Young America Has Already Reached Its Breaking Point

Two questions were raised after the New York Yacht Club’s Young America split amidships and almost sank in an America’s Cup race against Nippon Challenge Tuesday:

* Would skipper Ed Baird’s team try to fix it or just switch to the newer boat they were planning to use later, anyway?

* And . . . who’s next?

Baird said, “We’re asking our designers all the time to make these boats light so they’ll be fast and at the same time make them strong. Clearly, our boat was not strong enough for the conditions.”

Nippon skipper Peter Gilmour said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they had an ‘eggshell’ type of boat. They’ve been very fast in the lighter conditions, where we have gone to some lengths to build a stronger . . . boat and have probably paid for it [in lighter winds].”

Official wind readings were only 15 knots but sailors said their instruments were showing 20 knots--23 mph--or more at the time. That would be at the limit of the rules for the challenger trials, which call for races to be abandoned if the wind exceeds 23 knots for five minutes.

Worse, though, was the high, steep chop generated by an outgoing tide opposing the wind blowing in from the unprotected northeast side of the inner Hauraki Gulf, the 10-mile-wide bay where the races are run. With wind from any other direction, the water is normally smooth.

It was the chop that got Young America. The black boat’s carbon-fiber hull folded under compression as it turned through the wind and crashed off two waves in quick succession.

“We were starting into a tack and there were a couple of big waves,” Baird said. “There was a noise . . . the boat folded in a violent motion. It didn’t appear things were going to hold together.”

Gilmour, close behind at the helm of the Japanese boat Asura, said, ‘I’ve never seen the bow of a boat go higher out of the water--10 or 12 meters in the air. These boats are 26 meters [84 1/2 feet] long, and it was like half the boat was up in the air.”

When the boat seemed about to sink, reminiscent of the loss of oneAustralia in similar conditions at San Diego in 1995, Baird followed his crew into the water to be picked up by chase boats. A few minutes later, as the boat remained afloat, several crewmen--notably veterans Jerry Kirby and Dave Tank--returned to help stabilize the craft with air bags and portable bilge pumps brought aboard.

“The conditions today were such that you had to choose where you wanted to tack,” Gilmour said. “You had to find a bit of flat water, and I’m not sure [Young America] did that.”

Baird said he couldn’t wait. Gilmour, the world’s top-ranked match racer, was putting on too much pressure.

“We were only a length or two ahead and we had to tack for the mark or have a problem keeping our lead,” Baird said. “As it turned out, we didn’t keep our lead.”

The team announced today that it planned to use its newer boat until the other can be repaired.

But the outlook was ominous for every team that built its boats to the edge of disaster.

Peter Montgomery, a veteran New Zealand sportscaster and “voice of the America’s Cup,” said, “If we have another 50 days of racing, 20 or 30 [days] will be like this.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Challenger Trials

Standings as racing proceeded in the second round. Wins count one point in the first round, four in the second and nine in the third.

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Team Record Pts. Prada 12-0 18 Young America 10-3 16 AmericaOne 10-3 16 Nippon 8-5 13.5 America True 7-5 10 Spain 6-7 9 Team Dennis Conner 6-6 8.5 Abracadabra 5-8 8 France 3-9 6 Switzerland 1-12 4 Australia 1-12 1

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