

“The biggest (difference) was money and design caliber,” Toppa said. “Look at the great designers we have and the one designer we had for Eagle.”

Kirby added: “The designer, Johan Valentijn, believed that was the fastest boat, and we just didn’t know how to sail. It was a slow boat but a great bunch of people.”

Four years earlier Valentijn had designed Liberty, which lost the America’s Cup to Australia II.

One highlight for Eagle--there weren’t many--was in beating Blackaller’s double-ruddered USA, with Pa Cayard, now the Il Moro skipper, aboard as tactician. Another was beating Americac,6 3helmsman Buddy Melges’ Heart of America two out of three.

Toppa said: “Here, going out on a competitive boat every day is what it’s all about. I haven’t felt any pressure at all in any of the races, maybe because I went through campaigns like Eagle where you never had a chance.

“That’s the difference in ’92. This is a much higher level, like a professional sport team. A campaign run like Eagle wouldn’t survive here.”

Sailing out of Fremantle on Eagle every day, the sailors could only dream of campaigns with fast boats and unlimited resources.

“In your wildest dreams, you would have Bill Koch run your syndicate,” Kirby said. “For all the heat he takes in the press, if you’re on his team you wouldn’t want it any other way.”